One of the single best things about creating a blog is that when you’re interacting with users properly you’re creating dynamic and fresh content. A perfect example of this is when you create a piece of content for your blog which creates a lot of feedback in the form of comments from your readers.

How you deal with these comments can be critical to the overall success of your blog – after all these people took the time to leave a comment for you to read so the very least you can do is reply or at least acknowledge their reply.

But managing comments with the default WordPress interface, as an example, can be really time consuming and is just a little bit clumsy. But you do have options in terms of how you can manage these comments and we’re going to do a review of the top 3 comment management systems that you can choose from:

Disqus

This particular comment management system is currently being used by over 750,000 websites and has experienced pretty impressive growth since its launch in 2007. The core part of Disqus is free which explains how massively popular it is but that doesn’t mean it’s any slouch when it comes to how you can manage comments with it.

First off Disqus is compatible with just about every type of blogging or CMS platform you can think of and probably with some you’ve never even heard of. It’s also very easy to integrate Disqus with your chosen platform – you’re not going to need a Degree in software dev to make this happen. And last but not least it allows you to manage comments even from your Smartphone or iPhone so you can do it while you’re on the go.

Disqus Features and Benefits

• Core system is free
• SEO friendly
• Mobile friendly
• Integrates with Twitter, Facebook and other social networking platforms

Intense Debate

Created by the same people who brought you WordPress and Akismet and a slew of other web services and plugins. The main thing here is that it’s going to be very, very easy to integrate this with WordPress because it’s owned by the creators. That being said it’s also very easy to integrate with TypePad and most other blogging platforms too. As with Disqus Intense Debate is free so it’s enjoying an ever-expanding user base and popularity.

One really nice feature of Intense Debate is that is allows users to tweet at the same time as they post a comment. This is a great feature from a user point of view and is a little piece of SEO gold from a blog owners point of view – everybody wins.

One of the (many) other things we like about Intense Debate is that it has a reputation point system where users can earn points for making valid comments that really contribute to the blog. This also means that valid and valuable comments instantly get bumped up to the top of the comment list too.

Intense Debate Features and Benefits

• Easy WordPress integration
• Rewards based commenting system
• Facebook and Twitter integration
• Widgetized and widget friendly

Livefyre

Another comment management tool well worth a mention is Livefyre. They’re a relative new comes to this market but the team behind Livefyre are anything but newcomers to the web and web 2.0 game. What Livefyre has going for it more so than other comment systems is that it aims to be a very easy-to-use and even simple system for bloggers and moderators to use. After all how many features do you actually need in your comment management system? Sure some of the other packages have some really nice touches but aren’t they just kinda overkill on the whole thing?

As with Intense Debate this system allows you to post to either Twitter or Facebook (or both) at the same time you’re commenting to a blog. But you also get to share other commenters comments on Twitter or your Facebook account if you choose to do so. In this way it’s a bit more versatile than other system that we’ve featured here.

Livefyre Features and Benefits

• Real-time commenting for users
• Easy to set up for administrators
• Has a mobile friendly interface
• Supports simultaneous sharing of comments via Twitter or Facebook
• Strong blacklist controls

When it comes down to it the comment system you’re going to use will depend entirely on your requirements. Hopefully this brief review of our 3 favorite packages will help you make the right choice for your blog.

—-{—-{@

This guest post is written by marketing enthusiast, Lior Levine, who works for an online task management tool company that offers a variety of applications to businesses. Lior also works for a company that offers targeted cancer therapies to cancer patients.