NextGen PRose

Responding to Blog Attacks

Stephen Baker, one of BusinessWeek's bloggers on the new Tech Beat, has just posted about a topic that will see waves of coverage during the coming year as bloggers grill big corporations over the proverbial coals. That topic: what should PR be doing to counter the negative comments on the blogosphere?

What types of attacks will we see? Rest assured that corporations will see everything from product insults to attacks on executive management regarding non-work related items to venting about the technical support. We're seeing these things already, aren't we? In all, this year we are sure to see more negativity regarding the companies we work for by bloggers than we may have seen in several of the previous years combined. As Big Blog Company pointed out recently, the adoption of a technology that gives free Web publishing to the general public will bring out the cynic in people. They have a forum by which they can rant and rave about anything and find an audience that agrees.

Will such negativism injure the companies we work for? Not necessarily. Blogs bring together people that share common goals, beliefs and values. The content of a person's site establishes their credibility and if they rant on about a frustration they have with a corporation, they'll draw those people who share that feeling to their site and find other people losing interest. As PR practitioners we are responsible for sustaining a positive and mutually beneficial relationship with various publics.

What should PR do to counter this?
First, embrace the blogosphere
Second, expect varied criticism
Third, counsel when appropriate with corporate management regarding incidents
Fourth, take action and approach individual bloggers if it makes sense to reason together

One worthy side note to the final recommendation, taking aggressive punitive action might make the blog in question more visible, and hence work against the company’s interest suing.

During the coming years, corporations will see a lot of negative things written about them by bloggers. Hopefully a good economic model will take hold and that companies will weather the storms. One thing is certain as we have already seen, bloggers will continue to write things about companies that have not been written by mainstream journalists. 

It is a topic that you'll see NextGen PRose blog more about during the coming months.