334: Why your comments could be your biggest marketing asset

Ever seen a single comment on social media outperform the actual post?

I have.

That's exactly what happened when Joseph replied to a video with "Hey, so I have appointments available." One comment, thousands of likes, hundreds of replies, people tagging him.

Quick note before you dive in: this episode uses a viral comment as a marketing case study, purely for education, not about diagnosing or labelling anyone.

In this episode, I'm breaking down why your comments (on other people's content, not just your own) might be one of the most underused parts of your marketing. It's not random, it's strategy, and it's one of the reasons big brands pay community managers to do exactly this.

If you've got a spare five minutes a day to scroll, this episode will change how you spend it.

If you LOVED this episode, make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag us @contentqueenmariah.

⁠⁠⁠⁠LEARN THE DETAILS OF A CONTENT STRATEGY WITH MY FREE AUDIO GUIDE⁠⁠⁠⁠

KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS 👇

✨ Why comments are content in their own right, not just banter

✨ How big brands deliberately pay community managers to comment on trending content

✨ Why your own scrolling habits (heading straight to the comments) prove this works

✨ Why comments are public, not private, and that's what makes them a lead gen play, not just community management admin

SHOW RESOURCES 👇

If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @contentqueenmariah⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Other than that, enjoy - chat next week 💕

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

This is episode 334, and I wanna talk about why your comments could be your biggest marketing asset. Welcome to the Content Queen podcast. I'm your host, Mariah, entrepreneur, storyteller, digital nomad, creator of Content Bootcamp, and founder of Content Queen, with over 10 years experience in marketing.

This podcast is here to help you create your ideal content marketing strategy by blending storytelling and strategy. So let's get into it. Hello, gang. Okay. I want to talk about your comment section, not specifically on your posts, but what are you commenting on other people's? But before we get into the episode, a quick disclaimer, whilst the example that I'm going to use in this episode does show s- like, um, themes of mental health and there is a therapist involved, I'm not condoning, labeling, and diagnosing people on social media.

I just wanted... It, it sparked the idea in me, and I just wanted to say that before we get stuck [00:01:00] into things. So I was scrolling TikTok recently, and a viral video come up on my For You page. It was... Let me paint the picture. The video was a woman brushing the hair of just, like, a head of a doll. So it was, like, a, a, a rubber doll that looked real, like a real person.

And the caption on the video says, "Instead of saying affirmations, I say nice things to the silicon copy of my head and brush her hair." So literally the doll looks like her. Anyway, the top comment with... And there was 36,000 comments on this video. The top comment with 891,000 likes had Joseph MD Psychiatrist, and it said, "Hey, so I have appointments available."

And then so many people in her comments were saying, "Joseph's available if you need it." And again, while I say I'm not, um, talking about mental health or the comment [00:02:00] in which that person was obviously trying to label or diagnose, but I'm just talking about the fact that this business owner or this professional commented on this video, and it had so much exposure.

And obviously, it got me thinking about- Content goes beyond just what you post on social media. It is also what is in the comments of other people's content, right? Like, one single comment can outperform almost an entire post. Like, Joseph had thousands of likes and heaps of people, like, recommending him, right?

Like, not... I don't know if they were doing it more as a joke, but now I'm sure there would've been people that would've gone to Joseph's page, started following him, his audience would've followed, and you never know if that post... I mean, I could reach out to him and ask. He may not reply, but that could've generated leads for him.

Again, not condoning the context of the video. So, the first thing that I wanted to point out is this is actually a [00:03:00] strategy for a lot of businesses. Big brands hire community managers, or often called admins, to come in and run their social media accounts, but also actively comment on viral videos, pop culture moments, celebrities, et cetera.

You'll see some of your favorite brands commenting on videos, right? Even, and it's not necessarily these big influencers that get big brands commenting. There could be micro-influencers and content creators with comments, and really, it is trending. Like, for me, a lot of the times, I will go to the comment section whilst I am actively watching a video just to see what, like, to get that validation, to see if some of my thoughts were heard, to understand what other people are thinking.

