Skype Needs A PR Team

Has Skype been dropping the ball in promoting themselves? First, Jim Courtney of Skype Journal (no relationship with Skype) wrote a series of posts, Skype PR WakeUp Call, suggesting ways that Skype could improve their PR and actually let people know what features they have. One of his suggestions was that Skype interact with VoIP bloggers. Then Russell Shaw discussed how the Skype click-to-call buttons for eBay merchants don’t have enough of a message behind them, to help promote them. He suggested that merchant case studies be offered, to really show the value of using click-to-call.

Click-to-call has incredible potential as an interaction tool for small merchants. There’s more to that than the obvious. Some eBay merchants sell very specialized and costly product. And they don’t always write their product descriptions with the skill of copywriters. That could mean the loss of a potential sale. For a buyer to interact with the merchant, this could bring more sales, repeat sales.

Case in point. While I haven’t updated my eBay page in several years now, I occasionally make very specialized, hand-made chainmaille jewelry. Potential buyers will be fairly fussy, and some of these items just don’t photograph well. One piece can take 8 hours; actual chainmaille clothes can take hundreds of hours. And if I dont have a piece completed, I won’t show a picture of it. But if someone were able to talk to me, to describe what they wanted, there’s a bond formed between buyer and merchant - which could very likely result in repeat sales. And my experience resulted in success, Skype/ eBay should let other merchants know, as well as suggest further uses.

Now imagine if Skype had click-to-call video like SightSpeed does. For very specific merchants, this could really boost sales. As far as I know, Skype doesn’t. And that’s half the problem - I don’t know, and their website search isn’t the best. Which is why Skype needs a PR team. Or at least a bigger one than they probably have now.