Marketing Roadmaps

Fake/Fictional Blogs

Wal-Mart and another lesson from Science Fiction

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Yesterday and today, the blogosphere has been a-buzzing with the latest Wal-Mart social media faux-pas. Short version: the much-heralded Wal-Marting Across America blog turns out to be… not a grassroots blog by a couple of independent RVers, but rather a Wal-Mart sponsored blog written by paid bloggers (one of whom is a photographer for the Washington Post) and created by the firm’s PR agency Edelman.

Ouch, blecch and all those other nasty words. I’m not going to go into an analysis of Edelman’s second (or third depending on what you count) social media strike with the same client. Others have done a brilliant job of this already. So if you haven’t already, read about transparency and honesty and what WAS Edelman thinking ? on these great blogs:

Suffice it to say that Edelman’s reputation has taken a deserved hit and they should be embarassed.  Publicity and high profile hires to the contrary, they just don’t seem to "get it," and also seem determined to prove that at every turn. One thing for sure, they should be taking a long hard look at their social media practice. Will they? That’s Richard Edelman’s problem, not mine.

What can we learn from this latest fake blog? Toby’s post above, which talks about the importance of the blog culture, and a separate post by blog buddy Mary Schmidt Why Sci-Fi is Relevant to Business (and Life) got me thinking.

Mary’s post covers a bunch of things we can learn from science fiction. To her list, I’d like to add one more "rule" that drives the ethos in much of the science fiction I really love, from Star Trek, Foundation and Doctor Who to Farscape and Stargate, and can also be considered a key rule for working in the blogosphere. To sum it up: don’t f*** with the natives, don’t hurt the humans.

Starting with  the Three Laws of Robotics created by Isaac Asimov (Wikipedia):

  1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

and the Prime Directive of Star Trek, which "dictates that there be no interference with the natural development of any primitive society, chiefly meaning that no primitive culture can be given or exposed to any information regarding advanced technology or alien races. It also forbids any effort to improve or change in any way the natural course of such a society, even if that change is well-intentioned and kept completely secret." (from Wikipedia),

science fiction understands some fundamental principles about human nature and culture to which we should pay attention.

Even shows like Stargate, Doctor Who and Farscape which aren’t quite so hands off as the Prime Directive understand quite clearly that you have to fit in with the culture and do your best to not let your technology, or values, overly color where you are or what you do. And more than anything, first, do no harm.

And that is what we have to do with the blogosphere. Because the blogosphere isn’t a thing. It’s people. When we lose sight of the people, when we stop respecting the people, we make stupid mistakes. We think that because, yes, there are stupid people in the world, all people are stupid. They won’t penetrate our fake blog (flog). They just wanna shop at Wal-Mart. Wrong.

We need to understand that our Prime Directive, if we choose to engage with bloggers, either on their blog or our own, is to be honest. About who we are, why we’re doing what we do, and who is paying the bills. It’s okay if you have an agenda. People expect, and respect, that. I’ve done a number of blogger outreach projects for clients, and I always identify my interest in the project. Why wouldn’t I? Doesn’t make the story any less interesting, and it respects the intelligence of my correspondents.

And that’s the lesson, my friends. Respect. For differences. For opinions. For the culture. When we have mutual respect, we have a conversation. Without it, it is just vocal chords moving, bits and bytes shifting.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice.

Jees, I don’t know. Whaddya you think?

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Cleaning out my Bloglines Closet

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I read a lot of feeds, on a variety of subjects, and take advantage of bloglines "keep new" to save things to look at/blog later. When I’m busy, the "blog closet" gets pretty full, and quite often, many of the things I’ve saved for later are over and done with.

But some things are timeless.

Others worthwhile.

And of course, some things, you just know I am going to comment on.

Like character blogs.  At Beyond Madison Avenue today, Mack Collier writes that character blogs would be a good solution to carry on cancelled TV shows. You betcha. Just take a look at the sheer volume of fan fiction on the Internet.  I would still pay for a Whedon-produced character blog featuring the characters from the Buffy/Angel-verses.

Great advice from the Copyblogger. Writing about this week’s NY Times article "This Boring Headline Is Written For Google," which discussed the ramifactions of search engine optimization on the news business, he reminds us: "Write for people, people." Amen. We don’t need fancy footwork (or cute headlines) as much as we need clear, concise writing. A little time spent there can save a boatload of hassle, not to mention cost.

Bonus links

Two from Neville Hobson: a European business blogging survey and some info on search behavior

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By Anonymous. By a Character.

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After the recent spate of character blogs in the PR space, I started thinking about character and anonymous blogs. Which are not that terribly different, in concept and in execution.

There are good reasons to use both forms. And both can be abused, to the overall detriment of blogging.

Let’s start with the good reasons. Anonymity. If you are in real danger.. for your life. If your company discourages blogging of any sort, on or off the clock (boo hiss), but you have something to say. Not about your company but maybe your life or your hobbies or your politics. Doesn’t matter. When attribution is dangerous, anonymity makes sense.

It also makes establishing credibility a bit harder. WHO are you and why should I trust you? More on that in a minute.

Character blogs are not that terribly different from anonymous blogs (and vice versa). Someone creates a character as the blog voice. Or they leverage an existing popular character as the voice. The writer isn’t "real."  [To some degree, all of  us create a blogging persona, but the more closely aligned your true self is to your blog self, the better off you will be in the long run. ]

I digress.

