B2B demand generation | Err on the side of release on all non SPAM blog comments
(Updated to correct title - Director of Content to Vice President of Content. We apologize for the error.)
An incident happened late last week I’d like to share. Companies ought to embrace negative comments.
I’d written a favorable comment about a certain revenue performance management software
company‘s email grading tool and compared positively it to Hubspot‘s websitegrader.com.
I was chatting on Twitter with the Vice President of Content at their biggest competitor when an email came it about my comment. It said my comment was “Not approved.”
I was very surprised - it was a positive comment - and told the person with whom I was conversing. He shared my surprise and asked to see it.
I thought carefully whether or not I should share it with this competitor - did it contain trade secrets? It clearly did not, so I shared it. He then asked if he could write a blog post about it. I agreed - it is an important marketing issue and no trade secrets were divulged.
Soon after, my phone rang. It was the lady who rejected my comment. She was very upset that I had shared it with their competitor. It was sad, as I had a long-term relationship with this company. She felt I had violated a non-disclosure agreement. (I adamantly disagree! Non-disclosures protect trade-secrets and customer info, not the words “Not approved” on a blog comment.)
Here’s the marketing take-way: Err on the side of letting comments through on your blog - even negative comments.
A personal example illustrates why. One of my blog posts, 5 Marketing Lessons from “Breaking Bad.” was soundly criticized for cheapening the show. I thought long and hard, because he was criticizing me severely. But I let it through. What happened next was very interesting. Comments started coming in fast and furious - all coming to my defense.
Another marketing-takeaway: Let negative comments through as most will come to your defense. Negative comments stimulate discussions.
Next time you get a negative blog comment, let it through.
What do you think? We love comments and those who share.
“If more companies listened to (Find New Customers) a lot more would be sold.” Dan McDade, Pointclear.
