Today is August 20th, 2009, eleven days since the following comment has been added for public viewing to a blog post featured on the front page of a local service vendor's blog...
'Anonymous' said...
"Hank! I gave you soooo many chances. You don't return my calls or text messages. You said you'd pay the [outstanding debts] BUT YOU LIED! And now my [certification] is suspended, and I have to pay around $300 to get it back! If you'd just paid the fines on time it would have been $125 tops maybe. Now I'm going to blog until you contact me and pay me back. [Names and a few details changed to protect what's left of this vendor's privacy.]
Post date: April 9, 2009 7:37 PM
Posted by 'Anonymous'... So apparently the blog settings have been set so that anyone can leave a comment and they don't even need to provide a valid e-mail address and identity. Which is fine, but the site should really be moderated effectively and updated routinely. (The blog post is dated Oct. 4, 2008--the last posting to the blog since then!)
I will add that, to this vendor's credit, I found him through social media marketing and an ideal scenario... I was following some online reading and research regarding some personal interests, and I discovered that a colleague follows the vendor's Twitter feed. The Twitter feed led me to the vendor's website. Not a bad website either considering the line of work that the vendor is in. Then, I noticed that the vendor had a blog, and I was curious about the sorts of information that would be shared by such a vendor. Every do-it-yourselfer social media dabbler's dream! As a potential customer, I was being brand-initiated, engaged, and sold. Yeah, then so...
I found the posting with the comment on the first page of the blog, and now this vendor has taken a real big hit with me in credibility. As a matter of fact, since apparently his operation may be coming apart the seams (i.e., he can't pay debts or he doesn't keep his word or he just can't maintain relationships well enough to avoid vengeful comments and, apparently, he doesn't know how to effectively manage his social media marketing tools), now I am thinking that I will just avoid his services and business-to-business networking with him altogether.
Not to be overly-critical... The vendor may be an upstanding person and just a bit in over his head with the myriad applications and requirements to successfully implement social media marketing. It's understandable. Social media tools strive to be simple, but with the ever-expanding drive to add more value through building in as many features as possible and with the growing concerns about privacy and identity controls in these tools, social media resources can be a challenge to configure properly and manage professionally. Social media branding, promotions, and e-commerce are very powerful and cost-effective strategies, so they should be embraced. Yet, when it comes to sustaining the value of your business brand and the loyalty of your customers, as is always the case when growing a business, social media should be executed with due diligence and maintained with best practices--perhaps even with professional experience and expertise. Regardless of the tactic and it's apparent value or potential cost-effectiveness, it seems that all too often the mere time required to actually execute such tactics effectively is often underestimated and ultimately neglected.
To put a cherry on top of this one, I did this vendor the courtesy of giving him a call and leaving him a voicemail message advising him that he should keep an eye on his blog comments and/or change the blog's settings and/or chat with me regarding my consultation services for business growth strategies and effective execution of social media marketing. I wish him the best of luck and the good fortune that comes from minding the shop.
