You can’t front on that
posted by DL Byron on December 15, 2004
Earlier in the week, Marc Canter asked in a email thread, “what’s a BzzzAgent?” and I thought of what Scott and I said during our interview last month with the North Jersey Record (registration required) about blogging Clip-n-Seal
- “What’s important about blog marketing is you can’t fake it,” said D.L. Byron
- “You have to be who you are, or you’re going to get spotted.”
- “We want to sort of have more of a personal conversation with our market, and blogs are really sort of a personal medium,” said Scott Benish
Richard Murray examines Bzzz Agents at length, comparing them to corporate shills, and concludes that he’s skeptical and “it feels dirty.”
In a similar post, Peter Merholz writes about his disappointment with Tivo’s, “bizarre marketroid speak.”
For companies learning this new blogging medium, it’s that whole “conversation with your market,” thing from the Cluetrain Manifesto. Your market isn’t going to converse with you very long if you’re a lying shill, a marketing robot, or a PR flak (or all three combined).
If you’re going to market in the blogosphere, you’ve got to have cred. Marqui has cred because they’re transparent. Scoble vis-a-vis Microsoft has cred because he's transparent. Same thing with GM Small Block, Skybox, and Stonyfield blogs.
When it comes to the blogosphere, you can’t front on that.
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