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Blogosphere or Blog with Fear

Written by: Andy Marken

Article Overview: The idea of blogging is hard to resist for a company just starting out. Think of it. A means of communicating with customers, prospects and partners that costs almost nothing but reaches more than 180 million people around the globe. But blogs also permit two-way communications which means others can respond to that same 180 million plus individuals. Enter the Web 2.0 world lightly and always prepare for the unexpected.

Blogosphere or Blog with Fear

Think of it.

A cheap, direct means of working one-on-one, one-to-many with customers, partners, prospects.

The ideal means of educating…informing…persuading.

That’s what management sees when you mention one of the “hottest” communications tools available…blogging.

The Web 2.0 blogosphere is one of the fastest growing communities today.

New blogs are launched every second…120,000 every day.

Technorati, a research firm that tracks Internet and Web 2.0 activity, reports that they currently track 70 million blogs which is up from 35 million blogs less than a year ago. According to their research, 22 of the 100 most popular Web sites in Q4 of last year were blogs.

Valuable Resource
Technorati states that bloggers searching for company/product information rely on:
- 63% from other bloggers
- 26% from company web sites
- 6% from corporate blogs
- 5% from company press releases

Blogging is an international phenomenon:
- 37% blogs are in Japanese
- 33% are in English
- 8% are in Chinese
- Farsi is the 10th most popular blogging language

Because of the global reach and the low cost of communicating 1:1, 1:many with your various shareholders, it is little wonder that public relations professionals have become more involved in promoting/recommending management blogs.

Heavy Internet users have a growing appreciation for blogs (Figure 1). Many do not even realize they are reading one person’s information, ideas, perspective but feel they are getting “news” from a Web site. These heavy users take an active role in blogging just as they do in social network sites.

Blogs have proven invaluable in generating word-of-mouth marketing for firms by reaching and informing satisfied customers. They have become an effective means of resolving customer problems, issues, questions before they become major problems.

Large and small companies, organizations around the globe have official and unofficial blogs being developed, read every day. Sun, GM, Ford, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, GE and nearly every Fortune 500 firm has thousands of blogs that are being updated every day. Even employees in small firms have some type of blog being written/read.

Whether the individual blog has been officially sanctioned by management or is in fact written by management, blogs are appearing.

Reason to Blog
The primary reasons individual employees’ blog is that they want to create a record of their thoughts or want to be seen as an authority in their field (Figure 2).

The major problem with blogs is that they are a new – albeit rapidly growing – Web 2.0 arena. As a result, it is still an uncharted arena with few official corporate policies/guidelines.

According to a recent Harris Interactive poll of Fortune 1000 executives:
- 77% believe they should have corporate polices addressing company-sanctioned blogs
- 40% believe they should have corporate policies regarding blogs unrelated to the company or its activities
- 30% really understand the term
- 21$ actually read business-related blogs
- 15% believe someone in the company is currently writing a blog
- 12% have taken legal action in response to a blog
- 3% have changed product, service, policies because of a blog

Most of the insider blogs are published by employees who care about their company, their products, their work. They help humanize the firm more efficiently and more effectively than public relations practitioners can do officially.

The Mini-Microsoft unauthorized blog for example gives an inside look at and humanizes this monolith. The Mini-Microsoft posts are insightful and possibly reflect the feelings of a wide range of employees more accurately than employee surveys would indicate.

The author seldom airs dirty laundry but he/she does highlight problems, issues and solutions in this global corporation. The ratio of praise to criticism at Mini-Microsoft seems to have a 1 to 2 ratio. While management and outside readers may not always agree with the author’s statements are well thought out and persuasively presented.

The blogger presents actionable recommendations. He/She considers the implications of what he is criticizing and the action items.

Unlike many internal blogs which are filled with mindless rants/raves, there is an understanding and commitment to the company.

PR Reaction
Public relations knee jerk reaction to this “unauthorized” communication may be to have the blog shut down and/or have the individual fired.

Wrong.

Having a person care enough about the company to actually put his/her job at risk is rare. If the individual has a better understanding of corporate issues, policies and efforts they could do a better and more accurate job of communicating with their audience. That does not mean that public relations should control the information but rather monitor and provide the individual with additional information.

Censure should only be done lightly.

Remember, there is a different perspective to something that is said in a blog if you are the senior executive or lowly worker bee.

Only rarely are the blogs done by employees who have the depth and breadth of knowledge of situations and activities to be able to speak authoritatively.

This means that if an employee is publishing the blog, management should monitor them. When appropriate provide additional information and insights to make the 1:1, 1:much communication even more meaningful and more credible to readers.

Blogs from management or employees to the global community can be effective but they go beyond blogging-as-sales tool thinking. Most corporate blogs come up short because they are used as marketing rather than two-way communications tools. They should primarily be used as a means of acquiring and keeping customers. They shouldn’t be initiated solely for lead generation and brand awareness.

Not Ad Vehicle
Keep in mind business blogs are not a new form of company advertising but a means of reaching your most important audiences – employees, partners, customers. If the blogs attract and persuade prospective customers that is an added bonus.

Executives who have embraced the blogosphere have found the effort has significantly enhanced the organization’s and individual’s credibility (Figure 3).

