Outsourcing authenticity?
The blogosphere is very good at filtering signals from noise (see Seth Godin’s blog on the signal to noise ratio). To the uninitiated the signal to noise ratio in 50 million + blogs is pretty poor. But the granular searches provided by Google, Technorati, Digg etc allow you to reach really targeted traffic when you need it.
Established offline business are often keen to register in the brave new world of blogs, and make noise in social networking land. But these businesses have no real sense of engagement with this world, in fact their business models don’t really fit in this world. But instead of reinventing their businesses, they force their way in by retaining agencies who blog on their behalf (pr spam - aagh!). They outsource the building of MySpace pages, and defend their brands on Facebook and Twittr. But with half-hearted, out-sourced engagement with new-marketing, you end up with a Meatball Sundae
You can’t outsource the heart of your business. If new marketing is so painful and counter-intuitive for your business, my advice would be to leave it alone. The online community is surprisingly good at sniffing insincerity, so outsource all the dull repetitive bits of your business, or the technology that runs websites, or the process of adding content, but the actual content must be authentic.
Part of the problem is that established offline businesses are overwhelmed by the scale of the task. As one client put it (not unreasonably), “I just don’t have the time to spend hours a day just playing catch-up with all the new technologies”. The answer is to concentrate on providing deep product knowledge using one online channel. That might be an artisan blog giving valuable insight into an arcane industry (Thomas Mahon’s inside view of Saville Row), or it might be a coffee blog communicating the passion and insight of a professional roaster (David Warr).
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