Blogging can kill you
A recent Wharton article talks about brand rehab, how to recover from corporate scandal, and cites Boeing as an example. Boeing did that in part with their blogs, as the quote from Lou Rubin, managing director of DPrime Consulting notes
The company has never stopped telling people what it does, which is invent the most incredible flying machines in the world . . . .
Randy tells people what Boeing does in his Journal and you can follow the flight testing of the 777-200LR, an incredible flying machine.
The article also discusses how blogs can kill you and companies should pay attention to the blogosphere. I talked to an executive at a travel company recently about blogging and he said his company had no intention of ever blogging, but they were certainly aware of blogs and thought they should devise a response plan, if they were ever flamed, like Dell and Jeff Jarvis. I agreed and continued to talk about blogging without blogging, how business can indirectly engage the blogosphere.
One of the reasons more companies aren’t blogging is that they worry about the bully blogger. If you piss a blogger off it can turn into a never-ending stream of hate directed at you. I assured the exec that the blogosphere’s self-correcting mechanism can work for businesses and balance out the bloggers that descend like protesters with sandwich boards outside your front door. He wasn’t convinced, but interested. He definitely didn’t want blogs to kill his business.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
1. Isn’t it amazing how frequently corporates home in on the negative - so I assume they have things to hide OR don’t know what they have to hide.
2. There’s always comment moderation and comment policies - like ‘no profanity, no personal attacks.’ These are not unreasonable and I’d certainly recommend it as a tactic.
3. Can businesses avoid the ‘conversation?’ It’s always taken place but not in such a public manner. It begs the question about internal collaboration - does it happen in most companies - I doubt it, too many power bases to protect.
4. How about the B2B conversation - that’s got to be crucial at some point, may even provide insight into supply chain issues…
Lots more could be said but this is a starting point.
B2B hasn’t been covered enough and that came up at the last conference and that’s specific to the travel exec. They don’t work directly with the consumer.
I too feel that companies may be subject to ill opinions if they have upset a blogger, or even an employee. In marketing we learn that one of the most common types of advertising (good or bad) is word of mouth. If an employee, competitor, or customer has been enraged, the battle field to pick is the web. Millions of people could read these responses and make or break a company.
See Jeff Jarvis and than what if he was wrong or just a crank. He wasn’t, I’m just using that as an example. Right, so it’s like that guy with a lemon sign attached to his car driving by the dealership honking.
I have found that blogging can be the best defense against a bully blogger. A properly run blog can create a community of brand champions (or at least friends) that will work to defend the company.
For example check out GM’s fastlane blog’s comments about the missed delivery of the Solstice. Several critics are being beat back by the friendlies.
http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/2005/08/aboutthatsols.html
I love the “Weaver, your comment is biased. You either own a Mazda, or simply hate GM.” comment;
I have never heard of blogging before, however, as a marketing major I believe that learning about such a thing will be very helpful and useful throughout my career.
I feel that a businees should use every means available to stay in touch with the customer. In my view, this includes blogs. However, I am uncertain, at this point, as to whether a company should respond to a blog, regardless if it is positive or negative. I am sure that they would not want to accidentally open themselves to some legal infraction.
That’s probably what the PR professionals do, despite bloggers insistence that PR is dead. They’re going to advise how and who to respond to, if at all.
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