I never knew how much fun having a #hashtag discussion on Twitter could be. I’ve seen them take place before and commented on a couple of posts, but I never actually broke out the search on tweetdeck and followed along–mainly because I’ve only recently switched to using tweetdeck for my twitter client.
Last night’s blogchat discussion was a total flash discussion. Flared and ended in about 30 minutes. The discussion centered around two main ideas: Customers guest blogging on corp blogs and rules to corp blogging.
Customers Blog
The idea that came from the talk was the shift to having a company’s customers provide guest posts on corp blogs. Having customers provide a voice is great idea. Some questioned the creditability that a customer post would have: is it sponsored, is it only the happy customers that post, etc. Moving forward it would be great if customers did post to corp blogs. This turns a blog into a forum, extends the value of the community. Another great result of this tactic is having customer testimonials to arm your sales force with. Testimonials are never easy to get. Yet with a blog post, they are no longer just a customer, it’s not just a testimonial–they’re part of your community. I’ll let the goosebumps go down before continuing……..
The Rules of Corporate Blogging
Tim Jahn (@timjahn) said it best, “The number 1 rule for blogging? Make your own damn rules.” It easy to read all the analyst and dare I say, experts, and think you’re doing it wrong. If you start benchmarking similar blogs or what others are doing, I’ll talk to you in 3 years and you still wont have anything to compare your community to. This is scary sure, but it should be viewed as empowering you to take risks, make decisions on your blog strategy. And remember, you make your own damn rules.
Can’t wait for the next one.
Great recap Matt! Thanks for this, and for participating in #blogchat! See you next Sunday night!