Increase Promotions by Commenting

This week’s homework from the WordPress Wizard, Cathy Perkins, is to post about another post within my niche. This is part of the “commenting strategies” training she provided this week as part of Module 3 of the Blog Creation Workshop. While I know the value of commenting, this week’s homework actually landed me in the LA Times.

Let me explain …

The post I want to post about here comes from NASA’s Chris Kemp, Chief Information Officer at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. In his post, Chris writes that this is the perfect “time to start a new blog and a conversation about NASA’s future on the Web.” Chris adds that he was “inspired by President Obama’s recent call to Bring Government into the 21st Century” and “his memorandum stating his objectives for Transparency and Open Government.”

I was surprised to discover that there was only one comment in response to his post. So, I commented …

Cathy spoke about the value of being one of the first people to comment; my comment will be viewed by more people when it’s at the top of the list. I have a story that people my age (50) are not used to commenting and that it will take time for many to acclimate to blogging and take action to enjoy the full value of commenting. Well, that’s my story.

I followed Chris’s link to read Obama’s memorandum to federal agency heads about transparency and open government. Being a supporter of transparency and integrity in work, relationships and life, I felt excited to see this focus by a top world leader. Further exploration on this topic led me to the White House webpage and an Online Town Hall meeting that Obama was leading the very next day. I submitted my question for consideration and voted on the top questions I wanted the President to answer during the event.

Knowing that Twitter is a great place to have great conversations about hot topics, I decided to see if there were any discussions regarding this event. I searched #TownHall and found that there were already a few tweets. I tweeted a few times myself to let followers know about the event. I joined the “live” streaming video the next morning.

Listening live, I continued to monitor the #TownHall discussion on Twitter.

As the President answered top questions sent in, I tweeted my observations, like this:

I liked this “open government” approach by the President so much that I referred to his approach in a webcast I was doing that evening on How to Get Your Stimulus Package Grant. In the presentation, I spoke about increasing needs for “accountability and transparency” with regard to the economic stimulus package funding being passed down from the Federal government to our local communities.

The surprise-of-the-day came when I returned home after meeting a friend for lunch. I had received a tweet from an LA Times reporter:

And, then …

So, do “commenting strategies” work?

For me, “absolutely.”  What about you?

~Phil