kelvin quee

Communications have taken a drastic change, now that the Internet has democratise communications. Individuals are now empowered to not only voice their dissatisfaction, but will also group together to amplify their impact.

And, be forewarned, choose to ignore the above at your own peril.

I know, I know – You have probably heard of the above a million times. Both the New Media (blogs) and Traditional Media have predicted the fundamental, disruptive change that is about to rock the world.

But where are the signs pointing to it? We do not want symptoms. We do not want clues. We want to see it happening.

While Robert Scoble, famed for Naked Conversations which he co-authored with Shel Israel, may very well have the first, documented experience with a company (Microsoft) grappling with blogs, Jeff Jarvis had a classic encounter (archive here) with Dell which is well-worth investigating. The incident triggered responses from hundreds of people who had similar experiences with Dell. The reactions of Dell throughout the entire process is worth studying. This incident, Dell Hell, will no doubt serve as excellent, milestone case study for Customers Relations in the future.

First, take some time to read a white paper (direct link) by Market Sentinel, Onalytica and Immediate Future at Public Relations Online:

1) Blogs are influential
2) Bloggers tend to congregate
3) Blogs have more influece than traditional media

While so, I would like to extend upon what the white paper has built upon to reach the following:

1) Blogs may have negatively affected Dell’s stock prices
2) Blog audience can be influenced

Blogs may have negatively affected Dell’s stock prices

A More Complete Screenshot

The following is a screenshot of Google Finance showing the Dell’s stock prices immediately after Jeff Jarvis’s post on his blog. As you can see, Dell had a bullrun ever since 2002 but suffered a year-long dip ever since Jarvis’s post on 21 June 2005.

While I am definitely taking it simplistically here, as I will not be able to prove a relationship between Dell’s stock prices and Jarvis’s post, it is still a interesting coincidence worth exploring.

Since the factor that most influences stock prices is the market’s expectation of the Company’s future performance, it will not be unreasonable to think that blogs have tainted the market’s perception of Dell. More importantly, the blogs have had enough power to prompt major print publications around the world to further extend the consequential effect of Jarvis’s post, such as Business Week’s Hanging Up on Dell. Jarvis’s Open Letter to Michael Dell probably destined Dell for a major embarrassment.

Blog audience can be influenced

The Opinion Distribution bar above represents the entire audience of a particular blog. The small, green portion on the left is made up of people who supports the opinion of the blog. If you feel for Jarvis’s cause in his post about Dell, you belong here.

Similarly, the small, orange portion on the right is made up of people against the opinion of the blog. Therefore, if you do not agree with what Jarvis’s has written, in the sense that you are actually on Dell’s side, you belong here.

Both of these small groups of people are of opinions strong enough to actually comment on Jarvis’s blog or to even write an article on their own website/blog linking back to Jarvis’s post.

More importantly, we have a huge yellow bar which represents people who often do not have an opinion. These are people waiting to be influenced and it represents an opportunity for companies who want to influence the public’s perception about themselves.

What Can Companies Do?

1) Accept Blogs - There is no denying the influence of blogs. Most major companies are already using blogs in one way or another. IBM blogs, Sun blogs and even Microsoft blogs. In fact, Microsoft’s positive reactions to pressure from both internal and external bloggers have led to a greatly improve MSN Spaces.

2) Create alliances with chief influencers - Identity them. Do a search for them and see who has been writing about your product. More effectively, see who has been writing about your competitors. These bloggers are people you want to watch. These are people you want to influence. Link to them. Comment on their blogs. Show them you care about their opinion.

3) Have a blog - Even the obstinate Dell has one with One2One (since July 2006), though the reactions from bloggers haven’t been positive.

One year on from Dell Hell, how has the world changed? Have more companies started to accept the influence of blogs? Have more companies started a blog? If you haven’t started considering whether your company will benefit from the use of blogs and online media monitoring services, you should.

Blogs are channels in which individuals use to influence the mass. Bloggers can either be the spokesmen of your company or your arch enemy. Fortunately, most of the time, popular bloggers give honest, constructive feedback (like Guardian’s Technology blog).

You only need to listen.

References (besides the links above):

Dell Takes One Hell of a Blogging, Direct; 10/1/2005, Vol. 17 Issue 13, p10-10, 1/5p
How one man’s Weblog became Dell’s nightmare, Beth Snyder Bulik. B to B. Chicago: Sep 12, 2005.Vol.90, Iss. 11; pg. 47, 1 pgs
Blog of the Week: Jeff Jarvis’ BuzzMachine (Nielsen BuzzMetrics, Inc.)
MSN Spaces, First Take (A Jupiter Research Business Weblog)
What The F***2 is with Dell Technical Support?! (Jeremy Zawodny)
The impact of one blog on Dell (Business Week) (With revealing comments)

Kelvin Quee is a keen observer of the world of blogs and New Media. He is developing strategies on how companies can utilise them to their advantage. If you are interested in this topic, either to apply the methods or simply for research, let him know.