So, I’ve been invited to huddle with some Oracle people in the Bay Area later this month to discuss Marketing 2.0. The topics are generally around opportunities that New Web provides to reach customers, influencers, etc. I’m flattered to be invited, so thanks to those responsible who read here.
I hope to add some value, despite my dearth of marketing training and knowledge. A comment on my iPhone post yesterday from Frederik, who works at Jajah, shows an increasingly common way that companies use New Web to reach customers.
This wasn’t even the first time this blog has drawn comments from a company I discussed. Remember my post on Fuser? Emily from Fuser addressed my criticisms of Fuser in comments. I blogged more recently about the Blog Council, and Andy Sernovitz, who runs the council’s overseeing authority GasPedal, commented.
It’s clear that Marketing 2.0 includes combing the Interwebs for any mention of your company and engaging anyone who mentions your company. Whether this is planned by the company or simply absolute dedication by these employees doesn’t really matter to; it just works.
I’m glad Fuser and Jajah cared enough to comment on this little blog with 500 some subscribers. I’m sure they focus their attention on bigger fish like TechCrunch, GigaOM, Scoble, ReadWriteWeb, etc., but it feels good to get a response. I’m glad Andy addressed my questions about the Blog Council, even though I don’t have the power to authorize Oracle’s membership and probably wouldn’t attend if Oracle did join.
What matters is that these people, and by association their companies, care about engaging me. I don’t see them as official spokespeople; I see them as people in a supermarket line who overheard me say something, in a helpful, not eavesdropping way. This humanizes the company. So, from now on, I’ll think of Frederik when I hear Jajah or Emily when I hear Fuser. As I observe the Blog Council, I’ll remember what Andy said.
Jeremiah had a similar experience with much larger companies. He blogged a list of complaints about Oracle, Delta and Real Player. He got responses in comments from Oracle (me) and Real Player, which assuaged him to some extent. His issues didn’t get fixed, but he seemed to feel better that we were listening to him. Delta never did reply, and as a result, other people have picked up that story as a negative against Delta.
Negative press on a few blog posts is like a drop in the ocean to Delta, but the small effort required to leave a courtesy reply would have been equally small. And it would have made Jeremiah feel important and better about his complaints.
So, maybe Marketing 2.0 is good customer service. Paul talked about great customer service, and I certainly remember the places where I get good service. In a transparent world, engaging your existing customers with thoughtful assistance in blogs is equal parts advertising and customer service. Plus, it’s a double score, since you’re 1) helping to keep a customer and 2) showing your awesomeness to potential, targeted customers.
Of course, being genuine is the only way to succeed here. That goes without saying.
Anyway food for thought as I collect ideas for the seminar later this month. Add yours in comments.
Great conversation marketing examples. Thank you.
Great conversation marketing examples. Thank you.
Great conversation marketing examples. Thank you.
There’s a saying “don’t report bugs on blogs”. If you do, then don’t expect anyone to see (aka find) them or be able to respond effectively. Blogging complaints may get steam off, but that’s about it.
There’s a saying “don’t report bugs on blogs”. If you do, then don’t expect anyone to see (aka find) them or be able to respond effectively. Blogging complaints may get steam off, but that’s about it.
There’s a saying “don’t report bugs on blogs”. If you do, then don’t expect anyone to see (aka find) them or be able to respond effectively. Blogging complaints may get steam off, but that’s about it.
@Chris: I agree that blogging is not an effective way to report bugs, but my point is that companies are increasingly monitoring their brands/opinions about their products online.
Therefore, it’s a great way for consumers/customers to be heard and for producers/companies to listen.
@Chris: I agree that blogging is not an effective way to report bugs, but my point is that companies are increasingly monitoring their brands/opinions about their products online.
Therefore, it’s a great way for consumers/customers to be heard and for producers/companies to listen.
@jake: Currently it’s a great way for small but important voices to be lost in the masses of the blogosphere and wider WWW. It’s like a drive by shooting in the forest: does anyone hear it?