Blogs go well beyond the general business concepts of meticulous branding, carefully arranged PR messages and corporate speak. The effective company-centric blogs provide a real voice and a flesh and blood person who presents information and ideas.

They also receive feedback they may not want to read.

But in today’s very open Internet and Web 2.0 world this communication is taking place…every minute of every day.

It is time for business to consider the question of blogging. But management must be apprised of the positive and negative aspects.

Public relations professionals are usually inclined to present only the positive aspects of blogging (or other forms of communication). They have to caution management that when they – or any employee – blogs there will be a certain degree of distrust (Figure 4).

For most corporate blogs this may be the only problem that they encounter. However, the Web 2.0 frontier can be a wild, unruly, disruptive place.

Recent Encounters
Keep in mind…
- Mel Gibson’s drunken remarks were widely disseminating over the Web in a few hours and later widely covered by the more formal press
- Imus’ radio slurs were heard on the airwaves but the uproar that ultimately led to his being fired occurred on the Internet
- The Digg.com “revolt” of censorship of people’s rights to violate and steal intellectual property and copyright materials was carried out solely on the Internet and subsequently covered by news media around the globe. This was more than an uprising. It represented outsiders taking corporate policy/control out of management’s and investors’ hands
- Slanderous, salacious, hateful blog responses have shut down postings at the Washington Post, LA Times and other sites where vicious individuals have posted material civil people wouldn’t say face to face

As one writer noted regarding these and other blog encounters, “the inmates have taken control of the asylum.”

Investment and commitment to Web 2.0 activities such as blogs, wikis and other collaborative technologies have to be entered into cautiously and with considerable thought and preparation.

Collective intelligence, which tries to tap into the wisdom of crowds to make decisions, can be immensely effective. But management and public relations also have to consider the stakeholder return on these investments.

Today we exist in a knowledge economy and knowledge is power. Knowledge defines the company and the employees.

Blogging and technology adoption can no longer be dictated by management. It is dramatically decentralized. Tools like blogs and wikis will bubble up from departments as corporate strategy evolves.

Management increasingly understands that they must talk with customers, suppliers and business partners to achieve corporate goals. Web 2.0 tools streamline and expedite the design and development of products and services.

Companies need to increasingly reach out to both positive and negative bloggers to ask what they can do better to improve their corporate policy, programs, products. This effort deputizes them as an extension of your market research and R&D efforts.

Management will find that it requires work and patience to become comfortable in listening to this unvarnished feedback. At the same time, it can lead to positive results and support.

The best marketing, communications, policy consultants are available on Web 2.0. It does take time to weed through the disenfranchised to those who are constructive and valuable.

Competitive Advantage
Blogs – especially internal blogs – need to increasingly be viewed as a tool to enhance the organization’s competitive advantage rather than a public relations device that PR can/should manage and control.

Blogs provide an opportunity for organizations to talk directly to more than 180 connected individuals around the globe. They also open the door for these individuals to not only talk back in a positive manner but also strike back for the entire world to see.

Blogs travel at the speed of light to reach, inform people. At that speed, communications can encounter rough air. Policies and plans have to be in place to handle situations immediately (Photo 1).

Being right sometimes doesn’t matter in the Web 2.0 world.

Monitoring blogs is mandatory…management blogs are optional!

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NOTE: Charts/illustrations available from andy@markencom.com

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Re: Best Internet Marketing Strategy - Hi David, I agree about the Blogosphere. You have a smaller group that Blog, but do so on the premise that they think they should, but have never really considered the purpose of their Blog. Then I think there are a few SEO or Internet Marketing types that see Blogging as just another link building strategy. But the largest group of Bloggers, tend to be people who enjoy writing and discussing their topics of interest. Blogging is good for link building, but the true Blogger is a breed apart from the rest. They want to dialog, to debate, to have feedback and they are very willing to link to other worthwhile conversations that are relevant to their topic. I agree with you. These group of Bloggers obviously are passionate about their writing and together, they create huge conversation trails interactive and travel from Blog to Blog. But the evidence is clear with this group that loves what they write about. With comments enabled on a Blog and having a Blog tuned to a specific purpose you already have the evidence of original Social Media.
Re: Alexa Ranking Goals - That's great GT! What method did you use to put up the Entrepreneur Blog Network in your Wordpress Blog? We're always looking for the easiest methods to help bloggers who are not techies get involved.
EvanCarmichael.com suggestion - Maybe I missed it but I would like to suggest that a Blog be created to support the Forum. The idea is that in the blog you put in snippets of some of the biggest conversations with a 'read more' link to the forum itself. Setting up the Blog and clipping some conversations onto it wouldn't take very long.
Jen's Blog - Spam protection - Jen, I like the Blog and just posted a comment to one of your articles. From my experience you need to implement some sort of SPAM capture tools. i use them on my Blog and it's been a life saver as I'm getting hit by spam atleast 5 times a day. I use Wordpress and they have plugins like Captcha and SPAM Karma installed.
Blog Marketing Anyone? - Hi Kevin I suppose you could use the same SEO principles on a Blog as you can for a website but the more content you have within your Blog, the better rankings/traffic you would receive. Would you have time to write a full length article with tips in it every day or second day to get the article count rolling over every week? I would also like to know if anyone has had any experiences with marketing blogs and the traffic they received.


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