I met a senior brand manager from a confectionary company yesterday and showed her a blog which was talking about her brand. Some positive comments and some criticisms. She was exasperated.
I can understand why it is hard sometimes for marketing people to keep on top of all the information coming at them. But this situation was bizarre. The company firewall meant the senior brand manager was totally unaware and unable to see the blog mentioning her brand. It was not being monitored in any way. Plus she had not even seen the youtube videos about her brand. The attitude was we will get around to social media at some stage. Nor could she believe that people would want to spend time blogging about her brand.
My attitude is that if people are passionate enough about your brand to actually blog about it then you should be having a conversation with them or at least listening to what they are saying. The web is made up of networks which affect brands and if someone in your network is saying things about your brand, you should be aware of it and be coming up with ideas to take account of those views. It will make your marketing more relevant.
