The #1 concern I’m hearing from organizations interested in exploring blogs to support marketing strategies is, “But what about the negative comments? How do we control people posting bad things about our brand or our company?
Marketing has changed. The world has changed. It changed while you were not looking. It changed when the internet, email and cell phones made it easy and cheap to communicate.
Bottom-line with over 50 million people chatting it up on blogs if you turn comments off you loose the home court advantage. People will talk about your company, your products, your customer service and even your blog. Why would you not want that discussion to take place where you can easily monitor it and respond?
To turn comments on. To turn comments off. This has be come a tired debate in the blogosphere. One of the benefits of a marketing blog is the opportunity to dialogue with customers, prospects and stakeholders. Sorry, no comments does not make a conversation. It’s called a monologue. One person takes center stage with no opportunity for direct feedback. For my money, a blog without comments and trackbacks is an on-line newsletter. And that’s not a negative comment.
Great example of a highly focused brand kibitz on a non “corporate blog” is McChronicles. This blog about McDonalds recently welcomed it’s 18,000 visitor. A Google search for McChronicles pulls 15,800 results. And with this post the count is now 15,8001. That’s a lot of Big Macs! U.S. News and World Report highlighted McCs in an article about customers creating buzz.
Citizen or conversational journalism. McDonald owners get it. Some are asking McChronicles to review their restaurants. Corporate McD people have been known to drop by to listen (tracked by referral stats). However, the folks at corporate McD’s must be busy chowing down on their burgers since a sanctioned McD blog has not yet surfaced.
If you’re still not convenienced that comments on are a smart business decison, here are …
5 Strategies To Combat Negative Blog Comments
5. Turn off comments
4. Monitor comments
3. Develop a comment policy
Include on your navigation bar and above the comment section
2. Delete comments that do not meet your guidelinesThe Number One Way To Combat Negative Blog Comments …
1. Show ’em what you are made of!
Use negative comments (those that express legit concerns) as a way to demonstrate how you handle customer concerns.
Our customers’ sphere of influence is not limited to their around the corner neighborhood or the company water cooler but anywhere there is an internet connection or cell phone access. With the understanding – that companies no longer control the message (influence yes. control no.) – and that customers have more power than ever before in “helping sell your product”, you gain a huge advantage over your competition – those that are trying to swim upstream against the current. It’s an exciting, new world. Don’t be afraid to become apart of it.Â
Man, that post is so stupid and totally wrong on almost every point!
(Kidding!) “Sorry, Couldn’t resist, Mate.”
The door was just opened WAY TOO FAR on that one.
Cheers.
Comment by enlightphoto — December 17, 2005 @ 4:31 pm
How to Handle Negative Comments on Your Blog
Some of our clients who are considering blogs are concerned about negative comments. They’ve had bad experiences in the past with customers (and non-customers) who created a stink in discussion forums about perceived problems with products and services…
Trackback by flyte: what works online — December 29, 2005 @ 12:43 pm
Conversations Happen Elsewhere
Business Blog
Consulting has some interesting suggestions about blog comments — 5
Strategies To
Combat Negative Comments .
I like the list. It’s simple and can help those who are excited about
blogging but who are nervous about being called nas
Trackback by Jim Grisanzio — December 31, 2005 @ 10:56 am
Blog Comments – What do you do when they’re negative?
One of the frequent questions we get from new blogging clients is how to handle negative comments on the blog. Patsi and I concur that comments, good or bad, are good for you and your business. A negative comment gives
Trackback by Build A Better Blog — January 2, 2006 @ 4:55 pm
for example when you are blogging about the quality of your product which is only 99% ok, then the 1% just kill your ass…
because happy customer do not say nothing usually.
You can never say it’s ok for the 1% customers where the service does not work…
In that case, allow comments only if you are ready to “fake” comments says quality is ok!
😉
Comment by jm — January 10, 2006 @ 4:59 am
Thank you for the comments about McDonald’s and blogging. We are very interested in the dialog with our customers. We serve 50 million of them every day. McDonald’s launched their first external blog called “Open for Discussion” which focuses around the area of corporate social responsibility. I would encourage you to check it out. It can be found in Corporate area of McDonalds.com or you can follow this link directly:
http://csr.blogs.mcdonalds.com/default.asp
Comment by Steve Wilson — January 23, 2006 @ 11:15 am