In the minute that has elapsed since I sat down to write this column, PubSub reports that the blogosphere grew by nearly 1,000 new posts. And that's just on a Sunday.
PubSub, Feedster and Technorati to locate where the hubs of evangelists gather. Then get a sense for the scale of their networks by drawing a blog map. Your goal here is to find who your Mike Kaltschnees are.
- Listen: Once you've honed in on who your online influencers are, you need to listen to them actively. Know what makes them tick. Why are they enthusiastic about your company and products? What commonalities do they share? At CooperKatz & Company, we pull together all of this chatter on a dashboard where we listen, observe, annotate and share this information with clients.
- Engage: Once you've located your brand evangelists and fully understand how influential they are, you are ready to engage them in a dialogue. This can be as simple as starting an email conversation to build rapport. A more powerful venue, however, is launching your own blog so that your employees can engage customers in a transparent dialogue that everyone can see and participate in.
- Empower: At the highest level, companies that are fortunate enough to have very vocal raving fans can try to hatch marketing programs that empower these consumers to shepherd your message. This might even entail giving them the right to blog on your site. That's what CooperKatz and Vespa are currently working on with VespaBlogs.com. When it launches later this summer, VespaBlogs will feature two different blogs on lifestyle issues that are written by Vespa brand evangelists. Customer evangelist marketing, provided it's truly authentic, can have a tremendous impact on your brand. When customers can see and feel the passion coming from fellow birds of a feather, they are more likely to flock together. Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.
He authors the
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