I haven’t seen many folks pick up this Clickz story about e-commerce and Web 2.0, but it’s genius. Blogging and tagging aren’t as important as blocking and tackling when it comes to serving your customers. While the article is far less supportive of new technologies than is appropriate, you’ve got to get the right strategy and the right objectives in place before worrying about the tech side.
Launching a new e-commerce initiative? Then check out Read/Write Web’s advice for startups first.
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Mike Moran started a great dialogue about corporate blogging and made a compelling argument in favor of “corporate” blogs that’s worth a closer look. First off, I think many corporations need to have blogs. Not all, but many. Your company can prepare itself for what it will take to blog and benefit from creating a conversation with your customers.
The question I have is: what happens when your blogger’s brand becomes bigger than your company’s?
For instance, look at what happened when Danny Sullivan left Search Engine Watch and started Search Engine Land last year:
To be fair, the Microsoft.com/scobleizer.com comparison isn’t as compelling an argument 
:
Frankly, you should be so lucky as to have a company blogger whose brand grows as large as these two have. What’s important isn’t whether or not they eventually leave – they will. What is important is how you respond. And that needs to be part of your preparation, too.
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Mike Moran points out a great social media case study. The thing to note is that most companies – Toyota included, in this case – miss the point of social media’s “dangers.” The problem isn’t that customers can say anything. It’s that customers can see everything. Toyota has no issue being green, so long as that green is opaque. It’s transparent green that it’s having problems with. The company’s response is that of an opaque company mindset, while its customers live in an increasingly transparent world. Even in today’s world, most customers are going to point out your flaws to a very small number of their friends. And a very small number of your customers are going to try to point out those flaws to a large number of potential customers. But, it’s very easy for that large number to find that small number, far easier than it’s ever been. Many business books point out the merits of running your business as though its dirty laundry could end up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. The reality of social media is that it doesn’t have to. So long as it’s out there, somewhere, your customers – current or potential – can find it. Are you ready to run a truly transparent business? You should be. Because no one’s going to give you a choice.
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