I still clearly remember the day I was so helpless against this ink cartridge company, that was about 6 years ago when I worked as an IT manager.

I tried to save the company money by buying no-brand laser catridges for the company’s color printers.  What happened after I install those laser cartridges was beyond nightmare.  The cartridges caused some kind of havoc on the color laser printer, causing prints to come out weird and in the end I even sent the ink cartridge company photos of what their faulty cartridges caused.

Even after I replaced with original HP cartridges, the prints were still lacking, somehow it had clearly damaged the laser printer.

The worst part was the company’s customer service person told me that they would refund money for the cartridges, they never did even after I sent them back the bad toners.

I got furiously mad and I couldn’t do anything about it.  It was also too late to fight through my credit card companies.

I am sure many many other people experienced the same things and wonder why that business is still in business, more of a scam to me than anything.

So what?

Well, these days companies pay close attention to bloggers and if something like that happens, I just blog it.  I don’t have to cuss at the customer service people, I just blog it all so everyone in the world will know about it.

The great thing about blogging is that it’s not about your problems, it’s also about others who are experiencing the same things.

If you think about how many people actually “read” your blog post over a period of a year, you would be surprised what kind of effect a blog post by someone can have.  It can potentially be devastating for the company’s revenue and perhaps even close them down for good.

I think bloggers in general help consumers get attention if they are not treated right.

Blog posts can also be mis-used by the wrong people who “make up” stories.  That is also leveraged by other bloggers if the topic is important enough.

In the end, bloggers  are only the “voice” of  consumers and regular Joes/Janes like you and me, a typical person who lives through life.  That’s why I love blogging.

I’ve personally seen death of many corporations, simply by bloggers blogging truth about them.  If  companies want to play childish games with their customers and provide no real value, I think they deserve to die.

A lot of times, companies don’t treat everyone the same, perhaps give priority to people with more hard cold cash to throw at them.  Those are the companies usually in risk of getting blown by bloggers and that’s what a lot of bloggers CAN do although not often.

In essence, bloggers don’t have power really but people who are reading those blog posts.  You never know who’s reading a blog review of your company, it could be your next customer, your client, or even investor.

Even companies can leverage their own blog to fight back myths or misleading truths about their companies, it’s fair and square.

In all, bloggers still have the power to spread the word, whether positive or negative, it’s something that could potentially make your company live or die.

Blogging isn’t anything new though by the  way, it’s simply another form of publication like TV and radio, except ANYONE can blog.  If you company pursues bad practices, it’s going to get publicized by someone no matter what.

In the end, if you provide excellent service/products to your customers, you have nothing to worry about except counting money.

So the moral of the story?

Just do it “right”, it’s that simple.  And of course, if you don’t have a blog yet, please go make one today. Blogging, companies, online branding, power of blogging, truth

Tags: companies, online branding, power of blogging, truth

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 8:49 pm and is filed under Blogging.