Customer Reviews

Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers

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On the Flight down, I read Naked Coversations by Shel Isreal and Robert Scoble. I had heard Shel speak at the Association of Internet Marketers. I always like reading books from authors I have heard speak.

It is an excellent book. I am passionate about business blogs. I truly believe they have value for a business. The book re-affirms this. Naked Coversations is easy to read, fast and well organized. It combines advice on blogging (and why blogs help companies) with stories of real bloggers.

Blogs have dangers but those dangers tend to be over rated. Not blogging is a greter danger. As I have said many times, blogs are a new media. Companies that ignore it do so at great peril. At the same time, blogs cannot be blatant self or company promotion - readers (and other bloggers see right through that and can decimate a company).

This book ranks an 8 out of 10 on the Jim Estill Scale (and I am a tough marker). How do I know if a book is good? If I make a change as a result. I turned off word verification on my blog to make it easier to comment (I still review all comments and don't let spam through but am trying to make it easier to have a conversation). I get twice as many emails as comments on my blog as a result of my blog. The book drives home that comments and coversations are good.

I also know a book is good if I buy multiple copies for people that I think should read it. And in this case I did.

What do you call a low-cost tool you can use to communicate with your customers, investors, employees and other stakeholders individually and simultaneously? Naked Conversations co-authors Robert Scoble and Shel Israel call it a blog.

Both "A-List" bloggers, the authors admit their bias as "blogging champions" who deem blogs essential for business. They passionately document the right - and wrong - way to blog. Their advice ranges from the broad, be authentic - not corporate, to the specific, how to choose a title for your blog.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses (including 40 companies from the Fortune 500 list) have jumped on the blogging bandwagon. How do you know if it's right for yours? The bottom line is this: If your customers want a blog, you better start one before someone else starts one about you.

Although the book was written as things like RSS and podcasting were just emerging, much of the advice in the book will not soon be dated. If you think a blog might be right for your company, this book belongs on a short list of resources that you can't afford to ignore.

Enjoyed this book immensely. It opened my eyes on the world of blogging and why I should be interested. Particulary like the last section describing the new technologies that will be affecting the blog world. As a result of reading this book, I have suggested to a number of my colleagues that they look into blogging.