Livingston

Sep
10
2007

Six Reasons to Lighten Up on Businesses

Picking up a thread from last week’s BlogStraightTalk, there’s a general blogosphere attitude that whenever a business engages in social media for any other purpose but conversation they are evil. This attitude has caused great tension between the blogosphere and the business community.

Every time I talk to a business owner their one primary concern is how they can withstand the blistering criticism of us, the voices of the blogosphere. And can you blame them?

This blogosphere attitude seems pretty naive. Commercial concerns market themselves, and social media — albeit conversational — is one of those ways. Businesses sell things, i.e. products, services, etc. That’s what they do. And they market themselves to customers, including social media campaigns.

Now conversational marketing needs to be adhered to, and so do the principles of transparency, openness, lack of message control, etc. (See seven principles recommended in the past post, Think Liquid). That being said there are lot of corporate gaffes that get turned into gigantic blogodramas.

This is not about Wal-Mart or Whole Foods here. Those companies deserve every ounce of grief they have and continue to get. But the Nikon D80 blogger relations program, Comcast astroturf incident (an unmonitored PR agency intern was the cause) and A&P video gaffe seem to be lesser incidents in the great scheme of things. Do we really want to dub these companies as evil?

Six Reasons to Lighten Up

It just doesn’t make sense to me. Here’s why:

1) Just like our friend Scott Baradell told us, businesses are coming. More Fortune 500 companies and small businesses are adapting social media as a marketing form. Like it or not, nothing will stop this trend. Do we want these relationships to be adversarial or conversational?

2) How do you react when someone gets in your face? Most people argue, or dig their heels in and become even more resolved to continue on their course. Consider that.

3) Businesses are risk adverse. While creating great drama serves to get an apology from some companies, the end result in many cases is repelling businesses from actively engaging in the dialogue many in the blogosphere envision. This stops us from meaningful conversation, in turn getting better products and services from companies.

screen-bill.mao-newsweek 4) Businesses are an important part of society. These issues are grounded in questions of ethics and profiteering, a reasonable fear caused by many egregious actions. But we need businesses for economic growth, in turn creating our jobs and salaries.

5) Lenin and Mao are dead, and so is communism. If this is really about the ideal community (a utopian marxist vision) then it will be achieved through evolution, not rebellion. Best to help companies adapt to social media intelligently.

6) The blogosphere is relatively young. Medium-specific ethics are still getting ironed out. Doesn’t it make sense to participate in the conversation rather than flog evil businesses for every little error?

My response from last week’s BlogStraightTalk to those outraged by businesses engaging in social media: Look at the URL or masthead of such corporate media initiatives and understand that any relationship with this particular entity is ultimately about business. If that’s a turn off, just don’t play. But please stop the melodrama. It’s time to lighten up.

Also today on the Now Is Gone blog: Facebook Marketing Primer.

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by Geoff Livingston | Internet Marketing |

11 Responses to “Six Reasons to Lighten Up on Businesses”

  • Ike Says:

    September 10th, 2007 at 9:12 am

    Within the PR Blogoverse, our most heated fights and spirited debates are but tiny ripples in the pool.

    Even the Rubel/Louderback episode, as huge as it was to see the editor of PC Magazine step into the fray, didn’t make any mainstream waves.

    Whole Foods made headlines outside our bubble because the CEO was just so stupid. Fake Steve Jobs did because the target was so high-profile. The Locke/Sierra incident because it involved the two biggest staples of American culture: sex and violence.

    Outside of that, the biggest “blog”-related mainstream story is Dan Rather getting pelted out of his desk chair by a bunch of Little Green Footballs.

    We are a tiny tiny subset of the online world. We will get bigger, but we must remember we are oh so small.

  • David Wescott Says:

    September 10th, 2007 at 9:37 am

    a couple of thoughts on a great post - first, with all due respect and then some, I really don’t think the ethics issues are still being worked out at all. The real problem is some people may have assumed that we threw the general ethical principles of communications out the door as soon as we moved online. I think the greater issue is some folks are lazy and don’t want to do what it takes to really learn this stuff.

    I think we need to remember that social media as we’re discussing it right now is really just an opportunity for business to learn more about what their customers want. But it means businesses have to lecture less and listen more.

