Some time ago I did a post Defending A Blogger’s Right To Review A Product where I gave an example of a well renowned blogger who got it completely wrong when dealing with some negative feedback from a fellow blogger, his customer, who bought a reviewed one of his products. That posts showed my reasoning as to why his reactions were totally wrong and how he should of reacted.

This post will be dealing with another important subject for bloggers whether they are blogging for money or for the pure enjoyment of it all, something that is also true in the real world, that subject being honesty.

Most people already know how important it is to be absolutely honest when writing a post, especially when promoting an affiliate or a product. You don’t want to be telling people how good something is when you know it’s really crap, no matter how much commission it’s earning you. This is because once you are found out your credibility is shot all to hell and once people find out you will find that your online career will be short lived.

Now, while most people tend to behave when on their own blogs they tend to forget themselves, as in the above example, when commenting on other blogs. These are those brown nosing commentators who leave you lies just so do not delete their comment or to win some misconstrued brownie points. You’re probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about so I’ll give you some examples.

• Social Networking Liar: These are the ones that rave on about how much they love your post that they’re going to Tweet or Stumble it but never do. Would you say liar is too harsh a term? Perhaps it’s just a lapse of memory?
• Affiliate Liars: As above these guys tell you how they’re going to join an affiliate you’re promoting but never do.
• RSS Feed Liars: Yeah, they love your blog so much they’re going to subscribe to your feed. While you can check up on the former two, it’s harder to see if these actually subscribe or not. You can usually pick them out though because their comments usually suck big time.

I reckon you get where I’m going by now, and what these people are forgetting is that they’re only kidding themselves and there is every possibility that they may be ruining their online reputation. Personally I believe their actions may go beyond pissing off the blogger whose blog their commenting on. Say in the first example another blogger who tweeted a post and noticed that the person who said he tweeted it actually didn’t, what would they think of them. People talk and as word get’s around reputations get tarnished.

There is a very easy way not to get caught in this trap and that is to be completely honest when commenting on a blog. Don’t bullshit to people. If you’re telling people you’re going to Tweet a post, join an affiliate, subscribe to a blog or whatever do it! Whatever you do don’t promise you’re going to go through with any particular action if you have no intention of following through.

So, what do you do when you come across these guys? Personally, depending on the mood I’m in at the time, I reckon I’ll just delete the comment. What about you, does this sort of thing bother you and if it does what’s your method of punishment for the perpetrators.

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