Switching from Commento to LinkedIn for Blog Comments
It was always odd to me that comments would appear on LinkedIn (in the post where I shared the blog title and summary) rather than directly below my blog post, in the Comments section, where there was more explicit context. But this is a trend that’s been going on for years. Discussions are simply better on LinkedIn because you have more of a sense of the person behind the comment.
Using Commento, about 95% of the comments were spam. Each morning I would spend 30 seconds deleting the spam comments—a task that became tedious and cluttered my inbox with daily spam. Additionally, Commento doesn’t offer a comment management dashboard (to approve or delete comments), and many times legitimate comments would simply disappear from my site. Finally, there’s been zero updates on the Commento platform for about 5 years. The project seems to be a bare-bones, keep-the-lights-on only service. So I removed Commento and instead added a “Comment on LinkedIn” button.
I only added the “Comment on LinkedIn” button for about 100 posts from the last two years, specifically for posts that I also shared on LinkedIn. I don’t always share new posts on LinkedIn, so if you don’t see a “Comment on LinkedIn” button at the bottom of a post, it likely means I didn’t share the post there. This is a flaw in my new setup, but honestly, almost no one comments on posts older than three months anyway.
By focusing more on the LinkedIn comment threads, I hope to do a better job replying and interacting in that space.
I did export all the Commento post data as a massive JSON file, but I’m not sure what to do with it.
I’ve also stopped announcing my posts on Twitter, but for different reasons. I grew tired of Twitter. Most of the quality social media engagement for my blog comes through LinkedIn. This is unsurprising given that my blog is focused on technical communication topics and geared towards professional technical writers.
I also get a lot of incoming spam through my Contact page, both from my Wufoo form and email address. At least several times a week, I get detailed spam emails pitching podcast guests. I’ve removed the Wufoo form there and obfuscated my email address more, and also added an invisible honeypot for bots.
About Tom Johnson
I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.
If you're a technical writer and want to keep on top of the latest trends in the tech comm, be sure to subscribe to email updates below. You can also learn more about me or contact me. Finally, note that the opinions I express on my blog are my own points of view, not that of my employer.