The Business of Comments Report
How comments influence trust, revenue, and AI discovery
Comments shape trust, revenue, and how AI sees your brand. This report shows you exactly how.
We analyzed 168.8 million comments across hundreds of the world’s leading brands to uncover what’s really happening below the post, and what it’s costing the brands that aren’t paying attention.
This is the second annual Business of Comments report, built on the largest first-party social comment dataset in the industry. Inside, you’ll find the data, benchmarks, and playbook to turn your comment section from a blind spot into a strategic advantage.
Get the full 2026 Business of Comments Report
The Business Case for Comments
%
of consumers review comments before making a purchase
of all comments contain spam, bots, or abuse
%
%
of comments get a response from brands
%
more likely to purchase after a positive brand interaction
What You'll Find Inside
Cultural Relevancy
What actually happens in your comment section during Pride Month, playoff season, and viral cultural moments. The data on how fast toxicity scales, and how to prepare before it defines the conversation.
Community Engagement
The response gap is real: 97% of comments go unanswered. This section shows what changes when brands start engaging, including a case study with measurable revenue impact.
Brand Safety
How toxic comments get attributed to your brand, where risk spikes across platforms, and why paid social comments are nearly 2x more toxic than organic, with data on what it’s doing to your ROAS.
AI + Discovery
AI systems are already summarizing your comment section as part of your brand’s public narrative. This section covers how discovery has fragmented, what AI tools are pulling from your comments, and how to audit your brand’s AI presence.
Playbook
A step-by-step framework for building always-on comment protection, closing the response gap, and turning comment data into competitive advantage.
A Word from Our CEO
Historically, social media has been the Wild West—overrun by hate speech, brand attacks, and bots.
At the same time, marketing teams are asked to manage this chaos using manual processes and legacy, seat-based software that simply cannot keep pace with the speed and scale of modern social platforms. This has left brands in a defensive, survival mode posture, hoping to avoid brand damage and/or a PR crisis while simply gathering as many followers and likes as possible.
AI technology is changing all of that, particularly in the comment sections. Brands around the world are converting what was once a chaotic, reactive space into a place of respect, business intelligence, commerce, and utility. Social operations are no longer overworked cost centers but efficient, measurable revenue centers where technology does the work, freeing up teams to focus on content, creativity, and authentic connections with their communities.
In this report, you’ll find the data, insights, and playbook to do the same. Learn and act on it, and you will also enjoy harvesting the immense, untapped value of the world’s largest communication channel. This is your business case to turn comment streams into a strategic asset for your brand.
Erik Swain
CEO, Co-Founder, Respondology
Your social suite runs what you post.
What's managing what happens next?
Get the full Business of Comments Report
Turn talk into action.
Schedule a demo with us today for immediate comment moderation, intelligence, and engagement, at scale.