Global PR Blog Week 1.0

Robert Scoble interviewed on Corporate Blogging

Microsoft's Robert Scoble — the Scobelizer — is very much at the coal face when it comes to blogging in a corporate environment. In this interview he draws on his experience, at Microsoft and before, to provide some real insights into the power and the challenges of corporate blogging.

Cook: Blogging is obviously part of your role at Microsoft can you give us some insight into how that is developing? Are you doing more and more on your blogs, or is it mainly additional work?

Scoble: So far it's just one of the tools I use to evangelize the next versions of .NET and Windows (code-named Longhorn). I use the blog to build relationships with software developers and influentials. I am building a community of bloggers (every link I make builds the community). I look to help software developers out by linking to them, which gets them higher on Google's search pages and on Technorati's rankings.

Most of my official day work is on Channel 9. I build relationships with people across Microsoft and do video interviews. These interviews start conversations about Microsoft's future. It starts a conversation, which helps us let developers know what's coming and what the market opportunity is on our platforms.

Cook: The first point in your Corporate Weblog Manifesto (posted on 26 February 2003) says "tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth" — this flies in the face of the general perception of pr, marketing and advertising. How compatible is blogging with these traditional communication disciplines? Will those disciplines have to re-think their 'message control' tactics?

Scoble: I think that denigrates what good marketers, advertisers, and PR professionals do. I don't want to be part of an industry that has to lie to sell its product.

But, I know it happens all the time. Tobacco companies, for instance, told the public that its product was healthy, when they knew it was killing people. Would it have been better to simply have been honest? Well, it would have saved that industry from a whole lot of penalties and teeth gnashing.

The thing is that consumers now are getting knowledge networks that are unparalleled to learn about products that they are about to purchase. We can look up Consumer Reports latest ratings within minutes of them being posted. Thinking of buying a car or a book? Search Technorati and Feedster to see what people are thinking.

If people are saying your product isn't good, then you better have an answer. Why not link to those people and try to answer their concerns? Or, do you not care about your brand? Is sticking your head in the sand and trying to ignore the concerns of your customers going to do your company or your brand any good?

Look at how Mark Cuban handled losing one of his star players. He could have said "oh well, that's the basketball business." But he went online and explained what happened to his customers. Think that doesn't build up brand loyalty? It sure does.

So, if you're one of the school that thinks "oh, I can keep lying to my customers and the money will keep flowing in," think again. Your customers are talking about you. Here's another example: the movie industry. In the 1980s the word-of-mouth networks were so inefficient that they could "manufacture" three good weekends just by having a great marketing campaign.

Today, though, the networks are far more efficient. Moviegoers will go to a 7 a.m. show (or, one of the midnight shows on opening day). If the movie sucks, they'll start telling their friends with ferocity. Bloggers will start writing about it. The press will pick it up. The movie will be dead halfway through opening weekend.

On the other hand, look at Michael Moore. He played these word-of-mouth networks like a fiddle (he even gave them permission to redistribute his movie for free!) Guess what happened? Everyone's talking about his movie and it's been the #1 show for several weekends now.

Cook: Do you think blogs will be effective as sales and marketing tools, or will sales blogs lose their appeal for the 'blog audience'?

Scoble: I'm not sure. I haven't seen examples of ANY company talking with their customers in a conversational manner. One of the first is from an appliance company, Maytag. Boring company, right? But look at this, they have a blog. Did that change my opinion of the company? It sure did!

Cook: Macromedia, MicroSoft and other companies are encouraging more of their employees to blog. How do all of these different voices together affect the direction of a company?

Scoble: How does blogging affect the direction of Microsoft? A few ways. First, our customers now know where to go to give feedback directly to the person responsible for a product. Before you'd need to go to a newsgroup, or send an email to an email account to give us feedback about what you'd like to see in the next version. Now, let's say you're using Microsoft's new OneNote product. Let's say you have a list of ideas that you'd like to see the team implement. Well, you can go to Chris Pratley's blog (search Google for "OneNote blog" and you'll find him). You can email him directly (his email address is on his blog) or you can leave a comment in his comment area on his blog.

Does that change the equation? I'm finding it does. Why? Because people are far more likely to give great feedback if they know someone specific is listening. There's been an email alias for years named mswish@microsoft.com but who listens to it? Will anyone have a conversation with you if you send that email alias feedback? Who knows. But I know that Chris Pratley reads his email and his comments on his blog.

Cook: Can you envisage blogging making significant longer-term impacts on corporate behaviour and culture, particularly their tendency towards secretiveness and authoritarianism?

Scoble: Oh, yes. Would Enron have happened if they had shared their business thoughts openly, and in the public? But, that's really a debate for a business school class.

I am happy to see more blogging because of the feedback loop it starts. Customers get listened to more effectively, product teams build better products and support them better. Influentials and evangelists get more information they can use to talk about the products with authority. Everyone wins.

Cook: Corporate blogging seems confined mostly to the tech sector (Microsoft, Sun), do you see a role for it more broadly?

Scoble: I see it spreading. The Dallas Maverick's CEO, Mark Cuban, is now blogging. There are lawyer blogs. PR blogs. And more. Yes, I do see a role for it spreading. Blogging is an efficient way to reach a wide audience (and it's a great way to get your sites higher in Google, MSN, and Yahoo's search engine ranking).

Cook: Bloggers seem to be emerging from across the organisation, not just the corporate communications roles, does this create any difficulties?

Scoble: Oh yes. Companies traditionally are used to controlling the messages that go out. In the old world corporate PR professionals would meet with product teams and make sure they totally understood everything about a product and what they wanted to say about the company and the product to the world. Then they'd go on press tours and visit with the press that they wanted to write about that product.

