<strong>Just like people who don't vote don't have the right to complain about the governmental administration,</strong> brands that refuse to create their own 'turf', lose their right to complain about anything negative said about their organization in the blogosphere. Just like people who don’t vote don’t have the right to complain about the governmental administration, brands that refuse to create their own ‘turf’, lose their right to complain about anything negative said about their organization in the blogosphere.Social media is like the lotto. You have to be in it to win it.By now you should know that you can’t control online conversation(s) about your brand(s). Period. You can only attempt to MANAGE the conversation. And, the only way you can ever expect to even manage the conversation is to have, what I call, a ‘turf’ to which you can direct a wayward conversation. You need your own social media vehicle. You can’t expect to drive someone else’s car (blog/podcast/community) to your own desired destination.As you know, I recently completed a four-city speaking tour where I was speaking to IR and PR types about social media. I had a great time, but was stunned to get so many fear-based questions, like:What do we do if someone says something bad about our company? What do we do if someone spreads lies about our company? What do we do if someone doesn’t tell the whole story about something that’s happened with our brand?My answer to that? If you would simply fully engage with social media by creating and maintaining your very own blog/podcast/community, you’d have some options — instead of resisting engagement and yet still expecting to manage the conversation. That’s just crazy. After all, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.I’ll say it again, create your own ‘turf’, where you make the rules and where you CAN have quasi-control over the conversation.If you have your own ‘turf’, when you dislike what someone has to say about your brand on their blog, you can simply submit a very nice comment: “I’m very sorry you feel this way about our company. We’re having a conversation about this now on our blog, [insert link to your blog here] in an effort to get to the bottom of things. You’re more than welcome to join the conversation and be a part of the solution. Your input is appreciated.”…or some such message…Just make sure that your comment is genuine/authentic, positive and brings the conversation back to your ‘turf’.Will this always work? Nope. What in life always works?Do reporters always print retractions? Nope.Do you always get apologies from publications? Nope. Then why start expecting miracles from bloggers???You’ll handle this very much like you’d handle traditional media, right? Right.So, stop with the whining about what could happen and set up your blog already. Technology Industry