How do you find these types of bloggers? And what’s the best way to manage them?

Model bloggers

Before we get to that, let’s look at some examples of executives who effectively engage the blogosphere. Chuck Hollis is vice president of global marketing CTO  at EMC. He’s been at EMC for 15 years in a variety of technical and marketing positions. In other words, Hollis knows his stuff. He’s comfortable writing easy-to-read posts about everyday life (such as “What iPads did to my family”) and is not afraid to state his views about EMC activities.

Take, for example, EMC’s bidding war against NetApp for Data Domain last year. Although some company executives may stay silent on such company activities, preferring to speak through their PR or legal teams, Hollis posted a blog about his personal perspective of EMC’s move. Not surprisingly, that post attracted multiple comments.

Hollis’ opponent at HP (they often cross swords on each other’s blogs) is Calvin Zito, author of HP’s Around the Storage Block blog, and StorageWorks marketing communications manager. Like Hollis, Zito has held a variety of positions in marketing and engineering.

Zito is a prolific writer with a great writing style, and commands a regular audience—including Hollis.

Ideal traits

Judging by their blog posts and the frequency of their updates, both Hollis and Zito are comfortable writers and are quick to analyze their markets. The results are thoughtful and engaging blog posts. Hollis and Zito are quick to respond to reader comments—both complimentary and not—and engage with readers of other blogs by placing comments there.

Once you’ve identified executives who have the necessary traits to write blogs, how do you manage them?

You don’t.

Opinion writers

View such corporate bloggers as you would opinion writers on newspapers. By all means run a blog that is a mouthpiece for your organization, if that makes you feel more comfortable. However, encourage other voices to speak as well.

It’s not possible to silence people who have strong views, but B2B readers are mature enough to decide for themselves whether these bloggers are stating their own views and not those of their employers. (Some bloggers state this on their blogs, particularly if they’re hosting the blog themselves.) Of course, it helps when these bloggers are senior executives and not entry-level employees.

It is better to have employees who are able to engage with readers and get the blogosphere talking than to run a bland corporate blog that commands no attention whatsoever. You’re now in the publishing game, so be prepared to loosen the reins.

“Bad news goes about in clogs, good news in stockinged feet.”
- Welsh proverb

It used to be that angry customers had only a couple options for expressing their dissatisfaction with a company’s products or services. They could call customer service, write a letter or e-mail. However, the proliferation of social media and blogging platforms have provided numerous outlets for customers to voice their displeasure. Worse, with such outlets as Facebook and Twitter, negative opinions spread faster than wildfire.

It’s inevitable—companies make mistakes. They’re staffed with humans, after all. How they respond to those mistakes and how quickly, though, can make all the difference.

I recently received an e-mail from Mount Shasta Resort, where I had once made reservations. (I can’t seem to remove myself from their e-mail list, but that’s another post.) What caught my attention about this e-mail and stopped me from immediately hitting the Delete button was the subject line: “Please Accept Our Apology.” Of course, I was intrigued and read further:

“We enjoy sending out specials to all our on-line members; however, we are still learning to use our new e-club system. Our last special had a pre-filled subject line with language that may have offended some people. The resort would like to apologize for this mistake. Please print out and bring in this coupon and receive 10% off in our Golf Shop, Restaurant or Lounge.”

Two things struck me about this e-mail: The company was quick to respond (I had only just received the “offending” e-mail the day before) and took full responsibility for the mistake, rather than blaming the new system.

Unfortunately, companies don’t always respond this well when they make a mistake. Take Best Buy, for example. Last month, the company offered on its website a 52-inch HDTV that typically sells for $1,600 for just $9.99. Not surprisingly, customers were quick to place orders for this steal of a TV deal.

When Best Buy realized the mistake , the company removed the offer from its website and announced that it wouldn’t honor the purchases. The company placed a recorded message to this effect on its customer service line, as well as posting messages online. Best Buy fell back on a company policy that reserves the right to “revoke offers or correct errors,” even if a credit card has already been charged.

Needless to say, disappointed customers quickly started voicing their displeasure at losing out on the TV deal of the century and at the company’s policy. They Twittered, they blogged, they wrote email.

Best Buy’s biggest mistake wasn’t the pricing error; typos happen. No, the company’s biggest mistake was missing the opportunity to engage with its customers. Instead, Best Buy hid behind company policy.

(To be fair, though, Best Buy is ahead of the curve in empowering employees to use social media for customer support with Twelpforce .)

Does this mean that every time your company makes a mistake you need to give something to your customers as compensation? No, it doesn’t. Does it mean that you have to respond to every customer who pops off with a negative comment about your company, product, or service? No, it doesn’t.

