For Small Companies, Blogger Relations' Double-Edged Sword Bites Deeper
When talking about Blogger Relations, I tend to address my advice toward medium-to-large companies.
Most professional marketers have figured out that Social Media can no longer be ignored, thus any good-sized corporation is now expected to have the savvy and wherewithal to listen, learn, respond and engage with the blogosphere.
Invariably, those companies that haven’t yet “figured it out” learn pretty quickly, once they fall victim to a blogstorm, as Target did a few months ago. And, to the blogosphere’s credit, most companies that learn to kowtow after such errors are quickly forgiven, and often given kudos for their newfound belief in the benefits of direct engagement.
But for every Target or Dell, there are thousands of small businesses that a) don’t “get” blogs,
- b) don’t have the resources or knowledge to deal with bloggers effectively, and,
- c) don’t warrant enough attention from Google and/or the blogosphere to be able to “recover” their online reputation from even the smallest blogstorm.
Example: Tiny Details. This company “designs, manufactures and distributes dollhouse miniature display pieces made by home assemblers.” (Insert your own pun about how “small” this company must be!)
Blogger Stephen Ward and his wife contracted with Tiny Details to assemble some dollhouse pieces from their home. I am unclear on the exact details about “what went wrong” from his post, but if you scroll through it, what’s interesting are the two levels of response from Tiny Details.
At first, the Tiny Details response is spot-on:
“We’ve had more than 55,000 home assemblers since 1999. With that kind of volume, there are going to be people who are unhappy. Our complaint volume is extremely low given the volume of business that we do… Miniatures are not for everyone, that’s for sure… We’re not illegitimate as you seem to portray. In fact, I invite you to come visit our offices, store, and warehouse here in New York… I certainly don’t want anyone to leave angry – there’s no need for it… ”
But, because Tiny Details is a small company, and because Google is awfully friendly to blogs, Ward’s post soon became the 3rd-ranked search result for Tiny Details.
That’s a tough pill to swallow for a small company: any amount of traffic, however small, could now shrink to a trickle as a result of this online reputation hit!
Could that be why Tiny Details execs subsequently threatened legal action, in the form of a libel suit?
This (bone-headed, imho) move only led to more linklove – in the form of more negative publicity from bloggers.
As blogger Simon Owens sagely suggested to me in an email,
“I think with the Long Tail effect of the internet, small businesses are affected by things like this perhaps even more than big companies, because blog posts about them are more likely to pop up on the front pages of Google.
“If I were to write a long rant about a bad experience with Target, unless it gets hundreds of inbound links it'll be buried under pages of search results. For small businesses, a single post can have a large negative effect.”
The message to small business owners: be careful Out There. Google has a long memory. Even a hiccup in your online reputation could have very long-lasting effects on your real-world business.
Continue reading here: Which Social Media Marketing Agencies Will Thrive In 5 Years?
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