Ross Mayfield, from the wiki firm SocialText, just wrote a good post about lessons learned from conflict in the blogosphere. The first step is being willing to enter into the conversation that is the blogosphere – many organizations are afraid to do that. They are afraid of inconsistent messages put out by anyone other than their official PR arm, they are afraid of nasty comments being posted by readers, I think they are afraid of the way that the low barrier to entry into blogging enables participation by parties other than the elite.

That said, more and more organizations are making that leap into being more open and engaging in dialogue. It is then from that perspective that Mayfield offers some good advice based on the experiences of companies who came through tumultuous times online and look great now. In particular he highlights some bullet points from Mena Trott, a founder of the blogging software company SixApart. Those points are:

• Read what your customers have to say
• Ignore the tone of nasty complaints, but pay attention to the underlying messages
• Understand that the people giving feedback represent many who remain silent
• Don’t spend too much energy on distractions
• Don’t be afraid to communicate
• Trust your customers

Mayfield concludes his summary of several similar cases with these words:

The common theme is that good communication and sharing the process provides a way for your community to be included in the outcome.

That’s great advice for engagement with the blogosphere, whether you are in crisis or not.

Mayfield’s discussion of SixApart and other examples is here, Trott’s original article with more in depth discussion of the above points is here.

Technorati Tags: blogs, blogosphere, control, communication, strategy, SixApart