I was talking with some PR folks about blogging
policies recently and one of them asked pointedly “what is Robert Scoble’s
job?” Before I could even respond,
someone else in the room chimed in with, “he’s one of Microsoft’s 'brand
evangelists'.” There’s
always one in the group. Conceptually
speaking, it’s hard to argue with that, I follow Robert’s stuff just like
everyone else and he is indeed becoming increasingly synonymous with the
Microsoft brand, at least amongst us bloggers.
The conversation continued and the next
question was naturally along the lines of “well, how do you know if bloggers, like
Scoble, are actually making an impact?” There’s
always one in the group. Seriously, it’s
a difficult question. I immediately started
pointing at a variety of complicated metrics (e.g., Technorati cosmos, Bloglines readership, anecdotal evidence, etc.), and while I think I answered
the question sufficiently, I personally didn’t feel like I had a solid response
for this one.
After the conversation I returned to my desk and
started trolling Scobleizer to see if this was something he had previously
addressed – little did I know that the answer to this question
was actually on Jeremy Zawodny’s Blog.
Jeremy is arguably one of Yahoo’s biggest brand evangelists, or better yet technical evangelists, and over the weekend he posted, err, posed a simple question: "Does
reading my blog affect your perception of Yahoo?"
“This has been a repeated source of discussion and some debate among some folks at work as well as bloggers at a few other companies. So I figure I'll just ask the simple questions here--in this very unscientific self-selecting and ultimately meaningless forum. My goal is to get a bit more understanding how my writing about my job, workplace, and employer matters.”
Jeremy’s post elicited
responses from some 50 readers, most of which said yes, his writing has had a
measurable impact on their perception of Yahoo – it just required someone to
ask the question. No cross linking figure, trackback
total or subscriber number can complete with a person simply saying yes, you’ve
made a difference in my perception. Perhaps
it’s a broad assumption on my part, but I can’t imagine Scoble’s readers would
respond much differently.
For what it’s worth, it’s an
insightful read and I’d encourage companies of all sizes to start looking for
ways they can follow Microsoft and Yahoo’s lead and begin identifying and
supporting their own brand evangelists...
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