Be Afraid . . .? Absolutely Not!
According to reports from the recent AdTech
convention in Chicago, companies are equally intrigued of business blogging
and fearful of it. Why? They’re afraid someone might say something bad about
them.
From the MediaPost article:
MARKETERS AT AD:TECH Tuesday indicated a deep ambivalence towards
blogs, saying that their companies urgently want a blog presence but, at the
same time, fear the consequences of letting consumers freely express their
opinions. Steve Pinetti, senior vice president of marketing at Kimpton Hotels,
expressed a sentiment seemingly shared by many when he told the audience that,
“the blog, as a form of word of mouth marketing, is something we’re very, very
focused on, and we’re doing our homework right now.”
Yet, he added, with 60 percent of the hotels’ business coming from
word of mouth referrals, unflattering comments can be devastating. When
consumers start badmouthing his hotels on the Web, he doesn’t respond well. “I
have a heart attack,” he said during a panel discussion on the online marketing
issues that most concern chief marketing officers.
The problem in Mister Pinetti’s reasoning is endemic in the corporate
mindset, and it goes beyond whether or not you should be blogging.
True, if you publicize a business blog you run the risk of receiving negative
feedback from your customers. So what?
It’s dangerous for companies to assume the lack of negative comments about
them as proof that no one is speaking negatively of them or their products. In
all honestly some portion of the larger consumer base hates everything your
company does, and you need to learn to live with this reality.
Herein lies the value of business blogging and the Web in general.
Word-of-Mouth is the oldest form of advertising, and for 99.999% of our history
it has been largely hidden, unclassifiable, and unmeasurable. That is until we
could monitor chatter online.
Companies can now see with simple search queries if their customers are
talking about them and what negative comments they might be spreading. Blogs do
that one better by bringing the conversations right to your doorstep.
Now, rather than assuming no one’s saying bad things about you or just
throwing your hands up in the air saying, “We know people are badmouthing us,
but we just don’t know who they are or what they’re actually saying,” you have a
great PR tool that lets you identify real complaints, quantify and qualify them,
and actually address them to negate any negative impact those complaints might
have had to your bottom line.
That’s reason alone to be business blogging.
Tags: ad:tech, blogs, business-blogging, fear, marketers, negative-comments