the hair of the blog that bit you

Another gem from The Economist (the best publication in the world for international news & analysis) on companies such as P&G, Diebold and Netflix, who are managing corporate reputation/PR by acknowledging the power of blogging to gauge the seriousness of bad news.

Firms, such as BuzzMetrics (who has agreed to merge with Intelliseek) specialize in analysing blogs for business. These firms estimate there are about 27 million blogs online, which can be harnessed as another tool for companies to get a sense of customer satisfaction or common complaints about their products.

They even tracked down ex-CMPer Steve Rubel, of Micropersuasion fame, who recommends an intriguing "lockbox blog" concept for crisis corporate communication that is hidden behind an internet firewall, but can be made visible to the public at short notice.

In an age where disgruntled customers are more likely to blog about their experience than write a letter to the customer service department, companies can use the transparency of the Internet to uncover issues before they blow up into a crisis.

Consider it the "morning-after ramos fizz" approach to mitigating a PR hangover, rather than blogs just as a bitter pill to swallow.