Building a Comment Strategy

What is a comment strategy?

A comment strategy is a plan units should develop in their overall social media strategy and implement during the planning and creation of content. Along with their unique value proposition (UVP) and commander's intent, it serves as a roadmap for public affairs professionals to maintain control over the narrative of a post, and communicate important information to audiences who are already on hand. It is the guidelines for speaking with the audience in a conversational fashion.

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Ideal Path

This is the ideal scenario. The information is received positively and the response is equally positive from the large majority of the audience.

For the positive comments, you'll still want to reply and engage with your audience, make them feel appreciated and want to come back. The more comments and conversations that are on your post, the more elevated your post will be against the algorithm.

Likely Path

This kind of exchange will make up the bulk of your social media. Users will comment in very specific ways, relevant to their self-interests. The likely path is always some positive and some negative; you'll need to be prepared with a response for both. When posting new or easily misunderstood information, there will likely be questions. Be prepared for those, too.

When a question comes up, respond with truthful answers. Let the audience know you're looking into the question. This may require some research but be timely in your response to ensure no one can answer with false information or troll the post before you respond.

Worst Path

This is where your skills in crisis communication will serve you well. Remember, address the post but not the poster. Focus on dispelling misinformation.

Social media can get dicey and turn negative really quickly. Conflict makes it hard to get the message across. Try to stay focused on just answers that are relevant to the post.

After posting, the exact response can be decided on a case-by-case basis but all responses should abide by your comment strategy and incorporate your commander's intent through the use of command messaging.

Tips for Maintaining Your Comment Strategy

• Disassociate personal feelings from the unit or command presence that you represent. Think beyond the immediate reply to the 2nd and 3rd order effects that could come from commenting. Does this comment open a door somewhere you don't want to go? Does this comment create an opportunity to further messaging? Is there an opportunity to leverage other organizations who can comment as well by tagging them in? Care about your brand but keep a thick skin.
• Be a good storyteller in your comments. People are used to skimming and have short attention spans, so you'll need to draw them in fast. Still, respond like a person, not like a robot.
• Have a good understanding of the platforms and how they work. Develop an intuition about posting using what you know about the environment and the players.
• Ask yourself whether or not you own the narrative you are promoting. Is this your lane to speak on, or should you leverage the SMEs available.
• Always have a second set of eyes, even if it’s in the middle of bomb threats, incidents, urgency, NOW NOW NOW, make sure someone else is checking.
• Have a diverse team to run things by people that don’t think like you, to vet your info.
• The minute you hit send, read it again. You’ll see your mistake and can edit/delete it.
• Engage with other pages and profiles:
  1. Comment on and engage with other pages.
  2. Tag other pages.
  3. Ask other pages to tag your page.
  4. Go live and ask public figures or other relevant organizations to engage by commenting.