And again with the contrarian p.o.v.–I’m okay with some companies deciding that engagement isn’t right for them. Who is going to change their mind about Halliburton, for instance? The cost/benefit analysis on them engaging with their detractors would make it a losing proposition. Social media in its “classic” sense–connecting with the public–isn’t necessary for all businesses.

Monitoring, as I often point out, is different.

And re: Blago/PR firm quoting themselves…and I thought things there couldn’t get any stranger. I stand corrected.

Jen
Jen

My reaction to the post is grounded chiefly in my natural reaction to absolutism.

that said, I can;t see many better, fully-developed channels at this point then a blog.

And B.L., if a company doesn’t want to engage, to me that’s a problem, not a reason not to blog.

Yup, I’ve got this issue surrounded.

And, @shel – you are right. I have been able to contain things on Twitter that normally would have exploded to blogs and/or mainstream news by being available and responsive.

Remember, I used to take the same position. But there simply is no other vehicle that lets you get your position on the record fast enough to forestall significant damage as conversation about you spirals out of control while you (not you personally, of course) craft a press release or develop a statement for the home page of the website.

So, while many uses of the blog are the same, having one ready to respond (as Michael Hyatt did when Publisher’s Weekly got Thomas Nelson’s new policy wrong) is vital. Of course, if something else comes along that works as well, I’ll be all for it.

That sounds like the government trying to stimulate the economy.

If a company doesn’t really want to facilitate conversation, WHY bother.

The times, they are a’ changing.

Maybe if we followed the advice of Mike Pusateri at Disney and not call them blogs, but rather “an instant publishing system with regularly updated content subscribable via RSS that facilitates conversation and provides you with a vehicle for instant communication when it is required,” then we could move on.

Design is the next big step of course, and should be a big part of corporate blog planning, but for personal blogs I breathed a sigh of relief and did not mourn the fact that I would never have to visit another Geocities page.

We then hired someone to start writing post. We found the post ranked in a matter of moments and the call to action was able to convert a lot of the new traffic. We made a list of keywords and targeted those keywords in each post.

It worked out better than a website would have ever worked and was easy for someone with no skills to make post.