Talkback: Accentuating the positive

Blogging is a simple concept. Web + log = blog. An online journal.

Blogs aren't like other corporate communications. Take company websites. Most are bloodless affairs, extensions of brochures - dry, chafing and humourless.

The marketing department extracts any whiff of personality in an attempt not to offend anyone (42 Below vodka is excused from this description, they seem to manage to profitably offend just about everyone).

Individuals write weblogs. Regular, minor conversations with the market. Usually they are freely written, unedited by the organisation. Blogs are a democratisation of media. Some become credible media channels in themselves.

Russell Brown's hardnews is a popular kiwi blog. The Greens keep up a lively blog and, though hopelessly out of date, so does Helen Clark.

Before you freak at the prospect of allowing individuals free rein to communicate openly with your market about your products, services and brands, ask yourself: how many truly important business conversations happen in formal settings? How many deals do you think are sealed over dinner or a game of golf?

Often we don't do business with the business, but with an individual we relate to. Someone on the same wavelength. We forgive the organisation its flatfooted, bureaucratic processes because our insider gets things done. Business is personal even within the hallowed halls of the biggest organisations.

Blogs don't replace carefully costly confected advertising messages. Maybe they should. Maybe they will. Or something like them. After all, everyone knows advertising is phony, right?

Who are the most expert advocates of your products and services? Who create the most poignant experiences for your customers? The people you had the confidence to hire, the people who deliver your profits. The people who love (and hate) your brands.

How many times have you heard that your customers own your brand? Do you buy that? You should. Encourage advocates and dissenters to talk about your brands. Link to them. Most people are grateful just to be heard.

In my blog, I share madcap thoughts, the fleeting and impermanent, a free-ranging stream of consciousness. Always entirely subjective. Separate from my website content.

Easy for you, I hear you say, you are accountable only to yourself. True. In reality so are your colleagues and employees. Like any democratic freedom, while we may express ourselves freely, we are also responsible for our own words.

Encourage your most knowledgeable employees to start a blog. Start one yourself. You will be amazed at the effect of sharing first-hand experience and how that reflects on the market. You may even build a following. It can only be good.

Trust that you have hired the right people. Support them without giving them anything (don't sponsor and expect a return).

Encourage feedback (hey, free research). Don't be thin skinned. Anxious? Publish some guidelines.

Produce a disclaimer, just as you would for an email.

And let rip.

Pretty soon you'll be podcasting. But that's another story.