How to handle citizen marketers

Guy Kawasaki interviews Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell, authors of the new book "Citizen Marketers" and the blog "Church of the Consumer."

Guy asks the pair how companies should handle events like the Diet Coke-Mentos video.

Answer: There are three different ways to respond to amateur grassroots efforts like that:

1. Say nothing and let the citizen marketers have their time in the spotlight. It’s a safe and conservative approach.

2. Use your company website or blog to point to the citizen marketers in the spirit of “what people are saying about us.” This opens the door to ceding control, and that’s a good step. Just remember that citizen marketers don’t follow instructions. This approach requires company spokespeople to have a sense of humor. That wasn’t the case with the Coke, whose spokesperson was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as scolding people for not drinking their precious beverage!

3. Quickly build a program around what’s happening. It can be beneficial but also tricky because it can taint the grassroots nature of what’s happening. Keep it simple. The “firecracker” nature of something like Diet Coke and Mentos has a short half-life. Better to openly solicit ideas from the people or community involved and keep it simple. Follow the lead of the community. And keep the company lawyers locked in a cage.

6 Marketers: Why Blogging Matters

Churbuck.com has a post up with 6 marketing professionals opinions on blogs for corporations.

#1 - PR and Blogging – A Love Story or Peaceful Coexistence 

Dan Greenfield  is vice president of corporate communications at EarthLink. 

"We are living an age where boundaries are collapsing, definitions are changing and roles are combining.  Blogging and PR need each other, belong with each other, even though they can sometimes appear to be working against each other."

 #2 – Blogging and the “new influencers”

Eric Kintz is VP, Global Marketing Strategy at Hewlett-Packard.

"Marketers will need to identify first the new key blogger-influencers in their space, using tools likeAlexa or Technorati, and treat them more and more like some of the other influencing constituencies such as analysts or journalists."

 #3 – The role of blogging in the changing world of advertising

Will Waugh is Senior Director, Communications – ANA.

"The utilization of blogs is critical, particularly in a growing world where social currency is more and more important. They are powerful communication and business tools which can connect with a variety of audiences for your brands/products/services. These audiences range from core customers to prospects to influencers to investors."

 #4 – The role of blogging as part of an integrated web strategy

David Churbuck is Vice President, Global Web Marketing at Lenovo.

"In context, a blog is an efficient way for a corporation to quickly publish onto the Internet and through a syndication pipeline, messages that may need rapid dissemination or a more personal voice than the corporate online edifices represented by so-called traditional web sites. Taken as a “light” content management system, blogs can be regarded as loosely associated sites that can have a strong effect on the organization’s primary web presence."

#5 - Drive Harmony in Conversational Touchpoints

Pete Blackshaw is Chief Marketing Officer of Nielsen BuzzMetrics

"Blogging is a great way to put a fresh new face on a corporate structure, but the rest of the organization can't be too far behind.  As corporate leaders, we need to develop the right strategies and tactics to ignite and catalyze positive change leveraging blog tools and methods while keeping the rest of the organization in tow."

#6 - Creativity, Innovation + Blogging

David Armano is Creative VP at Digitas.

"Looking back at my blog after nearly eight months, I realize that in addition to building a community and gaining momentum—I have created a the ultimate digital sketchbook for myself. Blogging is a great way to document your creative process for future reference for say, writing a book."