webb dialogues (8): extraface - Dave Coustan
Content is king. And in a fast-food publishing era, filtering quality (however it defined), compelling content becomes more and more daunting. Often we can sift through the buzzwords to identify what’s genuine and what’s not… but the craft of writing to communicate effectively, stylishly becomes more and more novel.
So instead of transitioning from Enlightenment to Romanticism, we merge them to create a poetic, data-driven blogosphere… — ok, that may be bit excessive.
But we took a moment to inquire more about the perspecitive of one particular content creator/strategist. Atlanta-based Dave Coustan (a.k.a. extraface) is currently an independent consultant who has some notable experience in communicating with online crowds through his work as Corporate Blogger with Earthlink (a top ISP in the States) (Earthling) and HowStuffWorks.com. Here’s his blog.
Five quick questions with Dave Coustan:
1. Most valued experience gained while at Earthlink?
As the company’s corporate blogger part of my role was to inform and remind decision makers of what we’d heard from users and to highlight relevant conversations going on in the industry as a whole. I value the chance I had to act as a conduit between EarthLink employees at all levels of the company and the users of EarthLink products. In any big company with lots of potential silos of information and people, it’s easy to lose sight of the importance of the user in every little decision.
2. Top 3 questions a company should ask itself before taking on a dedicated blog…
If it’s a general-purpose blog aimed at hosting conversations about the company with the outside world, here are a few thoughts:
A. Are we prepared to hear directly from our individual customers, without analysts, focus groups, surveys, or questionnaires acting as intermediaries?
B. Are we open to the possibility of making changes to how we do things based on what we may learn?
C. Do we have a brand that’s really who we are and what we strive to be as a collection of people, or do we just have a positioning statement?
3. Most interesting project/company/website right now?
I’m enjoying working with SuperDeluxe.com, helping them think through some new ways to use their blog. On the personal project front, I have a lot of things in the early stages of development and hope to launch alpha versions of at least two of them in ‘08.
4. Based on the recent uproar regarding Facebook Beacon how valid and easy to leverage is the concept of Fansumers?
The term “fansumer” kind of makes me cringe. It conjures up images of retail-crazed zombies to me. Beyond that, the lesson of the Beacon launch is that companies shouldn’t make assumptions about how their customers feel about information sharing. Most companies learned to follow opt-in policies when e-mail newsletters were their primary means for marketing to their base. It’s surprising that both the Facebook platform and the participating companies didn’t apply that thinking and seek a similar clearly delineated opt-in for something that involves sending out a marketing message on behalf of someone they do business with. That’s kind of a big “oops.”
When I went to try out the Facebook Fan page system for the first time, what struck me is that there’s no way within Facebook to use these new pages unless you explicitly declare yourself a “Fan” of a brand. I’d love to write on Coke’s wall that they should pay attention to the fans of the old Coke products made with cane sugar. If the reason they use corn syrup for everything nowadays is that it’s cheaper, why not develop a premium cola that costs more but is made with sugar? But alas, the only way I could get this message to Coke’s brand stewards is if I first told Facebook I’m a “Fan” of Coke. Shouldn’t I be allowed to talk to them even if my relationship with them is more complicated than “Fandom”? There’s an “it’s complicated” choice in Facebook to describe personal relationships — how about the same choice when signing up for Fan pages?
I think outside of the Facebook world there are plenty of examples of companies doing things to embrace the people who embrace them. I’m a Maker’s Mark (Bourbon) Ambassor, and have been continually impressed with their efforts to reward me for my loyalty. For Christmas this year they sent all of their ambassadors a really nice wax seal and candle kit, and when you visit their distillery they do all sorts of little things to make you feel appreciated.
5. Current state of the blogsphere, boring or exciting?
It’s hard to generalize about something as vast and disparate as the blogosphere. I’m bored with the endless histrionics involved with coverage of technology news, but I think that’s more about that scene than about blogs. As long as it’s still the case that at least every few days I come across someone I didn’t previously read who I enjoy enough to add to my RSS list, it’s still exciting to me.
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October 16th, 2011 at 4:10 am. Permalink.
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