You want to really know what matters to that blogger you love following? Sure, hopefully it shows up in living color on their blog, but another great way to fill in the blanks is to read the comments they place on other blogs. Easily finding out where folks like Chris Brogan, Brian Clark, or Om Malik choose to hang out and post comments is a bit like getting invited to some exclusive blogging party.

Ok, that may be overstating it a bit for most folks, but the fact is following the blog comment conversations of infuencers in your industry as they are happening is yet another way to stay hyper-informed and even join some of these very conversations as they heat up. Just knowing what blogs they read, by virtue of the comment stream might be a nice bit of info.

BackType makes this tactic a pretty simple affair. Think of it as a kind of twitter for blog comments. You can read and follow the blog comment stream of just about anyone you can identify. You can even set-up and enhance your BackType account to make it easier and more fruitful for people to follow your comment stream. (Follow my BackType stream here)

Once you follow someone their comments will show up in a way that lets you comment on the comment, reply or even surf to the original blog post to add your two cents. This is just another way to simplify the process of participating in social media.

In addition, you can set-up alerts and get email daily messages when any term you want to follow, shows up in someone’s comments. This is another way to up the ante in your social media customer service program.