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Blogs : The New Frontier for Customer Collaboration

Blogs range in scope from individual diaries to arms of political campaigns, media programs, and corporations; is it possible that this instantaneous publishing tool could also be used for research?

Since 2003, weblogs or blogs have gained prominence for their role in breaking, shaping, or spinning news stories. Recently, blogs were even considered the driving force behind the alleged "Rathergate" scandal involving Dan Rather of CBS and some memos used on the show 60 Minutes II.

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, blog readership shot up by 58% in 2004. In the May 2005 issue of Business Week magazine, an article titled "Blogs Will Change Your Business" included the statement that "there are some 9 million blogs, with 40,000 new ones popping up each day."

Now that blogs have captured the public's attention, companies need to seriously consider how they can put them to good use.

An article in US News called "Blogging Bosses" found that senior executives from Sun Microsystems, General Motors, HP and Boeing have started to write blogs. You may wonder why a senior executive would spend the time to write a daily, weekly or monthly commentary; however, the article found that blogging provided executives with a soap box upon which to promote their views while opening new channels of communication with their customers.

Some believe the corporate use of blogs will lead to a decrease in the popularity of the medium because it represents the corporate takeover of a tool designed for free personal expression. Those on the flipside believe that the use of blogs by organizations will add new voices and vitality to the medium.

What appears to really be happening is that blogs are growing in format and usage; they can no longer be categorized into just one type. Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, defines 22 different forms of weblogs, from personal to topical to corporate to video format.

Researchers may yet create another way to use blogs. Blogs are low cost vehicles for gaining immediate feedback, and can open doors to consumer insight that aren't available through traditional research methods.

One ubiquitous example of blogging as customer collaboration comes from a one man shop in Missouri. Pat Misterovich started blogging his ideas for turning a Pez candy dispenser into an MP3 player. Many comments and iterations later his blog captured the attention of the candy maker itself. All of this attention recently led to Pez candy signing a license agreement that allows Misterovich to develop and sell his MP3 player.

What is interesting about this story from a research perspective is that throughout the process Misterovich was conducting on-the-fly consumer research and collaborating with his target market even before he had finished the product.

Despite Misterovich's success story the challenge for most businesses is that their discrete nature makes them unlikely to share fully formed ideas for fear they will be seen, or stolen, by the competition.

The key is to find a balance between providing enough information to gain valuable consumer insight and giving away trade secrets. Blogs are here to stay - how can you use them in your business?

Posted on September 5, 2005
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