Version 3/8/06
These notes are from the book: Naked Conversations: Scoble and Israel
Class
Support Material: Hackers, Hits and Chats

Little Companies, Long Reach

Blogging offers small companies global reach, at little cost. They can participate in or create the conversation for their marketplace.

gapingvoid

ENGLISH CUT: Dispersed audience, relies on Word of Mouth and a small ad in the Yellow Pages. Blog offers an opportunity to share expertise and love for the craft and create the conversation. Strong impact on sales. A local merchant can create global reach through blogging. Blogging scales word of mouth. English Cut is #1 on a google search for Savile Row Tailor: Google Juice!

Bruzz Bruggerman: "C+ blogger and an A+ blog reader".
Conference blogging

Builds brand (personal and product brand) and credibility; not for direct sales.

Leave It Behind > Brian Bailey
Three areas of impact:

• Internal

• Personal

• Community

Blogs encourage honest conversation within an organization, pushing both change and growth.

Treonauts: ranked 12 on Treo search on google.

According to Loic Le Meur (Six Apart):
This stuff threatens the brands because this guy has more followers than the brand site and more google juice, and its not mass marketing.

Horsefeathers. Change from e-mail list (spam) to blogging. Keeping people connected while being dispersed. Accelerate the word of mouth. Number 1 search result for Horsefeathers; not in the first 50 for North Conway.

Five Success Tips:

• Talk, don't sell

• Post often and be interesting

• Write on issues you know and care about

• Blogging saves money but costs time

• You get smarter by listening to what people tell you

Consultants Who Get It

For consultants 'word of mouth' can amplify reputations.

Clearadmit: and recent economist article.

Ernie the Attorney: little direct impact on business, but indirect via conference invites etc. Building personal reputation and trust among peers.

Church of the Customer, from the authors of Creating Customer Evangelists; six key corporate actions:

• Continuously gather customer feedback

• Make it a point to share knowledge freely

• Expertly build word of mouth networks

• Encourage communities of customers

• Devise specialized, smaller offerings to get customers to bite

• Focus on making the world, or your industry, better

Open source marketing; free marketing. Two-way marketing is essential for word of mouth marketing / customer evangelism.

Jackie Huba: I see no reason for any company not to blog - unless they are sleazy. Every company needs a feedback system, ...

design*sponge
Design industry invisible influencer.

BL Ochman's whatsnextblog.com
They know from reading my blog that I am up on what's happening online, and they trust me sooner because they know me better from reading my blog...

If you're afraid to share ideas you shouldn't blog ... one time someone asked Walt Disney if he wasn't worried about telling so many people about his ideas. And Disney said 'Those were last year's ideas'.

Diva Marketing Blog
Blogging as a deliberate marketing tactic ? Should it remain 'free' within the organization ?

A business-like evolution for blogging already in motion with a rapid progression as a marketing/business blogs move from a shoot-from-the-hip attitude to a structured and strategic approach.

Evolution:

1. Marketing 'speak'

2. Blogging within the organization (i.e. Microsoft: Scobleizer)

3. Marketing blogging 'transparency' (i.e. deliberate tactic)

Survival of the Publicist

Tension between:

• Tradition: 'Command and Control'

• New: 'Listen and Participate'

A one-way monologue versus a two-way conversation.

press releases amplified by people who send them out, blogs amplified by people who receive them.

Micro Persuasion
"Blogwatch": follow clients mentions of their products, companies and their markets on a daily basis.

NevOn
The introduction of many-to-many communication has had a dramatic impact on the communication environment. From a strategic point of view, online communication has turned all the models and assumptions under which we operated upside down.

Mike Manuel: Three major trends being driven by blogging:

1. Blogs are democratizing media

2. Blogs are driving corporate transparency

3. Blogs are challenging traditional PR practices

Blogs and National Cultures

What are the key issues with respect to blog adoption around the world ? Why are there more french language blogs than german language blogs ? Why do Japanese like blogging and Chinese not so much ?

Thorns in the Roses

Who should not blog ?

People are a lot more polite when they know you are listening.