Online Reputation Management: Leaving Effective Forum Comments For Your Online Reputation

3 years ago by Pete Kistler 26

Commenting on forums demonstrates your ability tap into your expertise and help solve other people’s problems. Employers will search for your name in Google, and they will find the forum comments you’ve left – which is a good thing. Use forum comments as a way to strengthen the digital breadcrumbs you leave behind.

Your goal is to stand out from your peers in a super-competitive market by making employers think, this person not only knows their stuff, but actively goes out of their way to use what they know to help other people. This is the kind of impression that will help elevate you above other job applicants and win better job opportunities.

Employers want to see you commenting on forums because it demonstrates to them that you’re an active member of your niche, you’re passionate enough to participate in conversations related to your area of expertise, and you’re intelligent enough to solve problems by drawing on your experience.

When posting on forums, here’s a checklist that will ensure you’re leaving as strong an impression as possible.

Forum comment checklist:

Your forum comment…

  1. Accurately and concisely answers someone else’s question
  2. Includes facts and links to back up claims you make (prove your thoughts are credible and not pulled out of nowhere)
  3. Adds value or new ideas to the original question
  4. Has no spelling or grammar mistakes (it can’t be edited later)
  5. Relates to your area of expertise
  6. Does not involve you in unnecessary battles or arguments
  7. Is not hyper-reactive (doesn’t make you seem emotionally unstable)
  8. Does not put anyone down (if arguing, provide counterpoints but don’t attack individuals)
  9. Includes your name (the one you want people to find you with when they search for you in Google)
  10. Includes a link to your website (boosting the Google rank of your site and leading more people there)
  11. Includes your tagline (a short phrase that describes to strangers what you do)

Responding to posts on forums leaves a trail of “digital breadcrumbs” that people (employers, co-workers, bosses, etc.) will find when they type your name into Google.

Warning: Healthy discussions on forums can quickly degrade into outright personal attacks and name-calling if you aren’t careful. Make sure you take a completely objective approach to answering questions. Do not claim to know all the answers – humility goes a long way. Remember that viewers can’t hear your voice to decode the way you really want to get your point across, so always err on the side of caution by staying out of personal battles.

Blog comments, forums comments, book reviews and contributing to wiki articles are just a few ways to leave a trail of breadcrumbs online that builds a web presence worthy of remark, differentiating you from other job applicants who haven’t spent time to establish a strong presence online.

Next: Learn how to leave effective blog comments >

Pete Kistler
Author: Pete Kistler

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About Pete Kistler

Founder and CEO, Brand-Yourself.com
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  • http://www.buzz2bucks.com/ Maria Elena Duron

    Accurate post! Comments are a great way to nourish your personal brand in the eyes of the public. It’s important to be cautious not to devulge company secrets or plans nor anything proprietary. Yet, you can still be very effective operating from your area of expertise and passion.

    If you are someone that is passionate both ways (meaning you have great charisma to inspire others – you may also be easily drawn into conversations that you are passionate about to the positive or negative) then think of writing your comment in a word document and saving it to review the next day. Sometimes, that next day review will reveal to you words that might be able to replaced with other words that grow the conversation rather than degrade it.

  • http://www.buzz2bucks.com Maria Elena Duron

    Accurate post! Comments are a great way to nourish your personal brand in the eyes of the public. It’s important to be cautious not to devulge company secrets or plans nor anything proprietary. Yet, you can still be very effective operating from your area of expertise and passion.

    If you are someone that is passionate both ways (meaning you have great charisma to inspire others – you may also be easily drawn into conversations that you are passionate about to the positive or negative) then think of writing your comment in a word document and saving it to review the next day. Sometimes, that next day review will reveal to you words that might be able to replaced with other words that grow the conversation rather than degrade it.

  • http://www.2dolphins.com/ Rob O.

    Don’t forget that when entering your site’s URL in the “Website” field of the comment form, it is often very useful to “deep link” to a subpage rather than the main page. This is especially true if your site is a blog.

    Using “deep linking” directly to an individual post on your own blog (rather than the home page) is a nice way to direct visitors to an article that’s specifically related to the topic on which you’re commenting. While this gives search engines another path to dig into, more importantly, it prompts your readers to explore your older posts.

    And “deep linking” is an excellent way to shine a little new light on an older post that never quite seemed to get its due share of exposure. Y’know sometimes the blog entries that you’re most proud of are the ones that can seem to go by unnoticed…

  • http://www.2dolphins.com/ Rob O.

    Don’t forget that when entering your site’s URL in the “Website” field of the comment form, it is often very useful to “deep link” to a subpage rather than the main page. This is especially true if your site is a blog.

    Using “deep linking” directly to an individual post on your own blog (rather than the home page) is a nice way to direct visitors to an article that’s specifically related to the topic on which you’re commenting. While this gives search engines another path to dig into, more importantly, it prompts your readers to explore your older posts.

    And “deep linking” is an excellent way to shine a little new light on an older post that never quite seemed to get its due share of exposure. Y’know sometimes the blog entries that you’re most proud of are the ones that can seem to go by unnoticed…

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    Hi, I just became a part of this forum here and looking forward to helping. Great work by the admin and mods and every member around. You can really tell when people put a lot of effort into a forum and it definitely shows here!

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    Hi, I just became a part of this forum here and looking forward to helping. Great work by the admin and mods and every member around. You can really tell when people put a lot of effort into a forum and it definitely shows here!

    I wanted to share a new great site I came across a little while ago. In regards to a social network it’s the best one I’ve found so far.

    I’ve been using it for a little while and I’ve been able to make friends really easily.

    I’ve been able to find friends and they have free chat as well so you can talk right in live chat rooms.

  • http://Planetlivenow.com/ Arguenwouro

    Hi, I just became a part of this forum here and looking forward to helping. Great work by the admin and mods and every member around. You can really tell when people put a lot of effort into a forum and it definitely shows here.

  • http://Planetlivenow.com Arguenwouro

    Hi, I just became a part of this forum here and looking forward to helping. Great work by the admin and mods and every member around. You can really tell when people put a lot of effort into a forum and it definitely shows here.

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    Hii!,..

    Accurate post! Comments are a great way to nourish your personal brand in the eyes of the public. It’s important to be cautious not to devulge company secrets or plans nor anything proprietary. Yet, you can still be very effective operating from your area of expertise and passion.

    Blogging News – Blogging News Information You Can Use

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    Blog comments, forums comments, book reviews and contributing to wiki articles are just a few ways to leave a trail of breadcrumbs online that builds a web presence worthy of remark, differentiating you from other job applicants who haven’t spent time to establish a strong presence online.

  • http://ioffersearch.com/ ioffersearch001

    Hii

    Blog comments, forums comments, book reviews and contributing to wiki articles are just a few ways to leave a trail of breadcrumbs online that builds a web presence worthy of remark, differentiating you from other job applicants who haven’t spent time to establish a strong presence online.

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  • Adrian_molk

    Commenting on relevant articles can also be of assistance when a company is trying to generate leads. Companies like http://www.leadtomarket.com urge their clients to utilize all of the marketing tools at their disposal. Lead generation, SEO, advertising and social media is not enough. There is no stand alone method that works.

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  • Jm5019

    I had never thought about it that way. Interesting

  • http://www.optimum7.com Greg Baker

    Incredible, now that I think about is inline reputation is becoming actually relevant nowadays. Back in the days where internet wasn’t even a word people could hold back many things from their employers, but today we have no clue about how much information about us is out there and who is using it. Scary!