Summary of Naked Conversations
A book on How blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers
by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel
What is a Blog? A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning “to maintain or add content to a blog”.
What is the Blogosphere? A collective term encompassing all blogs and their interconnections. It is the perception that blogs exist together as a connected community (or as a collection of connected communities) or as a social network.
Since 2003, blogging has doubled about every five months. Today roughtly 20 million bloggers worldwide. 1/3 abandon their blogs. Estimated that 1/4 of all web users in the US read blogs. This number increases by 60% each year.
IBM uses more than 3000 internal blogs for team collaboration.
“Whatever happened to honesty in business?” That's what your clients and customers are asking, even if your company's integrity is above reproach. For decades, corporations have talked at their customers and called it communication. Now comes the blog - an opportunity for your company to have dialogue with customers.
In short, traditional communication is a monologue where the audience listens passively. In contrast, blogs represent a new communication era (the Participation Age) which engages the audience in dialogue.
Blogging is…
- Conversational marketing.
- Two-way communication - Dialogue.
- A tool that can repair your corporate image and rebuild lost trust.
- A feedback system that forces the truth to be revealed from all sides.
- A way to create stronger customer relationships by connecting with people and providing a means and opportunity for all to speak.
- A part of a communications revolution in the way businesses communicate, not just with customers but with their entire constituencies - partners, vendors, employees, prospects, investors, and the media.
- A way to bypass the press. Blogs connect people together and everyone gets a chance to speak. You can get things done with blogs but not the press.
- Storytelling and conversations which research shows is the essence of human culture.
- Leading the new "Participation Age" which has been on the internet since e-mail. Moving from e-mail to blogging is like moving from carrier pigeon to phone.
- An incredible research vehicle that can give direct access to all constituents and stakeholders.
- Democratizing the media. The blogosphere watches media. People can now be heard and participate in media news almost immediately. Whereas before no one could.
- Driving corporate transparency. Trust is eroding with mainstream media and corporate brands. Trust is the only capital companies have in the blogospohere and to build trust, companies need to become transparent in their practices.
- Thinking in front of others. It is accepting that you are open to their comments, their suggestions, and criticism. This exhibition in front of the public leads to humility. You need to be prepared to make amends, to review an argument, or reformulate it.
- “Not a passing fad. Any brand, business or organization that fails to grasp that fact may very well be. It's essential to any company seeking to connect in a spontaneous, continuous fashion with its publics. It affords a window into a company unlike any other - more credible because it lacks the dimension of control, more sustainable because it is rooted in reality, more powerful because it can be connected to comments of others having primary experiences with a company's product or service. Smart companies will take heed of what they learn from online critics, amending the product or process by being committed to continues improvement from whatever source.”
- A tool on the continuum of communication tools, currently the best of breed. It is a tool of a very significant revolution, one that is virtually unstoppable. It is shifting the balance of relationships between companies and the communities in which they operate. It will cause businesses to shift where they invest resources, both financial and human, as a matter of cost effectiveness. Marketing budgets will be cut and perhaps more money be redirected to both product development and customer support.
- Untapped knowledge - Blog readers can be collectively smarter than the authority.
- Powerful in niche markets - Like minded people can easily find niche experts.
- Able to influence the influencer's of your market.
- Ending one era and igniting another. It is called the Conversational Era. It is where companies don’t win just by talking with people. They win by listening to people as well. More and more businesspeople understand that blogs are here to stay and that companies need to figure out how to incorporate them into the way they communicate.
- Challenging traditional PR practices of “Command and Control
Two schools of Public Relations in practice today
Elements for Blogging Fundamentals and Success
Six key differences between blogging and any other communications channel
You can find any of these elsewhere, but not all.
- Publishable Anyone can publish a blog. You can do it cheaply and post often. Each posting is instantly available worldwide.
- Findable Through search engines, people will find blogs by subject, by author, or both. The more you post, the more findable your become.
- Social The blogoshphere is one big conversation. Through blogs, people with shared interests build friendships unrestricted by geographic borders or other barriers.
- Viral Information often spreads faster through blogs than via a news service. No form of viral marketing matches the speed and efficiency of a blog.
- Syndicatable By clicking on an icon, you can get free "home delivery" of RSS-enabled blogs. RSS lets you know when a blog you subscribe to is updated, saving you search time. This process is considerably more efficient than the last-generation method of visiting one page of one web site at a time looking for changes.
- Linkable Because each blog can link to all others, every blogger has access to millions of other bloggers.
- Talk, Don't Sell. Blogging is about Anti-Pitch Sentiment. People visit blogs to see what others care about and know. Successful bloggers avoid selling on their blogs. It won't work and you will lose credibility.
- Post often and be interesting.
- Write on issues you know and care about
- Blogging saves money but costs time
- You get smarter by listening to what people tell you. Your readers/customers are collectively smarter than you. Even the nastiest of comments can be valuable.