BzzAgent

It would almost seem logical to say that any company not paying some marketing attention to social media sites is losing out on a valuable opportunity. In fact, not paying attention to what consumers are saying about you may be actually hurting you in the end. Blogs have always been popular since the development of the internet; however, their ability to spread information has been somewhat limited. With the growth of social sites like MySpace and Facebook, it now only takes a few clicks until you can create your own posting or publish a link on your page to a friend's blog/video posting. In this manner, a funny or interesting blog/video can catch on like a wild-fire and be passed over a large network of people in a very short time frame. The supplemental reading this week (Harnessing the Power of the Oh-So-Social Web) probably best makes this point with its example of Dell and a customer who started blogging about a very negative experience. This one event sparked a passing of information that made Dell look bad. For this reason, Dell created the "Direct2Dell" blog to communicate directly with customers, recognizing the need to take part in a social network linked to the end user.

The issue is that companies have very little control over what consumers have to say about their products. However, this can been seen as a good thing if companies approach it the right way. What can be more valuable than direct, honest feedback from the consumer? My opinion is that a lot of managers/executives within companies don't want to hear what they are doing wrong, so that it doesn't hand them extra work to do to correct problems. And let's be honest....no one likes to be told that they are doing something wrong....it doesn't feel good.

I believe that BzzAgent needs to keep its blog site alive. For as much time and resources this site may require, it can also provide some extremely valuable information that can not be obtained through traditional methods. Instead of canceling the blog site altogether, BzzAgent should look into ways in which it can better take that information and make sense of it. I think BzzAgent needs to better determine what exactly the purpose is of its blog site. If it is simply using it to run "90 day" blogs to provide information about the workings of the company, then I really see this as a waste of time. It needs to blog about things that are important to the company which weigh heavily on the consumer. From my experience, consumers are very happy to provide feedback when they know someone is listening. In fact, studies have shown that consumers are more likely to purchase products from companies that provide surveys for feedback, because the consumers feel the company wants to make changes to benefit them. In the same respect, BzzAgent needs to use its blog site in a strategic marketing way, focusing on ways it can improve its systems and offerings. The supplemental article stated it best when it said "the potential benefits of direct and intimate customer relationships that social applications can provide are just too compelling for companies to deny." I truly believe in this statement and think that social networks provide one of the best ways to promote customercentric thinking within a company. After all, the use of social networks is only going to increase in the future....why not get onboard now???