In the December 2007 issue of Fast Company magazine (you read it, right? if not, subscribe today!), Robert Scoble wrote about the ways that presidential candidates are using New Media to attract an audience. Blogging, texting, video, webcasting, social networking, and tracking. Businesses can take a cue from this starfish – Scoble’s Starfish. This multi-legged strategy can be used to get people talking about you; coming to you; bringing others to you. (This strategy only works if it allows the consumer to have a conversation with you in the manner they want).

Some folks want all info on their phone (especially those iPhone fanatics). Some want to have a forum. Some will want to share with content they help create. No one way works for everyone. Let your audience decide.

(Google “scoble starfish” without the quotes and see the results.) Scoble has 2 videos where he discusses the starfish (see here). The diagram is on Flickr, but wordpress prevents me from showing it.
Robert Scoble is a blogger and author of a book on blogging titled Naked Conversations.

I blog for a trade journal; a trade association; my clients and here about sales & marketing. (Soon I’ll be blogging for another industry media group; the industry being telecommunications). Last night at the AMA Tampa Bay New Media Night, I sat with 11 people to discuss blogging. We were led by Deana Goldasich from Magnetic. The only bloggers at the table did NOT work for corporate. My eyes were opened to how difficult open communication is for corporate. Lawyers, PR, executives — all have to review and approve.

Blogging is about having a conversation about your industry, marketplace, customers, products and services. It needs to be Authentic.

It does not need to be 2-way. Most of my conversations happen off the blog in email or phone calls. (Rarely do people want to “go on record”).

Marketing is about Story-telling. Blogs and New Media are just another way to tell the story to a different audience.

Deana’s suggestion was a book, The Corporate Blogging Book by Debbie Weil. I went searching for the top corporate blogs and found this list for 2007, 2006, and 2005. (I could not find the top 10 list on Technorati, but then I did not spend much time looking either, since Google is my best friend ever!)

I found a couple of resources for the PR and Corporate people:

1. Top 10 Risks for Corporate Blogs
2. New ROI of blogging report from Forrester

We ended the night discussing whether blogging was over. My opinion is that companies that do not reach out to their community / customers / marketplace will have to compete on price alone. Consumers want to hear authentic stories about how their purchase is helping the world or makes them smarter or high-class (plainly, the purchase needs to be justified). Traditional Media doesn’t work as well in our changing and fragmented culture, so New Media will have to be incorporated.