Blog Comment Exchange Pods: Yes or No?

Hi guys, today's post is a little departure from my usual beauty reviews and cafe hopping posts. Today I'm going to be talking about blog comment exchange pods.

If you're new to the blogosphere and aren't familiar with comment exchange pods, it basically means that a group of people comment on each other's posts. For example, if you join a group and there's 30 of you in that group, the other 29 people will comment on your most recent post and all you have to do is comment back on those 29 people's most current post. So you get 29 comments from 29 different people and you give 29 comments to 29 different people. There are lots of different pods like Instagram follow pods, Facebook Page like pods, etc.

At first I thought, okay, these people wanna increase their number of comments and interactions on their blog. I'm inside a few blogging/social media groups on Facebook and comment pods are quite common. I never participated in one and I didn't pay it any mind.

One day a fellow blogger friend of mine asked me if I participated in comment exchange pods, and I said no. She mentioned how it was very weird and some people even won competitions because of it. Brands and PR agencies usually carry out blogger competitions to motivate bloggers to create great content for a brand/product. There's nothing wrong on the brands/PR's side, but for the bloggers who participate in comment exchange pods...I have mixed feelings about.

A lot of things can make you win a blogging competition like your creativity and your content, but one thing most brands/PR agencies look at is NUMBERS. Since they do not have access to a blogger's statistics, they can only measure the success of a blog post via comments, and I think you see where this is going.

Compare someone who simply puts up a blog post and participates in tons of comment exchange pods, versus someone who creates better content but does not participate in blog comment exchange. Who will the brand think did a better job of promoting their product/brand? Of course the one with more comments. You can say that not all PR agencies and brands take only comments as their gauge of success, but in most cases I think most brands and PR agencies want to reward the one that has spread the word about their products the widest.

I personally think that it's very artificial and fake to have tons of comments saying "Wow nice post dear", "Will definitely try this out dear", "Awesome post dear". I think comment exchange can be very constructive if bloggers really read each others blogs and interact with each other, but for the sole purpose of increasing your blog's traffic and comments...I think its very unethical.

For example, here's some comments I've screen capped from a blogger's post.
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To be honest they could be real comments, but out of 19 comments these ones stood out. First, its the usual "nice recommendation" or "will check it out", and at first glance it looks okay. However, after checking the blogs of the people who comment, you can see that it's almost the same people commenting, and its mostly the same "nice recommendation" or "will check it out" comments.

I have nothing against the blogger whom I took the comments above from, and I don't know for sure if the blog post I took it from was part of a blogger contest or not. However, I personally feel that the comments are so random. They do add to the comment count, and people with lots of comments on their posts can then in turn use that as a selling point to PR agencies/brands when pitching themselves.

I started blogging in 2009 about random things but I only started blogging about skincare and beauty around 2015. That's when I saw a dramatic increase in my traffic and I was totally motivated to make more reviews that help people, as well as interesting content that people find useful and interesting to read. I'm not bragging or anything and I do not know accurate Blogger's pageview counter is, but I'm now approaching 1,000,000 page views and I have around 70,000 monthly page views. It makes me really proud to know that those pageviews were organic, and the people who comment on my blog are real people who mostly have questions about a product. I feel very happy thinking that my content and my replies to their comments somehow help them in a way.

I'm not trying to bash on people who join comment exchange pods. I actually think it should be more widespread. The only thing is that people should use comment exchange pods in a constructive way in their own blogging community and not as a way to boost their chances of winning competitions and such. Before typing this post down, I also thought about people on the other side doing comment pods and why they do it. It does provide them more opportunity, leading to more exposure, a chance of a better blogging career and a stronger selling point for brands/PRs, which can be converted into either sponsorships in the form of free products or even cash payment.

As I started attending more events and got offered to join more blogging competitions, It really got me thinking why I blog. I realized that I blog because I enjoy sharing my thoughts with other people and I enjoy creating content. Getting free stuff is fun and winning prizes can be great. However, I don't want to be the kind of blogger who buys my followers to appeal to brands + PR agencies so I can get sponsorships, or the type that participates in comment pods for the sole purpose of wanting to get more fake ass comments to win a competition or to put up a facade that a lot of people read my blog. I'd rather create awesome content where people want to comment that I did a great job of taking my pictures, my content was well written or asking me questions about a product I reviewed organically. I also want to be able to have something to back up my claims when I approach brands and ask if they would like to work with me, or to have something of substance to give in return to the brands that do approach me. It seems a bit unfair to see people with content that's half assed winning blogging competitions and getting so many free products because they're an "influential" blogger, but hey, that's just my two cents on the matter. At least I know deep down what I do and what I am: a content creator. I'm not a product whore lol #NoTNoShadeNoPinkLemonade

I don't think I'll ever participate in a blog comment exchange, but that's just me. What do you think, are comment pods alright?

Anyways thanks for reading this mini revelation/rant. See y'all in the next post! 💕