Will Facebook Comments Be The Way Of The Future?

One of the reasons I fell in love with blogging is it allowed me the opportunity to connect with people all over the world. I could write an article and post it, and people can comment and write what they choose in response to what I’ve written. It’s a great way to communicate, and to add value to what we do every day.

A few months ago Facebook came out with a new social plugin that people can use to power the comment section of their blogs. I’ve played around with it on several of my sites. It offers two main benefits over using the typical comments section that comes with your blog: (you can get the plugin here as well)

Social Relevance: Comments Box uses social signals to surface the highest quality comments for each user. Comments are ordered to show users the most relevant comments from friends, friends of friends, and the most liked or active discussion threads, while comments marked as spam are hidden from view.

Distribution: Comments are easily shared with friends or with people who like your Page on Facebook. If a user leaves the “Post to Facebook” box checked when she posts a comment, a story appears on her friends’ News Feed indicating that she’s made a comment on your website, which will also link back to your site.

Are companies accepting this as the new norm in commenting?

This past week, Big Picture announced it is moving to the Facebook comments platform. And I completely agree with their reasoning.

1. Facebook is the major player in the online world. With a growing base expected to reach 700 million users in the next few months, and a worldwide presence with over 70 different languages, you can’t ignore it as a marketing tool.

2. Commenting with this system means your exposure increases tenfold across many platforms instead of staying within your site or blog. Because people have the opportunity to include their comments in their newsfeeds, you have the potential of increasing the viewers of your content and information.

3. No more anonymous comments with rude and vulgar remarks. This stops when you require people to use their real names.

While more people are starting to use this new form of commenting, I do think it will be even more commonplace here in the coming months. The true reason for social is to easily share anything anywhere, any time. This makes it even more possible.

Are you using Facebook comments on your site?

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  • Christopher Kendalls

    No. I played with doing so a while back but I think that people should have a choice to comment anonymously if they want to. I do not want to exclude anyone from commenting that is not on Facebook. I think this is one more way to aggregate everyone under the Facebook umbrella, where the integrity of regular websites is compromised.

  • https://virtualphotographystudio.com Virtual Photography

    Thanks Christopher. It really is a tough decision now, and I love hearing what everyone is thinking. Great points.

  • Heather McKay

    I have the same ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ mentality, however my blog comments have quadrupled since I made the switch. I found a plugin that lets them post via aol, hotmail, facebook or yahoo. Wish there were more options (like google). It has been there for about a month and I’m keeping it. Hope it makes my website more viral and people can ‘like’ a specific post, which is good for me to see.