Blogosphere Etiquette
written by Barbara S. Hamelburg
There were several takeaways from Tuesday's EEC/RF Binder program, “Protecting Your Company's Brand and Reputation in and Age of Consumer Generated Media.” It seemed that the general consensus among the four panelists was that in order to "succeed" in the blogosphere, companies should not take themselves too seriously, and need to remain lighthearted and honest while explaining their point of view and correcting any fallacies.
An example raised by an audience member involved a Canadian blog that described experiences with two car rental companies. The blog post itself was benign, however, there were several comments posted 'attacking' one company (using false pricing information and claiming the company was "not nice") while praising the other. It became clear to those reading the comments that this was an attack by a representative from one company, writing under a pseudonym, not a consumer. In response to the negative comments, the regional VP for the company under attack identified himself and posted a simple and straight forward response that thanked the readers for participating in the conversation and corrected the inaccurate information. There was a consensus that this approach resulted in resolving the matter far more effectively than legal action or a counter attack.