Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk With Customers

Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, Wiley, 2006, $24.95

The fast global adoption of blogs has changed how companies communicate. Robert Scoble and Shel Israel describe how business blogs can help ensure customer loyalty through the technology of blogging. However, not all companies should blog.

Naked Conversations discusses several tips and strategies for blogging that can benefit companies. Scoble and Israel list five universal tips common with business blogs:

1. Talk, don’t sell.

2. Post often and be interesting.

3. Write on issues you know and care about.

4. Blogging saves money but costs time.

5. You get smarter by listening to what people tell you.

Employees blogging is a potential security risk. Enabling comments means relinquishing control to the customer; both are concerns for executives. Not all business blogs are external. The IT industry can benefit highly from internal blogging through intranets. For those companies capable of having two-way public conversations, the real power of blogging is during crisis.

Unlike the one-way conversation of PR, blogs can occur in real-time and allow a company to react to developing news and crisis. CIOs must examine the reward versus risk when allowing business blogging. Ultimately it must be determined, how much control can you afford your customers and employees?