Open dialog should be promoted & encouraged with more trackable (by everyone) forms of feedback, even popular discussion sites. Imagine if there was an open API so that company-internal problem tracking systems could interact better with company-external discussion sites. The company would know about the problem automatically, be able to assign, resolve and track metrics on problems while keeping public information public.
Oh, and my other compliant about questions and complaints on random websites is the need to create yet another identity just to log in to respond: roll on OpenID.
@jake: Currently it’s a great way for small but important voices to be lost in the masses of the blogosphere and wider WWW. It’s like a drive by shooting in the forest: does anyone hear it?
Open dialog should be promoted & encouraged with more trackable (by everyone) forms of feedback, even popular discussion sites. Imagine if there was an open API so that company-internal problem tracking systems could interact better with company-external discussion sites. The company would know about the problem automatically, be able to assign, resolve and track metrics on problems while keeping public information public.
Oh, and my other compliant about questions and complaints on random websites is the need to create yet another identity just to log in to respond: roll on OpenID.
@Chris: I’m small and unimportant, but Fuser, Jajah and the Blog Council managed to find me. Sure, this model doesn’t scale for medium/big companies, and as you get bigger, the question is: does the effort spent to scour the Interwebs return enough value in customer satisfaction?
Here’s the plug: We started Mix to harness some of the feedback. I’d love to do an Open API, but I’m not sure GIS/Corporate Architecture would agree.
And I agree with OpenID, but you know we can’t do that.
@Chris: I’m small and unimportant, but Fuser, Jajah and the Blog Council managed to find me. Sure, this model doesn’t scale for medium/big companies, and as you get bigger, the question is: does the effort spent to scour the Interwebs return enough value in customer satisfaction?
Here’s the plug: We started Mix to harness some of the feedback. I’d love to do an Open API, but I’m not sure GIS/Corporate Architecture would agree.
And I agree with OpenID, but you know we can’t do that.
Dell’s Ideastorm (http://www.dellideastorm.com) has really been an eye-opener for me. It’s amazingly minimal: post an idea, comment on an idea, vote on an idea. They put it up for almost $0. And hundreds of thousands of people show up every month.
My take: It doesn’t matter how you engage or listen – just open the door and people will come rushing in. Show that you want feedback and you’ll get it. No one ever expected so much to happen on such a simple site.
(and read your google alert so you know when someone blogs about you)
Dell’s Ideastorm (http://www.dellideastorm.com) has really been an eye-opener for me. It’s amazingly minimal: post an idea, comment on an idea, vote on an idea. They put it up for almost $0. And hundreds of thousands of people show up every month.
My take: It doesn’t matter how you engage or listen – just open the door and people will come rushing in. Show that you want feedback and you’ll get it. No one ever expected so much to happen on such a simple site.
(and read your google alert so you know when someone blogs about you)
@Andy: Agreed, we took a leaf out of Dell’s book with Mix and added our own networking twist.
I will be watching with interest to see how your Blog Council proceeds.
@Andy: Agreed, we took a leaf out of Dell’s book with Mix and added our own networking twist.
I will be watching with interest to see how your Blog Council proceeds.
Here where it gets interesting: In the next few weeks, Salesforce.com will be offering a plug-and-play idea exchange platform to all customers. Could be a game-changed, taking crowdsourcing to a new scale.
http://www.salesforce.com/products/ideas/
Here where it gets interesting: In the next few weeks, Salesforce.com will be offering a plug-and-play idea exchange platform to all customers. Could be a game-changed, taking crowdsourcing to a new scale.
http://www.salesforce.com/products/ideas/
@Andy: Yeah, they announced that months ago, which helped us legitimize our efforts with Mix. I’m in wait-and-see mode for now. IBM is spreading FUD around ideas vs. action now, which can’t help.
@Andy: Yeah, they announced that months ago, which helped us legitimize our efforts with Mix. I’m in wait-and-see mode for now. IBM is spreading FUD around ideas vs. action now, which can’t help.
@Andy: Yeah, they announced that months ago, which helped us legitimize our efforts with Mix. I’m in wait-and-see mode for now. IBM is spreading FUD around ideas vs. action now, which can’t help.