| It's coming right at you... | | Date Created: Dec 04, 2004, 05:40 PM |
 When I was a kid, we lived in the country. The nearest recreation center was the train-tracks about a half mile away. Waving at hobos, putting pennies on the rail and scaring the tar out ourselves by staying under one of the small bridges as thousands and thousands of tons of hurtling steal roared overhead were just some of the highlights. Another one of the things we did was to place our ears down on the rails to see if we could hear a train coming.
Well, if you were to stick your ear on the "marketing communications rail" you'd hear a freight train coming your way.
Blogs are rapidly growing in power. You may not see it yet, but their power will touch your company soon. In just the last two months bloggers have taken down Dan Rather when he based a report on forged documents at CBS, hurt Targets stock and are changing the political landscape.
Reading this post by Britain Blogger Gia should give you a good taste for the power of blogs and other emerging communications technologies.
Are bloggers only a force for evil, taking down well meaning companies and organizations and politicians? No. But, they are not on a leash either. They have a mind of their own and they have an audience. If you have a bad product or lousy service - you should be scared. What used to be one neighbor talking over the fence to another about their experience with your product has turned into a thousand people leaning over the electronic fence having discussions, debate and dialogue about art, politics, power and YOUR product.
If you think that all you need to do to stop this frieght-train-force is hire a PR firm, your mistaken. You can't stop this train. But, you can learn to harness its force. You can learn to enter a dialogue with customers via official and employee blogs and learn to use an authentic, BS free voice when communicating with them. And you will have to learn another difficult skill - actually LISTENING to your customers.
|
|
|
