By Michael Alan Hamlin

Corporations like to be in control of their communications. When marketing collateral is developed, news releases written, or web copy crafted, it typically will go through several layers of review to ensure that it is “on message.” The arrival of Web 2.0 has made controlling the distribution of the message easier and more difficult at the same time. But it has also fundamentally altered the dynamic of communications.

Before Web 2.0, corporate communications were mostly one way. Suits talked and customers listened. Today, the communications are two way, and the customers talk back. Word-of-mouth has been around as long as people have traded products and services, but distribution of customers’ view of corporations’ products and services was mostly limited to networks of friends, fan clubs, and consumer groups. No more.

“We have entered an age of more open, honest and authentic corporate communications,” corporate blogging consultant and author Debbie Weil writes in an updated version of her best-selling book, The Corporate Blogging Book. “Packaged, filtered, controlled conversations are out,” she advises. “Open, two-way less than-perfect communications with your customers and employees are in.”

To illustrate the dramatic difference in the way corporations should be communicating with stakeholders today and how they did before Web 2.0, Weil suggests it’s as if big business “has finally caught up with the baby boomer’s approach to relationships and to parenting. Listen, learn, debate, be willing to change, admit mistakes, be equals with your children, be fair to others with whom you have an adversarial relationship,” she explains. Because, “Acting like a dictator will get you nowhere.”

Top firms are figuring this out. Weil points to examples such as Boeing, GM, HP, Intel, and Sun Microsystems. These and many other companies are relying on a basket of Web 2.0 tools to communicate. They include social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, which have grown dramatically in very short periods. But while social networks provide the opportunity to interact with customers, employees, and other stakeholders, Weil cautions executives that they are “just playing” with these sites because they don’t control them. That means that corporations on these social networks must play by the rules that their owners and executives devise (although the rules are frequently challenged by social network users).

Weren’t we just arguing that corporations must give up control of meaningful, interactive communications? Yes, but not more control than us baby boomers gave up when we decided to be more thoughtful parents than our parents. We still made decisions for our kids. And for the most part, we did set the rules while they grew up and adjusted them as our children matured and developed.

Corporations still ultimately control the products and services they develop, and how they support them. Of course, they adjust like parents do to feedback from customers, reviewers, and sometimes regulatory authorities. And they can still exert some control, according to Weir, over their communications. Even better, corporations can respond faster and more directly to fast-breaking news and sudden unexpected events thanks to Web 2.0 tools.

A measure of control, however, is provided by corporate blogs, which Weil describes as an “e-newsletter, a viral marketing campaign, an open channel through which your customers can talk to you and your own news station all rolled up into one. Now wrap that into a lowcost, easy-to-use, always fresh Website. That’s what effective corporate blogging is.” She adds that blogs can be available to anyone on the Web, or used internally for project management and information sharing. Open blogging provides a means to establish credible, interactive relationships with customers; inward blogging provides a channel for always on interactive communications with employees, partners, and suppliers.

To many, blogs seem dated given the popularity of social network sites. But the reality according to Weil is that they are more relevant than ever. In his forward to Weil’s book,
General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz agrees: “I can’t tell you how many times I felt handcuffed when a story broke that was blatantly untrue. (At least in my opinion.) Not any more. When the idea of blogging was first presented to me, I jumped at the opportunity,” he writes.

Why? Because blogs enable “telling a story as I see it, without a filter, and in turn, receiving unvarnished feedback.” And that’s the new control, according to Weil.

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