We are not just consuming what is in front of us. We are consuming far beyond just that video So the second point in this is comments are content in their own right. Like, they can [00:04:00] perform as content. So if maybe you don't have a heap of time to create four videos a week or three posts on social media, can you spend a little bit more time creating content within content, right?

Comment on people's things. And I've talked about this before, this isn't anything new, but we love evidence, so I thought I would explain this through a video that I saw of a psychiatrist commenting on a girl's video, probably just to kind of have a passing comment and to be funny, and obviously everyone else thought it was funny.

But if you did this intentionally, what could that lead to? Now, it's not about promoting your services, it's just about adding more value to the piece of content. Is it for the person posting that content? Absolutely not. It's for the audience exposure that you could get, because as I'm saying, I consume the comments section just as much as I consume the videos.

And as I'm saying, this is not always about mocking people, but it's showing your personality and brand. Maybe you could be a little bit funny. And of course, the big brands that we see commenting on [00:05:00] people's stuff, that gets us excited, right? "Oh my God, it's so funny McDonald's commented on this," or whatever.

You can still add value by commenting. It doesn't have to be these, like, one-liner funny things. Like, I actually saw last night a guy, um, promoted... or not promoted. He, he spotted in Coles that Coles have the hot rotisserie chickens, like, Coles is a supermarket brand in Australia for all the non-Australians, and they came out with a butter chicken-flavored hot chicken.

And so the guy bought it, and he was, like, so excited, and he tried it, and he said, "Actually, that was... didn't taste like butter chicken at all. It was just the normal chicken." And Coles had commented, like, a GIF of, like, a dancing chicken, and people commented back and said, "I don't think Coles has watched this video," because they weren't saying anything good about the chicken.

But then they commented another GIF chicken, so maybe they actually don't really care. So whilst, yes, these brands are commenting, like, really one-liners or funny things 'cause they know they have reputation, imagine if [00:06:00] you created s- you shared something of value in the comments section of someone else's content, what that could lead to And going back to my point before, your own scroll behavior, or mine in particular, proves this, right?

Like I said, I always go to the comments section. That is, as I'm still... The video might not even have been finished, and I notice something or I, I heard something, and I wanna see what, if other people noticed it, or if other people pick up on it, or if other people wanna comment. Now, in saying this, comment sections on content can be quite harmful as well.

So that's why if we are brands and we're commenting on things, or we're business owners, we wanna do that to add value. I actually have added this into some of my clients', uh, to-do lists. Obviously, like, yeah, cool, I could comment on behalf of them, but if they're the thought leader and they're the expert, I think it's also important for them to do it, too.

I just wanna hijack this episode to tell you about something that is generally helping and changing the game for business owners that I work with. [00:07:00] So if you're sitting there at 5:00 PM scrambling, not sure what to do, what to post, you are not alone, and I have, in fact, been there, along with many other businesses that I've worked with, getting to my laptop, throwing something together, pushing it out there, throwing spaghetti at the wall, and seeing what sticks.

Now, this is not strategy, and it really feels like survival. That is why I created Content Bootcamp. It is my signature program that takes you through the seven steps to create a really intentional and aligned content strategy for your business, one that is actually documented, is actually for you, and actually gets results.

So there's no more guessing, no more winging it, and no more content hamster wheel. By the end of your journey in Content Bootcamp, you'll have a clear plan on what to post, where to post it, and why, plus the confidence to actually execute it. And you're not doing it alone, because I do live calls all the time, so you'll get access to me.

I can help you with your strategy, and a community of other business owners that are doing the same thing. You'll also get lifetime access, so if your [00:08:00] business evolves and grows and changes, it will grow and evolve and change with you. So if you are ready to stop winging it and start being intentional with your marketing, get a strategy behind you.

Head to contentqueenmariah.com. Check out Bootcamp, Content Bootcamp. I would love to see you there. So yeah, just because you have social media managers and admins, depending on the type of brand and business, 'cause I've also seen this go horribly wrong when people have outsourced this maybe to social media managers or VAs, and the comments are generic, right?

