Navigating the Blogosphere

On June 2, Sun Microsystems announced the acquisition of StorageTek in a move to strengthen Suns storage capabilities and bring in new customers. The official press release touted the deal in typical blah-blah marketing speak: "The combination will create a new global leader in comprehensive network computing and data management…. Together, Sun and StorageTek can offer customers the most complete range of products, services and solutions available for securely managing mission-critical data assets."

Fortunately for folks interested in the deal, Sun’s president and chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz explained the rationale in plain English a few days later on his popular Weblog. According to Schwartz, the deal made sense because of StorageTek’s positive cash flow ("making money is a good thing"), sales coverage ("Sun and STK combine to create one of the largest dedicated storage sales and service forces in the world"), and customer preferences ("Large customers are trending toward wanting to buy from consolidated vendors, with global reach and a systems approach. Sun can now connect those dots.").

Even more, Schwartz added a footnote to business blogging history by including for the first time a standard financial disclaimer after his post: "I was going to be frustrated at the requirement, until it occurred to me we’d just set a bit of corporate communications history—blogs are now an official communications vehicle at Sun."

Sun’s aggressive use of blogging may not lead the company to the promised land by itself but it does reflect the more collaborative attitude that tech firms need to succeed in today’s customer-driven market. Indeed, Sun’s new branding campaign highlights "sharing" and "the participation age," two powerful ideas that emphasize the new world of interactivity and cooperative problem solving.

Are marketers up to the challenge?

As the Sun-StorageTek example suggests, blogs can be useful to marketers precisely because they can dispense with the hype that dominates most corporate communications but leaves customers cold. Getting senior executives, technology experts, and business managers talking directly to customers and other stakeholders in a no-nonsense conversational tone can make all the difference in building dialogue and trust with the people who matter most.

The question is, can marketers make the switch from one-way monologue to interactive discussion? Even with the rise of targeted, micro, and account-based marketing techniques, most campaigns still rely on carefully crafted messages that are broadcast or narrowcast to specific "targets" (a problematic designation for human beings). The more we learn about our potential customers, the more we refine our messages to entice them to buy. At the extreme, it becomes truly one-to-one. Unfortunately, the emphasis remains "to" rather than "with."

Blogging focuses on "with." Not inherently, of course; blogs can be just another platform for useless pontification. In practice, however, good blogs become a vehicle for stimulating discussion and building relationships. As blogging expert Stow Boyd notes, "blogs are social media; they tap into communities of interest that already exist." Not surprisingly, the most energetic and successful blogs in the tech world tend to come from the developer community, where constant give and take is a way of life.

For marketers, the opportunity is substantial. As blogging moves closer to the business mainstream, marketers across the tech sector are testing blogs in numerous arenas, including:

• Internal communication
• Thought leadership
• Demand generation
• Relationship development
• Crisis management
• Media relations
• Product and service launch
• Partner and channel communication

What they’re finding is that blogs can be a powerful vehicle for direct, relatively informal communication that cuts through the defense mechanisms of cynical and overstressed customers, partners, associates, and others.

Thriving in the blogosphere is not so simple, of course. Marketers have to contend with all sorts of legal, policy, and process questions before jumping in headfirst. They need to make sure they have good ideas, good writing, and responsiveness. Most of all, they need to embrace the culture of openness and dialogue.

For those marketers hesitant to jump in or unconvinced that blogging is more than just a fad, consider the last ten years of the Web itself, which transformed incredibly quickly from techie and teen plaything to business essential. Blogging is likely another example of a tech development that is over-hyped in the short run but underestimated in the long.

As customers, journalists, and others increasingly tune out one-way pronouncements in favor of community-based dialogue, marketers will ignore the blogosphere at their peril. Already we’re seeing many in the media ignoring email and Websites in favor of personalized information feeds from the blogs they deem useful. No doubt we’re still in early days, and the particulars of blogging will continue to grow and change. But there should be little doubt that a more participatory approach to marketing is taking hold, with blogging assuming a prominent place in that new approach. Learning to navigate the blogosphere is fast becoming a requirement for marketing success.

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