The internet is full of bad commenting, especially on places like Twitter and Facebook. Here are my tips to quality comments.
- No personal attacks: I see lots of commenters attacking someone calling them “libtards” “snowflakes” “white supremacists” and other pejoratives. It doesn’t do any good and only makes people angry.
- Check your posts: I’m guilty of posting quickly without proofreading just like everyone. Even though I don’t use Twitter, I know that you can’t edit posts. Donald Trump gets criticized for posting without proofreading, but many of us do it, too. Facebook does allow edits, which is nice and I take advantage of it to fix errors.
- Thoughtful questions: Think of questions that are well thought out and will cause people to think about the topic from multiple angles.
- Compliments: I notice that Instagram is full of positivity and compliments, much more so than the other platforms. People like positive affirmation and it helps them to improve in the future to know what has been done well. Don’t lie and flatter the poster, though. It doesn’t help.
- Keep it short: I get really annoyed when people post long comments without thinking through a concise way to say things. Facebook is bad about this because there are no limits to length. I think that is why Twitter limits to 280 characters. It increases the quality of comments because people can’t ramble on. On Instagram, the format means that people don’t feel the need to ramble.