They'd be like, "Thanks for this post. So insightful." Like, yeah, cool. That's not gonna build any relationship. What is, is insightful comments. So that's why I do send posts to clients and say, "Hey, can you comment on this? Um, because I feel like you have the most expertise than me." Or if I- if they send it to me, I'm happy to respond on their behalf.

But it is really important to be in there and consuming as much as you are posting, because you just don't know where opportunities strike. And that [00:09:00] leads into comments are public, they're not private. So whilst we had a recent episode with Lauren, and I'll put it in the show notes, talking about using your DMs, she is a sales and marketing expert, really utilizing your DMs to build relationships, that's that one-on-one with the person on the other end type of communication.

Comments are public, so it's not about building a relationship with the person that created the content, although very good, and I think it's really important if you serve customers and clients or you have clients, it's nice to comment on their stuff as more of like a nurturing community comms type of exercise.

But for lead generation and building your audience and exposing yourself outside of your audience on social media, commenting on other people's content to reach their followers, to reach the people consuming their content. So you can have a balance of people that have, you know, uh- Couple thousand followers, you could comment on big people that have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers.

You know, [00:10:00] choose the types of people that are creating that, uh, your audience would be consuming, and start commenting, because I guarantee you it does make a big difference in people noticing you. And you never know, there could be a person with a higher profile that sees your comment and you've commented on their post, and maybe...

I've seen it happen before. Uh, you just don't know who's on the other end as well. So it is more for the audience consuming their content, but it could be about building relationships with the person that's actually posting the content. So reframe your comments as a, a chance for visibility. You know, then starting conversation.

Reply. If, if you create a comment and someone replies, obviously you keep that conversation going in that comment section. So really, to sum this all up, comments are a form of lead generation. Just as being in your DMs and following up potential leads via email, comment, commenting on other people's content can be a really [00:11:00] great way to generate leads.

As I said, I've had people come on and talk about this before. I've spoken about this many a times, but it's a really great reminder. So if you listened to that previous episode on DMs, maybe in that 15-minute block that you have every second day, you do some DM-ing and you comment on some people. You could have a list of people in your industry, people that may...

You know, even third party, like for, for example, for me as a marketer, maybe a business coach or a, you know, someone in the branding space may be someone that I could comment on because they don't necessarily directly offer what I do, and it's a really good synergy, and their audience is my audience as well.

So you can think about it from different lenses, and have a list. Have a list of their profiles. Or, like I have it literally, the list of the profiles, and I click, and then I can scroll their last few posts and see if there's anything relevant to me to comment on. And then I have that dedicated time, and it really does make a difference [00:12:00] in showcasing that you are an expert in your space.

Now, okay, if you're a product-based business, it's something you stand for. It could be influencers. So have a think a little bit outside the box. What are those connections that would have similar connections to you? And put this in your lead generation time of your calendar and see how it goes. See if it works.

You know, you just never know. As I'm saying, now sometimes comments, especially on platforms like TikTok, are getting nearly as many likes as the actual post, and I have had loads of people actually say the comment section is where the best content is You could also do this for Reddit feeds, searching the platform Reddit where people are asking questions and you can answer them.

Quora used to be a big one as well. So have a think. Have a think about what platform might work for you. It can just be one, start small and see how it lands. But be a content queen or king, and remember that developing your strategy and story develops your business. Thank you so much for joining me today, and please don't forget to share this with all [00:13:00] your business and entrepreneurial friends.

You can do this by adding it to your Insta stories and tagging me at contentqueenmoriah, or just tell them about it, send them a cheeky link. If you rate and review this podcast on whatever platform, Apple, Spotify, it really does help me get amazing guests. More pitches have come in this week. I need...

They're in a folder. I need to sort through them. And, yeah, people see this podcast 'cause we're in the charts, and we're hitting the downloads, so keep it up. Thank you so much for your support. And if they're... If you're following me on social media, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, send me a message if there's any topics you want me to talk about.

I have a few coming up, so I'm excited to talk about those, and I'll talk to you next week. Bye.

PodcastMariah MacInnesmarketing, marketing advice, how to be authentic online, business ownerComment