The wisdom of blogs

INTERNET: Blogs and social networks like Facebook are playing a growing role in everyday life. So it’s not surprising that their influence is also being felt in business. That’s why large corporations are hiring executives to respond to comments and complaints appearing on interactive websites.

The new executives have titles like “director of social media”, “head of communities and communication” or “digital communications manager”. But do their jobs really differ from that of the press officer or public relations manager of pre-internet days?

Yes, says Andy Sernovitz, chief executive of the Blog Council , which represents heads of social media at large corporations. “It’s no longer just companies talking to the press, and customer service talking to customers. All these other people [have] showed up in the middle,” Sernovitz told the Financial Times.

"If you solve someone's problem on the phone, nobody knows. But if you solve it in a blog, thousands are satisfied."

Jeanette Gibson, director of new media for Cisco Systems , says that big companies now have more contact with customers, thanks to their comments and questions on the internet. “We’ve seen a shift from doing things the old way to now having conversions with our customers,” Gibson says.

Andy Sernovitz sees this new form of communication both as good public relations and as a way of saving money. “If you solve someone’s problem on the phone, nobody knows. If you solve that same problem in writing on a blog, it costs you no more, but thousands of people are satisfied,” Sernovitz points out. “And then, if 100 people never call because they found the answer, you very quickly get to multimillion-dollar savings.”