With all the blogworld information lingering in my mind, another subject I wanted to cover was the fear that most major companies tend to feel regarding criticism of their product, service, or the company in general.
The general idea has always been that they wanted to “push” out information that was positive, in order to perpetuate and mange their reputation in a positive manner.
The world of social networking and blogging is changing all that. Companies (and individuals where they are their own brand) need to embrace negative comments on blogs and social networks as an opportunity for a discussion. And, an opportunity to win friends by fixing the dissatisfaction.
When you genuinely care and want to help dissatisfied customers (remember customer service?), you change a negative impression to a positive one.
A recent article on The Washington Post web site by Zachary A. Goldfarb validates this approach.
They also list a couple other things companies can do to use social networking and blogging to their advantage in developing their brand as one that genuinely cares for it’s customers:
- Harness your audience to do the work for you
- You are what you publish
- Digital brand-building should be thought of as a one-to-one engagement
- To develop your brand online, you need to live, eat and breathe interactive strategy
Please read this well written articleRather than re-state what Mr. Goldfarb wrote, I’ll just let you read his article. It’s not anything new, but it is well stated!
Tags: Blogging, branding, Business, Marketing, social networking, washington post
