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January 01, 2005
Business Blogging Gets Noticed
Fortune Magazine starts the year out with a bang by declaring that 'There's No Escaping The Blog'. They quickly get to the crux of it, showing how even the formerly faceless monolith Microsoft is using blogging and bloggers to communicate, listen, and foster better customer relationships.
The articles goes a lot farther than the usual ain’t-blogging-hot drivel. It really gets at why this is an important trend that won’t go away: your customers now have a public voice, and they’re going to use it whether you join the conversation or not. The Krptonite story is used as a recent high-profile example.
Of course, not everyone has a large enough profile or customer base that ‘your customers’ are actually out there talking about you. And hopefully not everyone does things as stupid as Microsoft and Kryptonite which would lead customers to say these kinds of things anyway. But your customers in your market are out there talking, and the premise remains the same. They’re having a conversation. You can be involved or not. And if you’re not, one of your competitors surely will be. (One interesting fact the story points out is that a new blog is created every 3 seconds!)
Update: Fortune Follows Up with More Tips and Reasons To Blog
Posted by Craig Danuloff at January 1, 2005 10:28 PMAt Craig's urging -- and truly as an afterthought -- I created a blog to compliment our information site. The "big" (read, expensive) site is 90 days old this week, the blog is just 60. The blog is winning keywords that I wouldn't have ever hoped to win in such a short time -- the big site hasn't fared anywhere near as well. The reason? Google's algorithms currently favor blogs.
And for those who are peddling "valuable info" the win is for both consumers and bloggers. But when my site, "Behind the Curtains," (which has NEVER covered a story on curtains) wins that word over and over, it is scary to think of the blog in the hands of the dis-information specialist.
--diane