Local businesses can project personality through blogs

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Ted Demopoulos makes some good points in Blogging for Business regarding the value of blogs to local businesses.

Search engines love blogs, and can quickly help catapult a local website in the rankings, sending them more potential customers. They can also help turn “dull” into “dynamic” (or at least less dull!) and encourage repeat visitors.

Many local businesses are relationship based, even more so than Internet and 1-800 businesses, and the personal nature of blogs can help increase the feeling of knowing Joe Blow @ Seacoast Tub and Tile, even if we’ve never met him. This increases the likelihood that people will stop by and make a purchase.

Some local business people are likely to wonder what they could write about. In approaching the content of their blog, they should remember that they are the “experts” in their business area. If they mix this expertise with a passion for their business, they can write about things that will be of interest to the consumer such as new products, specials, examples of good customer service and ways in which the local business tries to make itself special.

Great relationships can start with brief encounters

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Effective communications consulting must be based on relationships of trust between the client and the consultant. And these relationships can begin in a variety of places. What is common to them all is that a personal connection is made.

In his Canadian Entrepreneur blog, Rick Spence points to a story in Canadian Business offering tips on how to break the ice and have meaningful contact with business prospects in even the most casual encounters.

Good advice for anyone who understands the importance of building a network of contacts. (And that should include every communications consultant, from the most senior to the most junior.)

A PR Blunder in the Making: Microsoft, say it ain't so!

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Arstechnica reports that “Windows XP Home will leave Mainstream Support and enter online support on January 1, 2007?in less than a year.”

Microsoft. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Think of all the folks who just this Christmas bought Windows XP Home operating systems with new computers for their school-aged children. What will you tell them when they find that, less than one year after they bought it, their Microsoft operating system has been relegated to the world of MS “online support.” For many users, “online support” means, “pay us more money to upgrade your product now!”

I’ve read that Microsoft’s blogging policy is something like “Blog Smart.” Well, it’s time for Microsoft to “Be Smart.” Nip this problem now. Say it ain’t so.

Chief Conversation Officer and the marketing function

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An interesting discussion about the Chief Conversation Officer concept at minute 13:50 of Across the Sound Podcast #10.

My colleague David Jones weighed into the discussion about whether the Chief Conversation Officer should be separated from the marketing function. David suggests that the Chief Marketing Officer should be the Chief Conversation Officer if he’s on his game.

David argues that the goal of corporations should be to create conversations with every tool they have at their disposal. However, they have not yet let go of an old marketing model that needlessly promotes a functional barrier between marketing departments and PR departments.

David believes that this reluctance to adopt a new model is grounded in a fear of losing control. The new media – blogs, wikis and, to a lesser extent podcasts – give control of brands to consumers. Smart companies are embracing this. David points to the example of the iPod as a consumer-owned brand. And he praises Apple for interacting with consumers to evolve the product.

Steve Rubel reflects on his own experience of senior marketers in large corporations. He finds that they all want to push for dialogue with consumers. However, their companies cannot adapt to the dialogue. He sees them as being “trapped in a monologue world.” He likens them to the leaders of the Soviet Union before it fell – dominated by the truths of earlier great leaders and unable to embrace to the realities of the world around them.

An interesting exchange worth listening to.