To be completely honest, I first had difficulty seeing how social networking and blogging went together. Especially, having an employee blog about the good, the bad, and the ugly seems like airing out your dirty laundry, not to mention a legal headache. I couldn't quite see the positive applications in the business world. But, a few pages into "Naked Conversations," the connection has become much clearer. Blogging is essentially a forum for discussion, innovation, communication, etc. Its a way to get people talking about your company and your product.
Blogging is also a way to put a face or a human voice to a corporation. Tying things back to my last post, nearly everyone has had a horrible customer service experience. Having a representative from the company to post honestly about their products and services perhaps is the answer to our prayers. But, such honesty seems to be extremely rare in corporations.
Reading "Naked Conversations," I was shocked at their suggestion to even link to your competitors. This seems like suicide. But on the flip side, blogging honestly and sincerely builds trust, understanding, communication and relationships with your customers. Perhaps humanizing the big, bad corporation is really what's important. Corporations make mistakes all the time, but are never quick to apologize or explain.
With all that said though, there still seems to be a very fine line with what a company blogger can say legally, and what's really appropriate to post. Perhaps this is why there's been such hesitation for companies to enter the blogosphere.
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I understand about trying to build trust with the customers, but the one that also surprised me was the line about the competitors. Sure, you should be better than your competitors, not only in terms of being better in business but also being nice/friendly and trustworthy, but linking to your competition just seems as if it would cause YOU to lose customers. If you think you are better, but it turns out, the opposition is, all the customers will remember is how good your competition is. It seems very counter-intuitive and somewhat suicidal. But perhaps it might work.
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