Engagement Sometimes Surprises

I spent my birthday yesterday engaging and digging deeper into my last blog post. It generated a lot of discussion, both on the site and through private emails. And while at first I felt myself wavering on some of my points, I'm now more adamant than ever.

To bring you up to speed, a simple marketing podcast guy (played by me) used his blog for The BeanCast (a really cool show that you should listen to, by the way) to offer some blogger outreach tips to the 4As. A lot of good conversation ensued, with the basic understanding that sometime outreach makes no sense when the blogger in question is simply abusive and/or grandstanding.

But back the truck up! How do we know the difference until we engage?

Assuming the Worst, Gets You the Worst

This point was clearly made by our very own Bill Green, from the blog Make the Logo Bigger. He sent me an email that pointed out that a certain blogger who was heavily singled out in Ms. Hill's speech was, in fact, a caring, intelligent, knowledgeable individual who did indeed know the business and was probably more qualified to be calling the 4As a "WankFest" than just about anyone else out there.

And so I investigated and you know what? The man really is all this and more. His credential impressed me so much that I've invited Mr. George Parker from AdScam/The Horror! to be on my show this coming week.

At Least Try To Reach Out

Look, I don't want to get into a debate here about Mr. Parker's tactics on his blog. I certainly don't use profanity on my site or show, but I'm not going to say one approach is right and the other wrong. Nor do I want to rehash Ms. Hill's speech. I think we've done that ad nauseum. But I think it's worth repeating the point about engaging first before dismissing.

No matter what people say about you or how they say it, it's worth at least an attempt at meaningful engagement. It's worth getting to the heart of the criticism and seeing if there's something for you to respond to in a non-defensive way.

Show Your Listening Side

Brands spend far too much time fearing their customers and the power they wield. Yet a careful and considered response to a criticism may have find a person with a lot of good points to made. If handled correctly, you end up showing what your brand is about instead just doing more telling without action. And we all should know the important distinction there...or at least, I hope you all do.

I invited Ms. Hill to listen to the show this coming week (via Twitter) and I hope she will take me up on it. Because listening is always the first step in understand the power of online engagement. It's time we all started figuring that out.