A character blog is extremely hard to do well. The blogosphere is conditioned to expect a real voice, and when it is a created persona, it reacts. Sometimes belatedly, but in the end, characters with unclear attribution are not well accepted. Bloggers want to know who you are. Are you credible? Do you have real authority in your blog-space, or is your authority as imaginary as you are?

 Now, in my opinion, character blogs can work, although we haven’t seen that many examples. Yet.

But they have to be honest. At a minimum, they have to be up front that this is a CHARACTER. And clear about the objectives. The best example is Manolo the Shoe Blogger. Manolo is all about the shoes. Yes, there are gossipy type posts, but everybody who reads this blog knows: it is about selling shoes. Full stop.

So anonymity and characters can work. They can also fail spectacularly.

Anonymity and characters fail when they are used as a screen for venom and bile. When the writer uses the form to deliver criticism without credibility. Absent being in danger for their life, when someone criticizes something, we want to know who they are, and what gives them the right.

That’s why companies typically frown on anonymity, even in internal blogs. A student in one of my recent workshops shared that her company actively encouraged internal employee blogging but would not permit anonymous blogging. Employees had to have the courage of their convictions.

By far, the worst evil is the character blog that does not admit it is a character nor provide us with information about the people behind the character.

When a blog is anonymous, we evaluate the content and make an assessment about credibility. When someone starts a character blog, and tells you upfront that it is a character, we make a decision about information and entertainment value.

But a blog that pretends to be written by a real person. Clouded in pretense and falsity? A fake persona?  Crystally clearly false, and definitely far from  honest and transparent. 

So, blog anonymously or as a character if that is your best or only choice. But if you can, speak up as yourself, or at least as the author of your character. And don’t use your blog to advance a vendetta, settle a score or just to stir things up. Try to contribute a positive voice to the conversation.

Truly, it is just as much fun.

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The Week in Review: March 6-10

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A new (and very interesting) client has just come on board,  I had deadlines for some other projects, and I had to take a quick trip mid-week. Time has been tight, so blogging has been light.

So this post is going to be the week in review —  comments on the things I probably would have blogged in more depth had I more time.

Of course, the top PR blogging news of the week was the Edelman-Wal-Mart blogger relations story, starting with the New York Times article on March 7th, and continuing on with commentary from just about every PR/Marketing blogger on the planet. Except me of course. I was at a client 🙂 Check out the great round-ups of the commentary written by  Constantin Basturea and Tom Murphy. And don’t miss Richard Edelman’s post. For more coverage, here are the google and technorati searches on "Edelman Wal-Mart"

My .02 — this really does look like a simple effort at blogger relations, perhaps not the best execution, but not intentionally sinister.  In fact, I think Wal-Mart would be foolish to not engage in grassroots blogger relations, given how well organized its critics in the blogosphere are.

Here’s my take-away from this tempest in a teapot:

First, we have to be fair in our criticisms. Part (but not all) of the outrage about the Wal-Mart outreach was outrage about Wal-Mart in general. You have to put both your friends and your enemies to the same test. If something would be okay if your buddy did it, but it is bad if the evil empire does it,  you are not being fair. This is not dis-similar from what happened in the initial outrage more than a year ago about character blogs. GourmetStation and others were being lambasted for having characters as the blog authors. I pointed out a certain inconsistency using the example of Spencer F. Katt, the PC Week/eWeek mascot for 20-plus years who has both a column and yes, a blog. Somehow, a character everybody knew and liked was okay. It was only the new ones that were bad blogging practice 🙂  Wrong. Be consistent in BOTH your flames and your kudos.

Second, as PR practitioners start reaching out to blogs… as they should, and as most of us have preached, dare I say ad nauseaum, we have to expect mistakes. Given the ongoing commentary on PR blogs about the general quality of much PR practice, we shouldn’t be surprised if some PR agency efforts at blogger relations are better than others. I have no particular opinion about Edelman’s blogger outreach program. Time will tell whether it was good, bad or something in between. I am certain however, that no blogger outreach program will be (or should be) successful without complete transparency. You MUST be completely honest about your role and your vested interests. And not surprised if your entire campaign is published on a blog somewhere.

Again, a comparison. When I started to get a great deal of media exposure as spokesperson for Cyber Patrol in the late 90s, I was very careful to make sure that my public statements passed the ultimate test: would I be embarassed if this were on the front page of the NY Times? Different times, same general principal. Ain’t no such thing as "off the record."

Moving on, conferences. Without a doubt, the model of conferences where the panel is presumed to be the "experts" and the audience the "students" is outmoded. In tech and in marketing, the two arenas where I have spent most of my professional career, the audience often knows as much, or more, than the panelists. I’ve written about this here a bit, and it was one of the inspirations for the Room of Your Own proposal for Business Blogging currently under consideration for BlogHer 06. Our idea is that the panelists are there to kick off the discussion, but in fact the entire audience is the panel, and an active part in building our takeaway "best practices" for business bloggers.

This week,  some smart bloggers asked some great questions about the "conference issue:"

And if you haven’t figured it out yet, Elisa Camahort brings it home: BlogHer is the conference that takes a truly different approach. See you there in July.

In the category of smart business advice:

  • PR Squared has a series of three posts of "bad advice" about customer references which of course are excellent advice for PR and MarCom pros. Here they are:  one, two, three
  • Converstations gives some great advice on how to best write your posts in A Blog Posting Mantra.
  • And Jill Konrath has some great advice on thinking like your customer.

In the news:

And finally, if you stuck this post out this long, you deserve some fun. Don’t miss this clip on trendspotting from the Daily Show. Thanks to Small Business Trends for the link.

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