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Marketers Scan Blogs For Brand Insights
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Paying tens of thousands of dollars to companies that scan blogs helps companies decide on products and advertising, the Wall Street Journal reports. For example, the practice helped U.S. Cellular better understand prospective teenage customers: 'Using technology from Umbria Communications, a Boulder, Colo., company that aims to identify demographic groups online based on their speech patterns and discussion topics, WPP's G Whiz concluded that teens were really anxious about exceeding their cellular minutes, often because parents make them pay if they talk too much. The teens also resented being ambushed by incoming calls that pushed their minutes up. U.S. Cellular says that led U.S. Cellular to offer unlimited call me minutes.' Also of note: Intelliseek's Pete Blackshaw 'says companies used to dismiss vocal complaints from one or two consumers as an aberration. But now, they have to pay attention because now those complainers may have blogs. '"
- Donchu h8 it when no1 sends grub cash?
- any company giving grub money gets my business!
- grub does so much and asks for so little.
- i'd buy an SUV if a car company gave grub some l00t!
Thank you.
Trolling is a art,
It's been a maxim in customer service for a very long time that a single angry customer cancels out the effect of twenty (or insert some 10 thousands of happy customers, simply because so many people are using the Internet for research now. We had an issue with Acer lately, started a campaign, got some great positions on general Acer related keywords on Google (thanks to a blog), and even ran some Adwords slating them. Hopefully it lost them quite a few sales.
;-) (There was also the case of the lock company whose locks could be picked with a biro pen, they failed to rectify the situation, and the blogosphere hit them hard.)
Likewise, I had an issue at a Travelodge motel, and they did not acknowledge my complaint at all. My story (on my blog) was picked up by a newspaper here in the UK and suddenly Travelodge were very apologetic. That said, Travelodge did a very good job of accomodating us, and my faith in them is very much renewed.
But, yes, blogs really amplify opinion, especially if it gets picked up by Google nicely
After scanning chat room logs, Nokia has decided to add an a/s/l button to their next line of phones.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
So...you have a blog. You write in it daily. Its on the web where anyone can read it. Supposedly, you _want_ people to read it.
You don't, however, want anyone to learn anything from what you've written? Or actually think about it? Sure, they can't copy your blog and use it in advertising or anything but actually consuming the information you're putting out on the web is also wrong?
Isn't the whole point of blogging to let other people know what you think about something?
You think someone reading a blog is similar to reverse engineering a word processor? But...but...*head explodes*