In part one of this series we discussed a post made by Matt Cutts on corporate blogging. We went over the first point he made in his post, regarding leaving yourself wiggle room on deadlines. Now, let’s go over the second point, about how to handle yourself when dealing with or talking about a competitor. As Matt put it, never trash talk a competitor – but what does that really mean?
Most corporate bloggers are savvy enough to understand that trash talk has no place in a blog. Even if you are riding high on success and you have the world at your feet, there is no need to even mention your competitors. Trash talking them will actually end up hurting you more than them and once you leave a bad taste in your audience’s mouth, getting rid of it is nearly impossible. Let’s illustrate this point with a scenario.
Let’s say that Business Owner A has a corporate blog that gets a good deal of traffic and covers company news, as well as a few other topics. On Monday, Business Owner B decides to start an ad campaign that will directly effect the revenue of Business Owner A. The first reaction for many is to lash out and belittle the efforts of Business Owner B.
So, that’s exactly what Business Owner A does. They devote several posts of their blog to trashing B, and their product or service. Instead of getting the attention away from B’s ad campaign, all that A has managed to accomplish is giving them more traffic from readers that want to see what all of the fuss is about.
The second effect is that Business Owner A now seems a bit whiny and definitely unprofessional. Competing ad campaigns are common and their readers are savvy enough to figure out that the posts are being fueled largely by sour grapes. The overall image of Business Owner A has now been tarnished, and readers leave the blog as a result.
Now, instead of circumventing the ad campaign launched by Business Owner B, all that A has managed to do was to hand them new visitors on a platter. They managed to hurt their own business and will forever be remembered as poor sports. All of this could have been avoided by simply never mentioning Business Owner B in the first place.
No matter if a competitor is trashing you, dragging your company through the mud, or competing aggressively against you – never trash them in the public eye. The only one that will end up wearing egg on their faces is you. Remember to take the High Road, no matter what – and you’ll end up reaping the benefits. Readers are not stupid, and they do understand more about your business than you think they do.
Don’t give your readers the chance to see you in a bad light. Remember that professionalism is key if you want to establish yourself as an authority. Whining, complaining and trash talk have no place on your corporate blog.
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Originally posted 2008-11-17 05:24:55. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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