    Start thinking about folks who lead and participate in online discussions as a slightly different demographic with different needs and interests. We should be in a learning phase. Yes, selling stuff is what businesses do. But you can’t sell stuff if you don’t know what your customers (or your audience) wants, and so we need to spend a little time understanding this new demographic.

    business will never please everyone. but they’re in social media for the long run. There needs to be a little more investment in understanding who the participants are and what they want. The best pr professionals will spend some time gathering that knowledge.

  • Geoff Livingston Says:

    September 10th, 2007 at 9:40 am

    Ike: You caught my gist .

    David: They do need to play by the rules, per my reference. But we need to stop throttling them every misstep with blown out incidents. Complaining , yes! Brand destruction, not necessarily, at least not on initial, relatively minor blunders. Also, bad PR people will kill social media campaigns. But I think a killed social media campaign is one with no participants rather than bad headlines…

    Here are those referred to principles in the Think Liquid post:
    1. Do not try to control the message
    2. Honesty, ethics and transparencies are musts
    3. Participation within the community is marketing (Heuer)
    4. Communication to audiences is an out-dated 20th century concept (Rosen) Marketers must take a community approach to social media
    5. Use social media to build value for the community
    6. Inspire your community with real, exciting information, not corporate propaganda
    7. Intelligently manage your media forms (RSS, frequency, etc.) to build a stronger, loyal community

  • StumbleUpon » Your page is now on StumbleUpon! Says:

    September 11th, 2007 at 1:49 am

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  • Lewis Green Says:

    September 11th, 2007 at 12:04 pm

    Geoff,

    Good post. This is a topic that we need more conversation around. We should help businesses succeed in the blogosphere, not criticize them for not doing it our way. Like you, I am a blogger and an entrepreneur. I blog not only to listen and learn but also to share and to build my brand image. And I always write with my critical audience in mind: other businesses that can use my services. Anyone who is a business person doesn’t communicate with but one goal in mind. Yes, listening is important. But it is not the only reason to blog. Thanks Geoff for sharing.

  • Jon / BlogThot.com Says:

    September 11th, 2007 at 2:43 pm

    Great post! I think another issue that needs to be addressed is the arrogance seen in certain corners of the blogosphere. If the dialogue is adversarial instead of conversational, bloggers feel that they are bossing the companies around while ultimately making themselves feel more important. Sometimes, the hope of having companies bring us better products through conversation gets lost in the overwhelming desire to let your voice be heard and your opinion known.

  • Geoff Livingston Says:

    September 11th, 2007 at 2:55 pm

    Lewis and Jon: Good points, both of you. Lewis: I agree, I always write for my readers, and slave over the stats to see what kind of pieces they want, or would be interested in.

    Jon: I, too, have been guilty of power-driven argument, and I always regret it. In the end, we must remember that we are all people, and that even on the business side, there are people making these errors. Since I make errors, who am i to judge others for theirs? Thus conversation over high and mighty, as you communicated so well.

  • Recruiting Bloggers.com: Thinning The Workforce Of "Those People" Says:

    September 11th, 2007 at 10:53 pm

    Kramer auto Pingback[...] If we are ever going to break away from this apparent need to label each other, it will take a general willingness for individuals to make the decision not to discriminate based upon whatever divisive characteristics people dream up. As Geoff Livingston said in an unrelated but pointed post, maybe we all need to lighten up. [...]

  • Now Is Gone » Corporate Social Media: What's the ROI? Says:

    September 26th, 2007 at 4:31 am

    Kramer auto Pingback[...] of engaging in a conversation, the participation marketing ethos, etc. However, we all know that businesses blog and create social media campaigns to market themselves… and make [...]

  • Copywrite, Ink.: September 2007 Says:

    October 2nd, 2007 at 11:50 pm

    Kramer auto Pingback[...] people dream up. As Geoff Livingston said in an unrelated but pointed post, maybe we all need to lighten up. Not just in this country. Americans aren’t alone in labeling people. It is a Korean problem, [...]

  • Kaitlyn Wilkins Says:

    May 22nd, 2008 at 2:10 pm

    Kramer auto Pingback[...] What are ya, stupid? A handful of people felt that while the Code laid out a great foundation for blogger outreach, it was really just PR 101 touching on the basics that should already be adhered to. We agree. However, there are enough people out there doing outreach badly – and breaking these “obvious” ground rules – that we felt a conversation involving all sides needed to happen around what could be done better. Take Away: Hold yourself accountable to the basic rules of engagement in PR! We didn’t throw the general ethical principals of communication out the door when we moved online. [...]

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