How your company can be stupid about social media
Chief executives posting anonymously on public boards. Fake blogs pumping up corporate products. Unauthorized bloggers embarrassing their employers — who don’t know they’re blogging. These are a few of my favorite things (insert tongue in cheek here, please).
The Detroit Free Press had a story on Sunday headlined, “Blog blunders draw attention.” Indeed. Here’s the brief version of “my favorite things.”
Chief executives posting anonymously on public boards.
(Whole Foods CEO John) Mackey was exposed by the Wall Street Journal last summer for using a pseudonym to post anonymously for eight years on a Yahoo Finance forum, in which he cheered Whole Foods and critiqued his competitor Wild Oats, which Whole Foods ended up acquiring.
Interesting thing to note here: Mackey has a blog on the Whole Foods web site. He blogged seven days ago about being back on the blog after the matter was investigated.
While he says the incident was poorly portrayed in the media, he does go on to say: “I didn’t realize posting under a screen name in an online community such as Yahoo! would be so controversial and would cause so many people to be upset. That was a mistake in judgment on my part and one that I deeply regret.”
The comments on that entry are also worth a look.
Fake blogs pumping up corporate products.
High-profile flogs in the past have involved Coca-Cola, which used a blog to promote Coke Zero, and Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart’s public relations firm paid an average American couple traveling across the country in an RV that spent each night in a Wal-Mart parking lot. The couple then wrote about happy Wal-Mart employees on their blog.
Unauthorized bloggers embarrassing their employers.
Earlier this month, two Burger King employees were fired for participating in unauthorized activities on public Web sites that the company said did not reflect the company’s views and violated company policy.
What don’t they understand about the concept of being transparent (definition 2)?
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Kurt's Tweets- Bravo. RT @pwthornton: "Banning unsigned online comments undermines the media’s role as a forum for debate.” http://bit.ly/bmZsOn
- I would like to just take the two steps forward and skip the one step back. How about that? Would that be OK?
- Still seeking talented journalists to run #Patch sites in two south St. Louis County communities. Know anyone? http://ow.ly/2Axnv
- Waiting for a listings collector to give her more #Patch marketing cards. The work never stops.
- Realizing how woefully out of touch I have been with this part of the county. (@ Saint Louis Bread Company) http://4sq.com/5z5Bfh
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