Marketers must stop viewing lead generation as just a campaign and blogging as another marketing medium. It's a conversation - a dialog. When I started marketing to executives, a friend gave me this simple advice that's served me my entire career, "just be people with people." In other words, be real, be authentic and put your whole self into what you do. That's the essence of blogging.
For companies, who are concerned about protecting their brand image, being authentic will be damn hard. Blogs get to the essential truth, ask CBS and Kryptonite, it's clear marketers can't spin their brand anymore. Instead, they must embrace the many conversations about their brand, that requires listening, reflection and talk devoid of corporate speak.
A Forrester Research report concludes, “Firms struggle to overcome barriers that hinder customer connections. To dissolve these barriers, firms must create a new relationship strategy based on a conversation, not a campaign.”
B2B companies have realized that blogs hold tremendous potential to improve connections between all of their stakeholders.
I liked this quotation in BtoB Magazine, “My interest in blogs in general flows out of my perception that society has become massively connected," said Simon Phipps, Sun Microsystems' chief technology evangelist, who has three blogs himself. "I agree with `The Cluetrain Manifesto': Markets have become conversations."
Even CFO's are getting aboard the blogging bandwagon. Read, Blogging for Dollars in CFO Magazine.
Check out Debbie Weil's response to Seth Godin's post on CEO Blogging. Good stuff.
To join the conversation is simple: focus a subject that you are interested in or passionate about and the words will follow. I just read that a new blog joins the blogosphere every 7 seconds.
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