The Two To Remember

This week I read the two sections from our text book, Naked Conversations, by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. In the introduction, they talked about what the book is about. It is basically made up of real blogs from employees at companies spanning many different industries. They believe that blogs cannot be ignored and have taken a prominent role in marketing. In class we discussed its importance for companies, but Schoble and Israel brought up some new points, such as "It's the first to decentralize corporate communications, wresting it from those who historically controlled it, and it eliminates many of the geographic barriers that have restricted relationships between people sharing similar interests."

Later in the book, they created a list of thirty four suggestions on how to blog effectively. Since blogging is new to me, I found it to be very helpful. Two things that were consistently mentioned were quick response time and honesty. In my opinion, I believe these are the two most important pieces of advice they offered. As they say in business, "Time is money." If someone has a question or comment on your blog or about your company, how quick you respond will influence their view on you and your company. Also, blogs can be seen as conversations over the internet, so why should it be any different than a conversation in person. To lie in a blog is as if to lie in person. Personally, I would never trust that blogger in the future if I caught them lieing. Seeing as I agreed with Schoble and Israel on this section, I am excited to read what else they have to say on social networking.

Scoble, Robert, and Shel Israel. Naked Conversations. 1st Ed. Hoboken, NJ: Jon Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006.