Blogging to Be in the Conversation
Posted by Liz Strauss · 6 Comments
Whether you think of blogging as a conversation, a dialogue, or a one-way reading experience that allows a response, the ability to leave comments on a blog has led some organizations to decide that blogging poses a threat to their ability to control their message to their customers.
Actually the reverse is the case.
Blogging offers far greater opportunity and speed for handling issues and regaining control when a message has been misinterpretted, misstated, or otherwise turned in a way that an organization wants to correct. Through a blog an organization can
- immediately write a detailed explanation stating the message in the correct way and point customers to it.
- use a trackback to link the correct message to the places where the message has been stated incorrectly, or
- leave a comment that links back to the company blog at sites where a misstatement occurred to correct errors immediately.
- post regular comments that link back to the company blog in places where people converse about the organization, so that others know where to get the facts whenever questions come up.
- use comments as a way to develop relationships with other bloggers in the same industry, so that when misstatements happen, blogger friends can help the organization correct them by pointing people in the right direction or posting the correct information.
- present and provide industry issues and information to establish the organization as a thought leader with credibility.
- discuss company news and problems with customers in an authentic and personal way that offers a human face, an actual person other people can reach out to when they hear bad things about the organization.
In all of these ways, blogging actually manages the risk of losing control of the organizational message rather than causing the loss of control to happen.
The fact is, if a company is not blogging, the control is already out of organizational hands.
Liz Strauss
This is the best how-to, what-do I’ve read all year! And very meaningful. Thanks.
Are we reading each other’s minds? I just wrote about this subject this morning — about the fact that companies can actually have more control through blogging and other social media avenues. It’s just a different type of control.
Of course, you wrote it in a good how-to fashion and I just ranted and panted all over the place. Thanks for the pointers Liz!
Actually, this can apply to non-corporate blogs as well.
Misstatements also happen among individual bloggers as well.
Hey CB,
Thank you. Coming from you and knowing thqt you will make use of it makes those words wonderful!
Hi Ben!
Thank you for stopping over to see the blog!
I’ve been thinking about this subject for quite a while. I’m not sure why companies think they can be in control . . . the market has always been something that’s a place of constant change. “Can’t get customers to behave.”
The difference is now customers can be more vocal about it.
Roberto,
You’re so right. The same principles apply to all of blogging. In this case, as in most, the folks who do this as an avocation seem to understand the intangibles more quickly and more instinctively. . . . Maybe that’s because they don’t start out with defenses up.