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Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/cxoextra/0,3800005416,39166394,00.htm

CEOs told 'blog and embrace web 2.0'
It's the future...

By Will Sturgeon

Published: Friday 16 March 2007

Companies must take advantage of web 2.0 technology if they are to grow their brands and their revenues.

However, a better understanding of these technologies is also essential for companies to avoid the pitfalls which exist for major brands in an age of blogging and user-generated content.

Gartner analyst Scott Nelson told silicon.com: "Customers can become your worst nightmare if they choose to share a bad experience on the web."

Nelson said one angry customer can now make their feelings felt far more effectively via the internet than has ever been the case in the past. So companies must become smarter about the way they monitor their brands and think about how they are represented in blogs, and should encourage their PR teams and IT teams to work more closely in monitoring the web.

IT and PR must also buddy up if companies are to be prepared for crisis management. Gartner's Mark Raskino said problems which arise that could damage the brand will inevitably have a tech element, whether it is auditing emails to better-understand the timeline or the source of the problem, or whether it is ensuring details on corporate websites are up-to-date and well-maintained.

Raskino said IT and PR are two functions within the business which are often seen as being poles apart but added they should learn to work together.

One project both departments should have a shared-responsibility for is setting up blogs, said Raskino. "Make sure you give your CEO the opportunity to blog," he said.

However, Drew Benvie, resident blogging expert at PR company Lewis, told silicon.com it shouldn't be assumed a CEO blog is going to be an instant hit.

Benvie said: "A CEO should only be blogging if they have something interesting to say that their customers and their stakeholders want to hear."

And it won't be right for all companies, Benvie said: "A CEO has to embrace transparency. If a company is transparent in everything it does then that will fit well with a blog. They must be open, for example, about how their product performs and they must take reader feedback."

That could mean the blogging becomes an extension of wider reform within the company in terms of how it presents itself to the outside world.

Benvie said: "It's not that companies can't be transparent but they have to realise how much work must go in to making it happen. It won't happen overnight."