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The new ways to engage

Fred Oliveira on March 21, 2008

Two years ago, Robert Scoble and Shel Israel documented in “Naked conversations” how blogs where changing businesses and their engagement with consumers. 2006 was in fact what you might call the year of the company blog. Companies left and right, big and small, opened blogs to engage in conversations with their costumers and fans. This brough the barrier of communication - previously assumed huge and unbreakable - down to waist height. Anyone with a little interest could get in touch with the real people behind companies, the decision makers, and make themselves - and their ideas - heard.

New ways of engaging with people

We’re seeing something similar now but at a hyper-level, through different, specialized channels. Companies are now engaging with their costumers through micro-blogging systems such as Twitter - in fact, just a few hours ago, Peachpit Press started following me on there. We have twitter accounts for our projects like Goplan and Totspot, and always recommend our clients and partners to do the same, because we know our audience of early adopters cares that we’re close.

Being on Twitter allows companies to engage in short (but sweet) conversations about their products. To provide instant notifications when something is wrong, or - much better -, when something exciting just happened. A feature or product launch, maybe. The possibilities are endless when companies start seeing customers as friends. A subtle term change, yes, but it has quite the impact.

Not all about Twitter

It’s not all about Twitter, though. We’re seeing social networking profiles being opened on Facebook and Myspace for companies - and people actually befriending these and becoming fans. You become a fan of something when you really actually care, so you can imagine the value of having people who care about you and your products, that you can talk to and get opinions and ideas from.

If two years ago we were having “naked conversations”, I can’t imagine where we’re going with this. These are exciting times. Want to talk to us? Both me and webreakstuff (the whole company) are on twitter.

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Comments on this post

Antonio Rosado

I thing the idea of “companies start seeing customers as friends” might have a huge effect on how business is made. And on bonding companies and clients. That is a great thought. Business bending really.

Chris Peters

I think a warning needs to go out to companies though. Twitter and social networking are great ways to engage with customers, but not necessarily with prospective customers. A customer decides when they’re friends with your company, not the other way around.

I’m currently working in a large company that wants to use some of these tactics. But my peers often get the wrong idea and want to use these services to spam people, not to create value for them.

(In other words, I’m jealous of small companies that “get it.” :))

Webreakstuff » Seen elsewhere this week

[...] focusing on leveraging the social media and new ways of communication. I wrote a post about the new ways to engage last week as well which you may want to read if you haven’t yet. And around the same area, [...]

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