“Comments in the corporate blog: moderate or let them through directly?”
Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2025 8:47 am
This is a question of discretion and capacity, and also of risk assessment. If there is a high risk that comments violate the personal rights of others, contain link spam or are otherwise harmful, then you should decide to moderate them. That is why many companies and bloggers choose this option.
Most blog CMSs also offer the option of allowing comments from people who have already commented to go through without further approval. But of course that doesn't guarantee that there won't be anything problematic next time. Blogs and magazines that allow unmoderated comments must be monitored more or less continuously, including and especially at facebook data weekends. But of course you shouldn't take too long to approve moderated comments either.
For this reason alone, in the professional sector, such as company blogs, not just one person should be responsible for it. The same applies, of course, to social media presences.
“Do we have to publish every critical comment on the corporate blog?”
First of all: No, of course not. In your blog or magazine, you decide who can write and what kind of comments are allowed. But it makes little sense in terms of a constructive culture of discussion and is not good for your own image to simply delete comments at will or, if comments are moderated, not to allow them to go through at all. You need clear rules for that.
If you publish, you will attract criticism. If you allow comments on your blog, critical voices will also be heard there. You should face up to this, and this must also be agreed with the company management. Whether you comment on critical comments yourself - not justify yourself! - or simply leave them as they are depends on the individual case. But you should definitely not suppress critical comments, because then your critics will find other ways. There are enough examples where blog operators have deleted undesirables and thereby triggered a storm of indignation on social media platforms. Better: deal with it constructively; appreciate criticism as an opportunity to improve yourself; easily cushion polemics; do not let escalations begin in the first place.
Most blog CMSs also offer the option of allowing comments from people who have already commented to go through without further approval. But of course that doesn't guarantee that there won't be anything problematic next time. Blogs and magazines that allow unmoderated comments must be monitored more or less continuously, including and especially at facebook data weekends. But of course you shouldn't take too long to approve moderated comments either.
For this reason alone, in the professional sector, such as company blogs, not just one person should be responsible for it. The same applies, of course, to social media presences.
“Do we have to publish every critical comment on the corporate blog?”
First of all: No, of course not. In your blog or magazine, you decide who can write and what kind of comments are allowed. But it makes little sense in terms of a constructive culture of discussion and is not good for your own image to simply delete comments at will or, if comments are moderated, not to allow them to go through at all. You need clear rules for that.
If you publish, you will attract criticism. If you allow comments on your blog, critical voices will also be heard there. You should face up to this, and this must also be agreed with the company management. Whether you comment on critical comments yourself - not justify yourself! - or simply leave them as they are depends on the individual case. But you should definitely not suppress critical comments, because then your critics will find other ways. There are enough examples where blog operators have deleted undesirables and thereby triggered a storm of indignation on social media platforms. Better: deal with it constructively; appreciate criticism as an opportunity to improve yourself; easily cushion polemics; do not let escalations begin in the first place.