September 3rd, 2008 - 12 Comments
Communication before publication. Encourage, don’t demolish.
Brendan Hughes wrote an interesting piece on how it can be offputting for new companies to get involved in social media because they witness other companies getting a good old fashioned dressing down online if they put a foot wrong (thanks to Damien for pointing it out).
For a company starting out in the area of social media, it can be a serious matter if well established and respected bloggers decide to berate your company for a ’social media misdemeanour’ – your burgeoning online brand can be damaged to a point where it may be difficult to be taken seriously in future.
The misdemeanour could range from the way they set up their blog, taking advertising on their personal website, to sending unsolicited emails to large numbers of people. Individuals are named and shamed, and often rightly so. For anyone looking to dip their virtual toe in the online waters seeing this can be quite discouraging.
I have experienced a lot of this reluctance when encouraging companies to get more involved online, and judging from informal chats with other consultants, it’s pretty common.
I see this as quite a serious issue, especially when you consider that there are in fact very few rules, and the so called rules that do exist are by no means black or white, and many will disagree about them.
For example Brendan mentions taking advertising on a personal blog as being a misdemeanour. I see nothing wrong with taking advertising on a personal blog, and there’s certainly no law against it!
Even spam is a word that is bandied about all too often these days – I have seen blog posts from what Brendan refers to as ‘elders of the online community’ which berate companies for spamming them, when in my eyes it’s a borderline case at best.
Brendan finishes his post by getting to the nub of the matter:
Should they be taken aside for a quiet word in their ear or should they be publicly ridiculed for their stupidity? Personally I know how I’d like to be treated when I break the rules (unwittingly) in any club or community I’m a member of.
Communication should always come before publication. I think that should become the mantra of the blogging community.
When a company commits one of these social media misdemeanours, they should be given the opportunity to explain their side of the story. If you are incenced by their actions, pick up the phone, or drop them an email explaining your anger.
If they blank you, or are not willing to listen, then go ahead and write your blog post.
Let’s not get too hippy about it, but we’re all human. I have witnessed at least one occasion recently where a writer softened their position on a company they villified when the actual personalities behind the company came into play.
There is always more to a story, there are always at least two sides to a story. Why not at least know both sides before you potentially damage a company’s online brand.
Experienced and popular bloggers should be encouraging, not demolishing.
If you liked this, you might be interested in my blog post ‘Advice on weathering a blogstorm‘
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 12:39 pm and is filed under Social Media.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
12 Responses to “Communication before publication. Encourage, don’t demolish.”
You make some good points.
When I first started reading blogs in 1997, I watched a teary-eyed Irish web developer in Dublin swear she would never blog because of the cut-and-thrust she endured on an RSS developers mailing list. As a result of her stepping away, Sean McGrath was the only Irish voice in those early XML discussions. A decade later, I know there are other timid personalities who just don’t participate when they see the cross-fire that often erupts in blogging. And because of this anti-social conversation, we stop blogging from growing.
I’m sure if people bit their tongues more and allowed themselves to be violated in various ways by companies then it would allow more companies to go into this space, which will result in more consultants making money too of course.
This space is different though and as you said the rules haven’t been formulated. Thank god. It allows more freedom and creativity. Companies seem to want to hammer this space into something which it isn’t and if they get their way it will just be another bland and stale “market”.
To be clear though, this is not their space and those in the space don’t own it either. It’s a bit like demanding that rugby games be more civil because someone that just joined the game is a little frail.
Who defines what a misdemeanour is and why should someone affected by it have to ask the person that committed it to explain their reasoning? “Before I complain, can I ask why you stabbed me in the face?”
Neither Lynch Mobs or Courts are right in my opinion.
However, a good mannered approach to first-time offenders would in my opinion, lead to further contributions from the newbie. This has to be a good thing.
Am I a gobshite to think manners (can) come into this?
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:17 pm by Anthony Galvin
Frank, surely the point is the stabbing should not happen at all. There’s no written rule anywhere in society to say don’t stab people. There’s laws to deal with the outcomes of stabbings and punishments to right the social upheaval but it shouldn’t happen at all.
I also think you’ll find that the media and the locals have the same reaction to such an event as the blogging locals when they’ve been wronged. People shouldn’t be censored from ranting and reacting when they’re wronged.
Thanks for picking up the discussion Frank. The title of your post draws attention to the question of motivation. Are bloggers by and large attempting to find new ways to communicate in order to foster a vibrant online community or are they merely using the medium to self-publish or have their say? The latter is more self-interested and ultimately short term as the community simply won’t grow if people don’t find it a welcoming place. The former takes a longer term view of what we’re at here.
Since more than 20% of those attending Podcamp Ireland don’t blog, we are featuring this blog post as part of a casual conversation session at Podcamp Ireland in Kilkenny on Saturday 27 September 2008.
Nice article Frank. I don’t see how anyone could argue with your stance.
How about a follow up post that includes a top 5 pointers for the newbies to Social Media.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:48 pm by Anthony Galvin