Suw Charman has asked a few folk to respond to some core business blogging questions. Here are the questions, and my answers:
Authenticity – can companies manage to blog authentically, with honesty and openness, given our current climate of spin?
The short answer is yes. The long answer is that overall, our culture is looking for more and more human responses. Presidential bids are being won or lost more on how ‘human’ people feel a candidate is than in any other time in history, people are responding to products now more than ever based on how it makes them feel and word of mouth is becoming one of the single most important marketing channels.
In this climate, it isn’t surprising that more and more companies are seeking greater degrees of transparency – both internally and externally.
In my mind, the current ‘climate of spin’, as you call it, is simply companies taking a fear-based approach to dealing with issues of transparency, openness and honesty. And, while the tactic may work short term (I haven’t seen any evidence that it is, of course), the reality is that long term, consumers are going to continue looking for companies that they feel good about and companies that they ultimately trust.
That trust isn’t built from spin. It’s built from positive experiences, a sense of relationship, open communication and a track record of truthfulness.
Blog ethics – is giving a blogger free samples of your goods and then rewarding them for blogging about it crossing a moral line, or is it simply giving people the chance to review your product?
As with most issues of ethics, in my opinion this isn’t so much an issue of action as of attitude. Giving bloggers free products for the express purpose (even if it’s not specifically stated) of generating positive reviews is asking them to compromise their readership, their trustworthiness and their values.
On the other hand, giving bloggers product and asking them to honestly review it (and specifically stating that negative reviews are just as valuable as positive ones) creates a freedom for bloggers to do what they do best: be honest.
Rewarding honesty, then, and specifically rewarding negative honesty, reinforces the fact that the company values bloggers for who they are, how they behave and what they value.
However, if a company asks bloggers to review something, only rewards positive reviews and doesn’t mengtion the negative ones, that is simply creating, to coin a phrase from your earlier question, a ‘climate of spin.’
Gathering feedback – can businesses learn to have genuine and constructive conversations with their critics?
In my mind, this is only possible if businesses shift how they view their customers. The natural business inclination is to look at customers as a mob. Call them ‘consumers’, call them ‘profit centers’ or call them ‘demographics’, they natural inclination is to de-individualize people and term them into something quantifiable.
As more and more businesses shift into mindsets which promote the customers as individuals (for some this is due to trying to create communities, for others this is due to trying to create customer evangelists and for others it is simply empowering word of mouth), the trend towards real conversations and being able to receive constructive criticism will only grow.
The reality is that every unhappy customer (or Saboteur, as the case may be) is simply a happy customer (or Customer Evangelist) waiting to happen. By ignoring the reality that customers are looking to have positive experiences, and that conversations are one of the easiest (and most cost effective) ways to create positive experiences, businesses are ultimately hurting their long term bottom line and survivability.
Real conversations create real positive experiences which create massive new opportunities for any size of business.
Dealing with leaks – will companies continue to sue bloggers who break leaked stories, or should bloggers enjoy the same protection that journalists do?
In any company where fear is of bigger value than customers, secrecy is more important than transparency and protecting intellectual property (specifically property that will become public) is more important than empowering your communtiy… Yeah, bloggers will continue to be sued.
However companies that actually value customers as individuals, value positive experiences, see the potential in conversations and communities and believe in their product enough to have it critiqued will eventually challenge themselves to encourage people who get early information instead of dissuading it.
We’re seeing some of that type of activity out of Microsoft (giving early previews of technology to bloggers, and letting them know they can feel free to blog anything that isn’t specifically protected) and out of other companies. It’s a new kind of game, and it’s a difficult one to play and companies that do step up to the table will likely need to face substantial changes in order to stay in the game…
However, the prize of customer confidence, real conversations and trust are worth the pain that may be required to obtain the goals..
The long tail business – can companies adapt their business models to make the most of the niche markets revealed by the long tail?
Ach, the infamous long tail. Y’know, I have to talk to journalists every week who think this buzzword is the next big thing. In my opinion, the long tail is really just about talking to your customers and people, and empowering people outside your company to carry your brand with them (which is something they’ll do anyways, but it definitely makes it easier if you empower them to do so).
To me, companies that try and do “Long Tail Marketing” (a term I’m starting to hear, which makes me sick) are likely trying too hard and will just become “bzzagenty”: trying to appeal to individuals by bribing them or devaluing them in some way instead of building them up and empowering them.
However, for companies that are already, or are considering starting to look at, valuing their customers, creating positive experiences or engaging in real conversations… The long tail will naturally be marketed to, empowered, pitched into or whatever this week’s metaphor is.
Think about, it which company is more “long taily”: the wine company that asked Hugh Macleoud to pass out free bottles of wine to bloggers, or Dove who is offering free products and “lifestyle makeovers” to women around the world? To me, the company that values the person as a person and not just a contribution is the one who will succeed in “Long Tail Marketing”.
