Monday, September 8, 2008

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B-Blogs: A New Form of Grass Roots Marketing

Blogs?! No, it's not a new alien life form encountered on Star Trek...it's a new type of community that's making big waves on the Web. Blogs is short for Weblogs. Originally it meant a web page where a "weblogger" links to all the other web pages in which he or she is interested. Today it's more like a publicly-accessible personal journal for an individual. Blogs reflect the personality of the author, who tends to be so committed to the topic that the blog is updated daily.

Check out Sam's blog at http://radio.weblogs.com/0105852/categories/science where he discusses all things science. Then there's Uncertain Principles at http://www.steelypips.org/principles/2002_09_22_principlearchive.php. This blog covers physics, politics, and pop culture -- interesting mixture!

Blogs have made sufficient headway that b-blogs are now appearing. B-blogs, or "business blogs," are web pages where information, data, and opinion can be shared. It's a two-way, open exchange that connects groups of business people -- employees, customers, partners, prospects. B-blogs are grassroots marketing at its best. They can be used to strengthen relationships, share knowledge, increase collaboration, even improve branding. Where blogs can generate tens or hundreds of thousands of visitors per month, b-blogs can easily hit in the millions. All you need is an interesting topic.

Create a b-blog of newsletter articles on a particular topic. Set up a bi-directional forum to get customer opinions. B-blogs are especially powerful for your company's technical experts who can create forums and followings.

Consider a powerful example from Shell Oil. How far will they go in allowing open discussion? This message was recently posted online:

"I am a permanent resident in the US. Last year I got a message from home about the death of my father. He was on retirement in a town where you have one of your flow stations. He was killed and his house razed, I learnt as a result of Shell's activities in the community. I have read Shell's cheap denial and lame excuses for the atrocities they carry out in Nigeria. But I did not expect it would come to this. I just want to know, what is Shell's side of the story on this and what is Shell doing about it?"

A major business magazine columnist carried the above and then stated (in front of his millions of readers), "Oddly, I trust Shell more after reading this posting than I did before, even though no one has responded to the message at press time. By allowing it to remain on its web site, Shell tacitly makes good on the claims in The Shell Report that the company is truly interested in listening to all those who criticize it."

While this is an extreme example, it's what customers want -- to be heard.

Take a look at one of the b-blogs that has cropped up in the Pocket PC handheld computer space -- Pocket PC Thoughts. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal about the author of this blog, Jason Dunn, sent his site traffic soaring!

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