A Business Blog Is Not About Control, It Is About Influence

A Business Blog Should Always Look Like a Business Blog?

Strategy is what defines a winner in the long term. All these web 2.0 techniques are only tactics. The new and important tactics therefore, but it can vary from business to business. When I say "every business should have a business blog" I do not mean that every business should have an internet site with blog software installed and posts appearing there. What I mean is the mentality of openness, strategy, leadership, stream of useful information. Personally delivered message of the strategy. The new web 2.0 technologies opened a very new way to reach buyers or prospects and it is foolish not to use this channel. But this can be achieved in different ways than a formal business blog. Yes, your business blog can look not exactly like a blog Sometimes conversation with customers can be a little bit different from "real" business blog. Nice example is Red Oxx, a… Read more >>

Is Howard Schultz Hired by Starbucks Competitors to Destroy the Starbucks?

"We secretly have done blind taste tests in Starbucks stores and discovered that Starbucks expensive coffee tastes not better than instant coffee." I can imagine this experiment and campaign from Starbucks competitors. But it was Howard Schultz who sets-up a blind taste tests in Starbucks stores to prove that expensive Starbucks's coffee is not better than instant coffee. This is the dream of every Starbucks competitor. Instant coffee is the antithesis to Starbucks’s strategy The strategy of Starbucks is to be expensive Italian style coffeehouse. This is a wonderful strategy and it brings to Starbucks its fame. The essence of this strategy is to resist all cheap things in coffee. In customers mind, an instant coffee is cheap coffee. Customers think that it is lower quality than espresso and tastes not so good than "real" coffee. So, if Starbucks confesses that their coffee tastes the same or worse than instant… Read more >>

Social Media Professionals Are Needed!

Recently David Meerman Scott wrote about the problem me and many managers and marketers are facing. In blog post entitled When marketing in the Netherlands you need to get Heeves, he pointed to a problem that in different countries there are different leaders in social media platforms. If you want to be successful in such country, you should know local habits very well. Social media professionals are needed! In my consulting practice I work with high-level managers, usually CEOs, on marketing strategy issues in web 2.0 age. Because I am from a small country I understand that if you want to reach broad audience in any non-US area, you should know local habits, preferences. And of course, local language. Yes, the local language, because not everyone in the world speaks English. Who can help understand local issues? Who can help represent companies in those countries? Obvious answer – local social… Read more >>

The biggest fear of managers to start a business blog is fear. Fear of losing the control of information.

“Control” is the wrong word when we are talking about today’s web 2.0 society.

A business blog is not about control, it is about influence. And the goal of it is not to control public opinion about you, your company, your brand, but to influence public opinion about you, about your company, about your brand.

You can’t control all news about you, you can’t prevent yourself from bad news, even from false rumors. But you can influence society to consider your point of view, your arguments.

Dear CEOs, when your start a business blog you will have no less power to control the opinion about you. On the contrary, you will have more authority and possibilities to influence society.

The web 2.0 is not about control. The concept of control is dead.

The web 2.0 is about influence. The ability to influence your prospects is the future of business blogging.

Yes, it sounds different from the past experience, but this is the world as we live today. You can’t change this, so just try to live with it and explore it.

What the good news?

Media have less control too. Your business blog can become the authority in your field and you will have more influence than old media.

Just think less control, more influence.

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