Lesson from Edelman Wal-Mart – Have your own voice

It’s fair game to deliver information directly to bloggers. But … and it’s a big but, true transparency requires that you should be prepared to publish for all to see anything you’re prepared to send to a selected blogger.

Blogger relations. Yes, it’s every bit as legitimate as media relations. However, the rules and conventions are not the same.

The news media are competitive. They thrive on exclusives and being first to market with news.

Blogs are about building a community. The point of this community is opinion and exchange. And the tactics and approaches of media relations are not strictly transferable to this community. It requires rules and practices that respect its particular nature.

So, a company wants to influence the views of opinion-leading bloggers. That’s a legitimate objective.

And emailing information directly to opinion leaders is an effective way to get it in front of them. They might not see it on your own blog. But, that brings us back to the big but: true transparency requires that you should be prepared to publish for all to see anything you’re prepared to send to a selected blogger. And to be able to do this in the blogosphere requires that you have your own blog. A place where you can post your point of view, your information, for all to see.

That’s where Wal-Mart came up short. They used their PR firm’s bloggers and the credibility those bloggers had built up to speak directly to other bloggers. But for the rest of us, people outside of their carefully targeted direct blogger pitch, we could not see what the company was up to. The fact that their activity was discovered resulted from the slipshod practices of a few bloggers who quoted verbatim from the material Edelman/Wal-Mart provided to them, without attribution.

So, true transparency was not achieved. And the resultant uproar should prove a cautionary tale for all.

The bottom line: Avoid shortcuts. If you conclude that the blogosphere is important to you, establish your own voice first. Go ahead, contact the bloggers who you think are the most influential. But let the rest of the world see that you are prepared to say in public what you private encourage an intermediary to talk about.

  • http://www.prworks.ca David Jones

    A very good analysis, though I don’t entirely agree with your conclusion that every company that wants to engage bloggers should have a blog of their own. In Wal-Mart’s case, they don’t have a blog and haven’t established that voice as yet. I’m not sure I would give the advice that they couldn’t engage in the conversation without first starting a blog of their own.

    Clearly, companies will have a better chance of succeeding with bloggers if they follow your advice, but we’re in early days right now. So, more power to Edelman for breaking some new ground, taking some very public lumps and ultimately teaching us all a few lessons.

  • http://www.propr.ca Joseph

    Dave, you are right. The first people through the door don’t make mistakes. They are the ones who feel their way through the dark to turn on the lights, making it easier for those who follow.

    Edelman should be congratulated for the enthusiasm with which they have embraced social media. We can all learn from this experience.

  • http://www.prworks.ca David Jones

    Well put. It’s conversations and debates like this one and the larger one going on in the blogosphere about Edel-Mart that will help push this medium forward and demonstrate it’s value as a communications tool.

  • http://www.thornleyfallis.com Terry Fallis

    An interesting and important question. It strikes me that both sides of the conversation shoulder responsibility. In the spirit of true openness, not only should those who are approaching bloggers be prepared to publish what they’re pitching, those bloogers on the receiving end must hold up their end of the of transparency bargain if they choose to write about it, and reveal the source (as you noted). This will help protect and promote the integrity of the blogosphere and that’s critical or the credibility, utility, and value of the new world of social media may well be compromised. Then we all lose. I think we must all play a role in identifying, crticizing, and shunning those who will inevitably abuse the principles that have come to underpin social media.

  • http://www.propr.ca Joseph

    Terry, I agree totally about transparency all round. Bloggers should be concerned about their credibility. And proper attribution of other people’s thoughts is bedrock to both transparency and credibility.

  • Pingback: Blogger relations and full transparency at NevilleHobson.com

  • Terry Fallis

    Congrats on the reference from Neville. ProPR has hit the big time! Thinking more about this issue and my earlier comment, perhaps we need to coin a new term. “Transparency” alone seems inadequate given that a one-way mirror is transparent for one party. In the blogosphere we really want “two-way transparency” to make it clear that both the blog-pitcher and the blogger are governed by this obligated openness.

  • http://www.prworks.ca David Jones

    I like the term, Terry. And I also think Joe is on to something with the full transparency aspect of publishing everything that is sent to bloggers on a “blogger relations blog.” This wouldn’t have to be set up or maintained by the client, but could be part of the agency’s program. I believe FIR mentioned that Nokia’s blogger outreach program has a blogger relations blog as part of it. Now, product promotion is a different animal than reptuation management, but there’s no question that the days of hiding motives and relationships behind manufactured interest groups and brown envelopes slid under doors are behind us. Every blogger outreach program should start and finish with the same question: “Can we be more transparent with what we are doing?”

  • http://www.propr.ca Joseph

    Thanks for the positive comments David, Terry and Neville. I think we are well on our way to establishing a “best practice” which we can recommend to any company that is serious about entering the discussion in the blogosphere.

  • Mary Ellen

    Sorry I’m late to the conversation, Joe, but just wanted to comment on your distinction between the news media and bloggers.

    I think bloggers are every bit as competitive as the news media. In many cases even more so, because blogging is personal. The lead bloggers in any sphere love to be the final track-back in any controversial conversation – they like other bloggers in that space to know the original nugget came from them. After all, it can be argued that people blog to gain their own 15 minutes of fame, making them prey for PROs offering “exclusive” or “inside” information – same as traditional journalists. So I don’t know if I agree that bloggers are necessarily committed to community-building.

  • http://www.propr.ca Joseph

    Mary Ellen, For me, the blogosphere is like a dinner party with friends. Yes, there are some who act the way you’ve portrayed some bloggers. And they’d better be very bright with something unique to say if they expect to get invited back into my circle for a second time.
    I understand that it takes all types. And the clever person who wants to get in the first – and last – word has a place. But the bloggers I read and respect are interested in genuine conversation in which they learn and persuade. Simply being first or last can be as empty as calories from the chocolate bar I’m about to scarf.
    Thanks for the comment. Conversation rules!