When you monitor the blogosphere, what do you see?

If you've read my posts here or were able to hear me speak at Small Business Marketing Unleashed in Houston, you know what a believer I am in businesses monitoring the blogosphere.  It's a must for businesses to know what bloggers are saying about them, because then they can respond.  But how do you know the correct way to respond?  It depends on what you find.

So by now you have hopefully started monitoring the blogosphere and have subscribed to Google Blog Searches for your business and/or have Google Alerts set up (for more info on how to start monitoring the blogosphere, check out this post).  Now you need to know how to use this information, based on what you are finding.  Here's four possibilities and how you can react:

1 - You find nothing.  You're monitoring the blogosphere, but no one is blogging about you.  If you're a small business, it's entirely possible that you'll be in this position.  You have an awareness problem, and in this scenario, blogging will help you boost your awareness, provided that you have the staff and time to blog.  If so, go for it!  If you are already blogging and still no one is blogging about you, then you probably need to spend more time OFF your blog, and work on engaging readers in THEIR space, not yours.

2 - You find very little, a mix of good and negative feedback.  This means that bloggers know about you, but aren't saying much.  This likely means that you aren't communicating with bloggers very well.  Make a point to respond to the bloggers that are mentioning you, focusing first on the bloggers that are evangelizing your business, as well as the ones that are complaining about you.  The fact that some bloggers are writing about you tells you that there IS an interest in your business, but you can likely make bloggers more interested, and positive about your business, if you spend more time on responding to and communicating with them.  Blogging will likely help here (if done correctly), but your main goal should be to strengthen your existing communication with bloggers.

3 - You find plenty of feedback from bloggers, most of it is positive.  This is the sweet spot, and if you are in this position, odds are you are already doing what you should be doing, and should just keep on truckin'.  No business can satisfy everyone, but if the majority of the people are evangelizing your business, then you are doing something right.  Just remember to stay connected to and respond to the bloggers that are talking about your business.  Yes even the ones that are slamming you ;)

4 - You find plenty of feedback from bloggers, most of it is negative.  This is a problem but you can work to solve it easily enough.  If you are in this situation, the odds are that you are doing nothing to respond to bloggers, and they aren't too pleased with your lack of communication.  Additionally, they are probably blogging to each other about how you won't respond, which is leading to even more negative blog posts. 

The good news is, if you'll start responding to these bloggers, you'll likely find that the tone of their posts will improve dramatically.  At this point, much of their negativity is likely simply coming from the fact that you are ignoring them.  When you start responding, you should see their posts become much more positive. 


But the key point here is to get in the habit of monitoring the blogosphere.  No matter what you find when you do (even if it's nothing), presents an opportunity for you to use the blogosphere to grow your business!