Was interviewed yesterday by Carole Matthews, senior editor of Inc.com. She’s writing an article about “top blogging tips” (I’ll post the URL when it’s published) and asked me a bunch of questions. It was more than an interview really. We had a great conversation. We found ourselves musing over “fear of blogging” as a possible impediment to businesss blogs. We agreed that there are several components to the “fear”:
1. Stagefright… fear of writing and being published
2. Fear of what other bloggers are saying about you or your company
3. Fear of negative comments that readers might leave on your blog
As for #3, I tell business types that getting any comments at all should be a greater concern. If you’re lucky enough to get dozens of comments (as GM’s Fastlane and Go Daddy’s Bob Parsons do) then start worrying about negative comments. Hey, you can always delete them.
There’s a bit of a self corrective mechanism at work when it comes to Comments: the commenters know (or should know) that they’re leaving a permanent, public statement on your blog site. Most folks don’t want to leave a public trail of vitriol on the Web.