In the old world, word-of-mouth happened, but companies weren't able to be involved, and because word-of-mouth happened offline only, most corporate PR guys didn't worry too much (other than to try to make products that got people to talk). In the 1980s, for instance, I helped run a camera store in Silicon Valley. About 80% of our sales came from word of mouth. I knew that people were talking about my camera store. More than a few customers told me "my friend told me about your store."

The closest I got to hitting the word-of-mouth jackpot was when Sally Socilich, an author of a bargain hunter's guide to Bay Area stores, talked about us on KGO Radio (the most popular talk radio show in San Francisco). Boy, did the phones ring off the hook that day.

In the new world, however, word-of-mouth networks are far more efficient. Today people can email hundreds of friends within a few minutes of a news event. During the 9/11 terror attacks I was instant messaging with people all over the world.

I've seen several news events at Microsoft already get Slashdotted (that's what happens when http://www.slashdot.org writes about something you've done and links to you. Among all the blog sites Slashdot usually brings the most traffic. One link can bring 10s of thousands of visitors). What's interesting is that often you'll get Slashdotted in the evening. By early morning there can be hundreds of comments, and thousands of visitors. Many members of the press and many influentials (like me, for instance) read Slashdot.

Everytime your company gets written about on Slashdot people are making up new opinions of how "clued in" your company is. By the time our PR company wakes up in the morning, they might already have dozens of calls from reporters around the world about what Slashdot wrote.

Bloggers are the first line of defense. We can either show that we're scared of commenting, or we can react fast — before any official meetings have happened.

This scares the hell out of PR folks. Why? Because corporate bloggers can paint a corporation into a corner that it'll be hard to get out of. Not to mention that there might be legal consequences to what bloggers say. Look, for instance, back on the Tylenol or Intel PR disasters (someone was putting poison in Tylenol's product, and Intel had a chip that had a math error). Both errors ended up costing those companies billions of dollars. Could quick reaction by a corporate blogger have blunted some of the PR hit? Absolutely. But they could also could increase the harm just as easily.

It's a tough line to figure out. But, I think that on average more transparency is better than less. Would Enron have happened if they had a range of bloggers throughout the company?

Cook: Should corporations have blogging policies, and what are some of the key elements they should contain?

Scoble: I don't know if there should be rules, beyond a few common sense ones. But education is key. If you're going to have employees talking with the outside world, you should educate them about what's legally acceptable or not (for instance, there are rules governing what employees of public companies can share and when). You should let them know what acceptable behavior is online. That will vary from company to company and product to product.

Cook: One of the big hassles for PR practitioners is the time it can take to get client sign-off on releases, advertising copy and so on, yet blogging is a fast turn-around medium. Its going to be difficult for corporates to deal with the immediacy of blogging isn't it?

Scoble: Yup, but there's the rub. If you aren't quick you'll miss out on the conversation. Go back to the 1980s when I helped run a Silicon Valley camera store. 80% of our sales came from word of mouth. But I wasn't able to be at the watercooler where people were talking about where to get their next camera. Today I can be — but I have to be willing to both listen to the market (which is easy using Feedster, Technorati, and Pubsub) and talk back using blogs and other techniques like what we're using on Channel 9.

Cook: Most corporate websites are deadly dull, the dreaded 'brochure ware'. Do you see any impediments to the idea that they will be mostly swept away by blogs?

Scoble: Well, you still need a site to provide the facts. Er, the FAQs. Heh. What's the price? Where are the authorized dealers? What are the specs?

Blogs won't replace the official site, but blogs might replace the news page.

One thing I'd like to see companies do before blogs, though: RSS feeds. Why? Because then I could subscribe to their news page and build a permanent relationship with the company. For instance, look at the Maytag Skybox site. Why should I need to visit that with a browser every few weeks just to be the first to know when they come out with a new model or a new graphic for the box I already own? I just want to subscribe to an RSS feed and have it come to me — on my terms.

Cook: Do you see problems with the mainstreaming of blogs, will it diminish their authenticity?

Scoble: I'm not sure what you mean. Blogs are harder to do when you're constrained by committeeism. I couldn't imagine doing my blog if I had to have it checked by other people before publishing. It'd slow me down.

Am I less believable now that I work at Microsoft and am paid by them? Yes. But that's OK. Bloggers are yet another information source that you can use to triangulate in on the truth. The best blogs, even corporate run ones, will work hard to keep their credibility.

Another way to look at it is that when I worked the counter at the camera store I regularly sent my customers over to our competitors when I knew that I wasn't able to fill their needs. Invariably those customers came back to me and were more loyal than before.

I just had that happen to me, by the way. I was looking to buy a camcorder and called up GoodGuys in Bellevue. They were out and the salesperson said "call up Magnolia Audio/Video, I bet he has one." That was impressive. I'm now going to go to Goodguys for my next purchase. This is exactly what I meant when I wrote the Corporate Weblog Manifesto.

One thing I've noticed, too. Your readers will keep you honest. If you decide to try to lie on your blog you'll soon have tons of people talking about how you lied on your blog. I have a feeling that that kind of PR wouldn't be the kind that your company would like.

Author: Trevor Cook | Jul 13, 04 | Permalink | 4 comments
Category: @ Trevor Cook | Topic 2 Corporate Blogging

 

 

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The Global PR Blog Week 1.0 is an online event that will engage PR, marketing and business bloggers from around the globe in a discussion about blogging and communications. The event is scheduled for July 12 - 16, 2004.

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