Feel the fear and blog anyway
What do you do if you see comments about your company on blogs? Our answer to that question is that first of all you need to have a blogging strategy in place which includes a blogger outreach programme, ie what is the purpose of you joining in blogging conversations?
As part of the process of putting together a blogger outreach programme, you need to have an understanding of which blogs are talking about you, and you also need a good understanding of the culture of blogs and blogging etiquette. You don’t want to immediately dive in and start posting comments on a blog until you are familiar with its style and you are convinced that it is worth commenting on. You would not contribute a letter to a newspaper before ensuring that you were familiar with the style and contents of the newspaper and its readership.
The key point when you comment on blogs is that you must be open about who you are and try to be useful. Try to add value through your comment. Maybe post a link. Try to keep the conversation going. Or you simply might want to politely correct a mistake.
The best way of overcoming your fear of social media is to start using social media tools yourself. And in my experience, people respond well if you post comments on their blogs. Providing you are relevant, polite and respectful to them. If you are still nervous about it, you might wish to run your suggested response past a colleague or advisor before posting it to get their views.
