Sony blog improves public relations

Learn what makes Sony’s blog successful and why the company’s communicator—not CEO—blogs

What do you do when it seems as if the whole world is talking about you? In the Internet age, the answer is simple: start a blog. That’s what consumer electronics giant Sony did.

For Sony, blogging was the Internet equivalent of dealing with burning ears: The company was aware that there were conversations about its products, service policies and corporate initiatives taking place but it lacked an effective way to join the conversation.

“We have now engaged with customers and the public in a way that is different than the way we had been doing,” says Rick Clancy, Sony’s senior vice president for corporate communications and the author of the 18-month old blog, Sony Electronics Blog. Prior to the blog’s launch, Sony had two main venues for getting its message out: advertising and press releases. Both of those are essentially one-way communication vehicles, Clancy notes.

What was missing was the ability for a conversation. While Sony did collect some consumer feedback through the interaction of its customers with service reps, creating a dialogue prior to the launch of the blog was difficult.