A couple of weeks back, during the Sundance Film Festival, I posted on my personal blog about the movie Hounddog, starring Dakota Fanning.  The movie entered controversy in the film world because Ms. Fanning appeared in a rape scene that was shown.  As a father of a 7 year old daughter, you can imagine I was appalled at the notion of a 12 year old girl being involved in a scene such as that, and then later saying it was no big deal and that parents should let their children see the movie to show them the "real world".  I don’t want to get off on that tangent again.  As a result of that post on my blog, a commenter took umbrage with my statement and called me "a jerk".  Not a problem, I have been called worse, and anytime you speak of religion, politics or other moral topics you are bound to have a heated discussion. In this particular instance, the commenter left no URL for me to visit his own blog.  Not knowing if his email address was actually a fake or a real address, I left a response on the blog, and a dialogue ensued.

As a blogger my job is to market my blogs, advertise them and grow my readership.  As a normal part of that process, even as a personal Daddy Blogger, my job is to gather intelligence about what is being said about my blog, who is coming to visit, who is reading what articles, and a laundry list of other things we do on a daily basis as we check our stats. After performing my normal blogging rituals, I ran across a link to my site and followed it to what then became my name caller.  He had a Live Journal Blog, and had mentioned my post again, as well as his comment so he could get the thoughts and reactions of his readers.  I was now a reader, so I left him my own message, without the name calling, extending the conversation once again.  Later in the process we began to exchange private emails, and we connected on more than just our blogging level.  He commented later that he was shocked to see that I had found him and his blog, and wondered about my secret.  I wish I could have told him it was some blogger voodoo magic, but it is merely a function we as bloggers, and more so we professional bloggers, do to stay in touch with the dynamic site we have created.  This is the same thing that I tell businesses.  This is the expertise we charge for as consultants and professional bloggers it separates us from the everyday copywriter or journalist.

The intelligence that can be gathered from a single visit to a blog, a single comment, and the information available can be an invaluable resource to companies, their marketing departments and their PR departments.  The tools available give you more intelligence about a single customer than any street window shopper, any strip mall customer, or anyone seeing an advertisement in a magazine on TV or on radio.  Blogging and social marketing online can be a whole new world of feedback and information.  This is only one example of what a business can do to shape its place online, and a way to gather and use valuable intelligence.  At One By One Media, this is called "Collaborative Intelligence".  Let us gather some for you.

Tags: Sundance Film Festival, Genuine, Houndog, Dakota Fanning, Daddy Blogger, Blog Intelligence, Collaborative Intelligence, Live Journal, Blog Comments, Blog Tools, Marketing, PR, Professional Bloggers, Bloggers For Hire