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Blogs and Wikis: Growing influences and markets of the Internet
By Jamie | November 7, 2007
Last Thursday I was invited along to Edinburgh University for a talk on “Blogs and Wikis: Growing influences and markets of the Internet“, given by Mark Fletcher the founder of Bloglines. The talk was part of the Edinburgh-Stanford Link CEO Master Classes.
The talk centered around blogs and in particular blogging as a business tool. Although blogging is nothing new, its always refreshing to hear it from someone with Marks credentials. Its a shame I can’t find the slides, as these would be a great introduction to blogging for business and a nice selection of cats pictures! The event had a relaxed atmosphere with a number of start ups and established businesses chipping in throughout the afternoon. I chipped in with English Cut as a blogging success story and Mike Clouser also mentioned a couple.
Nanocasting
New to myself, Mark referred to blogging as a Nanocasting, communicating to small niche audiences. Mark explained that traditional media such as TV and Radio typically serve mass audiences, where as blogs are seen to serve niche and mass audiences.
Blogs as a Business Tool
Mark pointed out that blog provide businesses with a…
- cheap marketing tool
- enable them to level the playing fields
- and is becoming as influential as traditional media
To back these statements up, Mark gave two brilliant examples where well known companies had fallen foul because of there lack of understanding of the social media, the power of blogs.
Dell Customer Service
The Buzz Machine (Jeff Jarvis) posted a blog about his poor customer service experience he received from Dell. This quickly snowballed with others leaving comments and posting blogs about their poor customer service. Dell was completely off guard and eventually the story broke to the main stream media.
A highly public discussion of Jarvis’ troubles with his Dell laptop computer this past summer leapt from dialog on Jarvis’ Buzzmachine site to other blogs, and even into mainstream media. The result is a population of links on search engines such as Google. In this case, postings on Buzzmachine and MSN, as well as other blog and news sources, surpass Dell in terms of “information influence” in terms of customer service issues.
http://www.clickz.com/3571291
So Dell started its own blog called Direct2Dell, but got this wrong.
More importantly, Dell really failed to get the blog going the way that they could have. This was a golden opportunity for the company. They could use the blog to engage the community in a genuine conversation on the critical issues that have dogged them for years now as well as the good things they are doing.
http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/07/dell_starts_cor.html
So Dell didn’t get it right first time round, but they did eventually when they started giving its customers a choice of operating systems.
In the age of customers empowered by blogs and social media, Dell has leapt from worst to first.
Dell Learns to Listen
Bic Biro Pen and Kryptonite Locks
Kryptonite bike locks where another large corporation that failed to monitor the blogsphere when a story broke about a technique to open their locks using only a Bic Biro pen.
Kryptonite’s corporate reputation was dragged through the mud in 450+ posts, despite the fact the Bic-opening method applies to many tubular cylinder u-locks.
http://www.bikebiz.co.uk/news/23471/The-pen-is-mightier-than-theu-lock
Monitoring the blogsphere
So how do you monitor the blogsphere? Check out the website’s below and enter either your companies website address or key words related to your brand.
Hello
A quick hello to James Littlejohn of Mepath who also came along to Edinburgh Coffee Morning the next day. Leslie and Richard of Midland HR, Nicola of Hillhouse Films, the guys from Nothing Grinder, Adi from Aegon and Cameron of Escrivo.
And a thank you to Mike Clouser and Danny Helson for inviting me along.
Topics: Business, Events, Marketing & Social Media, blogging |
Article Tags>> blogs | Business | dell | Events | social media
November 8th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Jamie,
As a Dell employee, I couldn’t help but notice the outdated references to Dell and social media. We have indeed gotten the social media message and have worked hard to integrate it into our business. We recently hosted Jeff Jarvis for an update on the saga. His report, “Dell Learns to Listen,” can be found at:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/oct2007/db20071017_277576.htm?chan=search
November 8th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Thank you John for the comments and link.
I have updated the post.
Which proves that Dell does now listen to its customers!
Jamie