What it does mean is that you should listen to what your customers are saying and determine if you need to take action, even if it’s just acknowledging and apologizing for an error. Communication in the age of social media isn’t just about pushing out your company’s message. It’s about engaging your customers in conversation, and this dialogue affords you a great opportunity to improve your business. After all, your business is your customers.

These two actions demonstrate the president’s commitment to transparency and accessibility, and highlight some differences between the Bush and Obama administrations. They also illustrate how the conversation between the government and the public is shifting, which reflects a trend in the corporate marketing world, too: We’re all tired of spin, and we can sniff it out with increasing ease. Trust is at a premium.

The old way, both in government and marketing, was a monologue–a stream of messages that spun the truth and interrupted our lives. The new approach is a dialogue in which consumers have more choice and can dismiss anything that smacks of a sales pitch. In a world in which conversational marketing trumps traditional marketing, what do corporate marketers need to know? Here are five things to keep in mind:

Interruption marketing is dead.

Just as DVRs allow us to watch TV shows when we want to watch them, we also buy things when we need them. Sure, we may need a reminder once in a while (say, in the form of an enticing email newsletter), but those reminders need to provide more than just coupons. As Joe Pulizzi explains in his book, Get Content. Get Customers., “Content marketing is about getting customers to invite you to interact with them. It’s about creating relationships that transcend transactions.” He cites as an example the viral videos on willitblend.com that drove up sales 400 percent in one year. These were not straightforward videos rattling off the merits of Blendtec products; instead, they were hilarious spots that you wanted to pass along to your friends.

Your customers are talking to each other about you.

Whether or not you join the conversation, it’s definitely happening online. Customers trust other customers’ opinions more than they trust your marketing message. MediaPost noted, for instance, that in 1977, 67 percent of people surveyed said they were motivated to take some sort of action because of “word-of-mouth” influence. By 2003 that number was 92 percent. The 2008 Edelman Trust Barometer indicated that 58 percent of respondents believe what “a person like me” says about an organization is a more credible source of company or product information than the company itself (or its product advertising). Joining the conversation by providing information of value will help you gain trust; joining it with spin, messaging, or a sales pitch will get you ignored.

Talk authentically and offer value.

At its core, conversational marketing is about forgoing jargon and company-speak and talking in a real voice that your customers can relate to and trust; this form of marketing offers useful information so that both parties benefit from the relationship. Last month I joined a webinar on social media and one auto executive on the call discussed a recent experience. He had engaged in an online dialogue with a woman whose son was paralyzed after an accident in one of his company’s vehicles. While he knew he wasn’t going to change her mind about the car, he treated her with respect, got more information about her situation, and listened. He cared enough to have a dialogue with her rather than defend his product, and that kind of message gets passed along. In addition to approaching conversations with authenticity, corporate marketers need to deliver content of value (and content that speaks to their customers’ needs) to gain the attention and trust of their audience. I might be interested in a hybrid car, but if the difference between Honda and Toyota is that the Honda website offers articles on the mechanics of hybrid technology, why maintenance matters, and case studies that tell me more about the customer experience, I’d gain more from a relationship with Honda than I would from a competitor that just tries to sell me.

Lose control to get a grip.

Marketers often have a hard time being conversational because it requires relinquishing some control over the message. But part of being successful at conversational marketing is allowing the conversation to develop a life of its own. This also separates the wheat from the chaff: If you don’t have a product or service worth selling, you can no longer hide (see point #2). That said, you don’t have to relinquish all control–consider blogs, for example. “Blogs represent the best chance for companies to inform the conversation,” said Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman Public Relations, on Technorati. Though a recent Forrester report acknowledged that only 16 percent of adults surveyed trust corporate blogs, I suspect the number would be higher if corporate blogs focused less on spin and more on facts. With a blog, you can connect directly to your customers, you get valuable feedback, and you can humanize your company. Sure, you can’t–and shouldn’t–control every posted comment, but by engaging in a real dialogue, you can build trust.

Marketing is not a numbers game anymore.

While traditional marketing focused on volume and eyeballs, conversational marketing focuses on the quality of your dialogue–and showing up for the dialogue in the first place. Whether you’re talking to 60 people who follow a specific blogger or a Twitter community, you have to pay attention. Find out what conversations are going on out there. You can start with a basic tool like Google Alerts to help you get clued in–and then figure out to what extent you’re going to get involved in the dialogue.

The bottom line is that engaging in a conversation with your customers requires you to rethink your entire approach to marketing, from outbound monologue to full engagement. Building trust requires you to offer information and content of value rather than a message that interrupts your customers on their way to finding what they want. If you spend more time understanding customer needs and interacting authentically, you’ll earn your audience’s trust. And today, trust drives preference and transactions.