As for companies being afraid to speak through real people online, I can from our three weeks’ experience say that the response from our customer has been overtly positive compared to our expectations (telecomms IS anyway the 2nd most complained industry in the world). We have around 10 bloggers writing for the AIVO blog and among them also there was a fair amount of suspicion as to whether people would clog their emails or attack them personally via online or even physically. The fear stems from the feedback our customer service gets and they way Sonera gets treated on forums, etc.

This fear is also a bit out of proportion, since all the times I have seen a company being viciously attacked online is where they have tried to conceal information and pretended to be something else than they were (sony psp flog, anyone)? And even when companies get attacked, it is companies, not individual, workers within the companies, especially if they’re not top management and therefore can be related to more readily by the regular folk. Inboxes haven’t been swelling either, even when I have sent people email from my personal work mail stating that their ideas have not passed our examination because of inappropriatedness etc.

Bottom line I think is: for the most part, people don’t attack people, they relate to them. Which is why brands and companies should speak to people more via people, not press releases and ads.

~s

It’s so much more difficult to attack a real person even online, than a company, so I also believe that people representing their companies, would mainly only do good.

Do you have any examples that an online community would have attacked against a person who represented a company with their own name? (and was not the CEO or the owner…)

I have “intercepted” a few conversations about a brand and they have always changed direction or responded to me and continued the conversation. But always it has been a positive experience for everybody, even though the threads have been a bit hostile in the beginning.