Careless commenting seems to be on the rise, at least in my opinion.
With all the opportunities to be seen on social media — writing our own stuff and/or commenting on others’ articles — there’s no lack of ways to showcase our abilities, right?
But what kind of impact are we making? What are we saying about our professionalism?
For those who write posts or articles, I’m sure you take great care with your work. It represents you, so you dot the i’s and cross the t’s, and all that. Of course you do!
But what about your comments on someone else’s work? Do you take those as seriously?
If not … why not?
Now I am not talking about those for whom English is a 2nd, 3rd, or 33rd language; bless you for taking the time to learn it as well as you have.
I am talking about seeing wrongly spelled words that even LinkedIn’s spellcheck would notice, comments with no end mark of punctuation, and worst of all, comments that do not even speak to the original article’s message.
When we comment, we’re exposing ourselves to all sorts of responses, everything from “Yes!” to “Are you *** kidding?”
A far wiser person than I was taught me this years ago, when I was new to social media. She said that commenting is the “secret sauce” for those who don’t want to create original content, yet want to be seen and appreciated on the social media of their choice.
Done well, our comments draw people in to discover us. They may decide to check out OUR profile, to connect with us.
Done poorly, they repel people, who won’t even bother to look at our profile.
What kind of responses do you want?
Careless commenting on posts is a guaranteed way to lose potential connections.
Careful commenting is a terrific way to be seen, so let’s do our best to make our impact a positive one.