October 22, 2005

Shopblogs and the Word-of-Mouth (1)


“Consumers are tired of marketing gloss and so the interest in blogs is not surprising. We all want impartial advice and information, as far as consumers are concerned blogs deliver this.” Paul Halfpenny (product manager at Hostway)
I'm quite surprised that the guys from PR-Blogger didn't feature this topic already. Three weeks ago, british internet service provider Hostway released an interesting research paper about the public relation impact of blogs.
Read more...

Shopblogs und die Mund-zu-Mund-Propaganda (1)
“Consumers are tired of marketing gloss and so the interest in blogs is not surprising. We all want impartial advice and information, as far as consumers are concerned blogs deliver this.” Paul Halfpenny (product manager bei Hostway)
Hat mich gewundert, dass die Leute von PR-Blogger nicht bereits über dieses Thema geschrieben haben: vor drei Wochen hat der britische Internetprovider Hostway eine Untersuchung zum Thema Blogs und Public Relations veröffentlicht.
Mehr davon...
  • 84% of consumers would not know how to find a blog (sic!).
  • 77% would use information from blogs to influence their purchasing decisions.
  • 73% stated that people should have free rein over what they publish.
  • 64% didn't think anybody should be fired over the contents of their blog.
  • 94% were not informed of any company-policies surrounding blogging.
It's high-noon in the blogosphere: Company awareness about the importance of blogs regarding their PR is growing. But those companies get outrun by their employees, who already own a private blog. Shit hits the fan when those staff-members use their "employee-blogs" to start a negative imagecampaign against their own employers. This may have serious consequences for public listed companies.

Corporations like Friendster, Google and Delta Airlines are known to have overreacted to such situation with instant dismissals. A hefty 94% interviewees responded that they were not informed about any company-policy of their employer surrounding blogging. Still in a recent survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, 3 percent of human resource professionals reported disciplining an employee for blogging--a difficult situation.

Intelliseek has some telling PDFs about managing non-company-generated information. I recommend "Talking From the Inside Out: The Rise of Employee Bloggers" and "Rumors & Issues on the Internet".

To be continued next time about shopping-blogs...

Recommended reading
PDF: Hostway's survey
PDF: The Rise of Employee Bloggers
PDF: Rumors & Issues on the Internet
PDF: Consumer-generated Media


  • 84% der Konsumenten wissen nicht, wie ein Blog zu finden ist (sic!).
  • 77% würden Blogs als Hilfe zur Kaufentscheidung nutzen.
  • 73% meinten, in Blogs solle Meinungsfreiheit herrschen.
  • 64% meinten, niemand dürfe wegen eines Blog gefeuert werden.
  • 94% waren nicht informiert über Firmen-Blog-Richtlinien.
Highnoon in der Blogosphäre: Unternehmen erkennen zunehmend die Wichtigkeit von Blogs für ihre PR, werden aber zunehmend von den eigenen Angestellten überholt. Diese haben längst ihre privaten Blogs. Wehe dem Unternehmen, dessen Mitarbeiter in ihren Privatblogs eine Negativkampagne gegen den eigenen Arbeitgeber fahren. Das kann bei börsennotierten Gesellschaften ernsthafte finanzielle Folgen haben.

Da überreagieren Unternehmen wie Friendster, Google und Delta Airlines gerne mit fristlosen Kündigungen. Trotzdem geben 94% an, von ihrem Arbeitgeber keinen Leitfaden zum Thema Blogging erhalten zu haben. Aber immerhin 3% aller Human Resource Manager gaben in einer Umfrage der Gesellschaft für HR Management in diesem Jahr an, Angestellte wegen des Themas Blogging "diszipliniert" zu haben -- eine schwierige Situation.
Bei Intelliseek gibt es einige lesenswerte PDFs zum Thema Meinungsmanagement. Ich empfehle "Talking From the Inside Out: The Rise of Employee Bloggers" und "Rumors & Issues on the Internet".

Weiter demnächst im 2. Teil über Shopping Blogs...

Lesenswertes zum Thema
PDF: Hostways Untersuchung
PDF: The Rise of Employee Bloggers
PDF: Rumors & Issues on the Internet
PDF: Consumer-generated Media

:) <- Lutz

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