Interview With Blogging Consultant Michael Martine
In the fourth segment of the blogger series, Michael Martine also known as @remarkablogger on Twitter shares his wisdom with you. Not only is Michael wise, but he is also remarkable. Michael “helps business use blogs to boost their bottom line to achieve old-fashioned profits in a new-fangled way. He owns remarkablogger.com, where you'll find tons of useful free content as well as training and consulting programs for business owners.”
In the blogger series, we give you choices from A-List bloggers on:
- How blogging contributes to an organization’s bottom line
- How to use blogs to build relationships
- How to use blogs to build or extend brands
- How to use blogs to respond to crises
- Latest blogging trends you need to know about
How does blogging contribute to the organization's bottom line?
Blogging has an amazing impact on the bottom line because you're getting found on the web and increasing engagement and trust. Traditional advertising and marketing methods push messages and do nothing for relationships or trust. Trust leads to loyalty and greater customer lifetime value. That's the bottom line if I've ever seen it.
How can organizations use blogs to build relationships?
By using the blog as a hub for helpfulness. By helpfulness, I don't necessarily mean "help desk." I mean that you can provide information that existing customers care about and which will show prospective customers what it's like to experience being your customer — and that's key right there. Everything that scares organizations about blogging are the very advantages blogs give them. You know who's doing the best during the recent economic slump? Online businesses that form close relationships with their customers through blogging and social networks. You can't do that and have crappy products and service, however, so... word to the wise.
How can organizations use their blogs to build or extend their brands?
Every customer interaction or touch point is part of the overall experience that is the brand. Help your customers succeed and get the most out of your products or services. Educate them so that they're the smartest people at the party about your industry.
What's the most effective ways for organizations to respond to crises using their blogs?
Having a blog is the best thing you can have in the event of a crisis, because you can circumvent and exert control over mainstream media with it. You have to have a crisis blogging plan already written up and ready to go. You need to know who is going to be the spokesperson or spokespeople. They are on the stage and everyone else in the company needs to shut up. The way you succeed with this is with brutal honesty and transparency. Anything you try to hide will be revealed immediately or soon and damage your reputation irreparably. Old public relations ideas of controlling a message completely crumble in the face of the social web. In a crisis you want to engage, not withdraw, or you're committing suicide.
What are the trends in blogging that organizations should be aware of? And why are those trends important?
The trend is toward increased social visibility: everything we do online can be cross-posted to multiple points like Facebook or Twitter. This is good if you're a business marketing online. The conversation about you is happening anyway, so you had better be there, listening and engaging. This extends to the mobile web and also to video. Live, on-demand streaming video from anywhere is the future of the web, and in plain English, that means everyone's a TV station. Incidentally, the reason why newspapers are failing is because they can't stop thinking of themselves as newspapers, when they should be thinking of themselves as news agencies, using any media as a content vehicle.
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