When is it best to respond to a swarm of negative bloggers, and when is it more appropriate to just lick your wounds? By Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos The following is an edited excerpt from the book Blogging for Business (2006, Kaplan) about how businesses can best use new media. Here, the authors specifically address monitoring the blogosphere to find, read and appropriately react to what people are saying about you or your company. A recent interview with the authors begins on page 36. Honesty is a wonderful thing, and on the Internet and especially blogs, it is essential. It s hard to lie or exaggerate when just about anyone in the entire world can stop by at any time and read what you re saying. The whole world can correct you if you re lying someone will know. Even if comments are not enabled on your blog, people will comment on their own blogs. Other people will link and comment on other people s posts, and soon the whole world will know you re lying. If you re really stupid and dishonest about it, heads will probably roll. You certainly don t need a blog for a blogger to attack you. If the attack resonates, it takes only a day or two for word to spread. An intense negative blog swarm, as it is sometimes called, can do immense damage. A blog swarm occurs when many blogs, perhaps even thousands, start posting negative material on a subject and feed off each other s energy, commenting on each other s opinions and facts that are discovered. Negative blog storms have been responsible for damage to ex-Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott, CBS News ex-anchorman Dan Rather, CNN s exnews director Eason Jordan and New York Times ex-editor Howell Raines. In particular, they are responsible for the ex part of those men s titles. There is a growing number of cautionary tales of the consequences of a blog swarm. CBS News Rathergate fiasco is one. CBS had obtained some potentially damaging yet fake documents pertaining to President George W. Bush. It continued to defend the documents blindly despite increasingly overwhelming evidence from the blogosphere that the documents were false. The damage to its brand was significant and its viewership significantly shrank in the aftermath. On the business side, consider the story of Kryptonite, a company that makes high-end bicycle locks. A bicyclist figured out how to pick the locks with the back end of a Bic pen and posted his discovery to a bicycling message board. It was read by a blogger who posted the lock hack to his blog. Other bloggers read the item and posted their own items linking back to the original blogger s post. Soon, another blogger shot a video of himself picking the lock. This was picked up by Engadget, one of the A-list blogs read by hundreds of thousands of people. The story found its way into the mainstream press within a day of Engadget s post. If intense negative comments start to surface, they need to be dealt with swiftly and honestly. The luxury of at least a little time to which organizations are accustomed does not exist in the blogosphere. Denying accusations categorically and insulting bloggers is exactly what CBS did, and it obviously didn t work. Kryptonite continued to assess the situation and strategize a response, while the situation got more and more out of hand every day they waited. Transparency and honesty will minimize damage. Admit mistakes you will not be able to hide them. This does not mean, however, that you need to respond to each and every item that swarms through the blogosphere. Each instance warrants its own analysis in order for you to arrive at the best judgment. For example, consider the case of retailer Target, the focus of some blog swarming. The company never responded, and in this instance, not responding was the right approach to take. Amazon.com provides the infrastructure for Target s online store via its Web Services offering. The store sold many books online, but they didn t display in the Target design the same way they did on Amazon s site. A search for the word marijuana on Target s site revealed text that read: Marijuana $25.25 Of course, Target wasn t selling pot. It was the title of a book, but the way the information all pulled from a database appeared on the page did not make this clear. A screenshot of the page quickly made its way through the blogosphere, and Steve Rubel an Alist PR blogger called it a PR crisis. But the mainstream media never picked up on the story and it just as quickly vanished from the radar screen. The reason: absolutely nobody thought Target was actually selling marijuana. The authorities didn t raid the place and stoners didn t place their orders. Something else was clearly the cause of this error, so nobody got too worked up. Ultimately, a few bloggers figured out what the truth was by finding the book on Amazon.com, and they posted their findings. Target, for its part, remained silent. Not a word about the issue was uttered by its PR staff or other representatives. Their judgment appears to have been right; there was no need to respond. When you do respond, you also have to figure out which form that response will take. In most instances when you are under assault, there is nothing to be gained by engaging in the discussion and subjecting yourself to immediate attacks. It is best to use more traditional channels. The recent case of the Apple iPod Nano illustrates the wisdom of this approach. In September 2005, Apple CEO Steve Jobs stunned the marketplace with the introduction of the Nano, an ultrasmall, ultrathin version of Apple s wildly successful digital media player. The Nano instantly began flying off store shelves. It didn t take long, though, before reports started circulating through the blogosphere that the Nano screen was easily scratched and the damage so severe that it was impossible to view information or artwork displayed on the screen. One dissatisfied customer created a web site, www.flawedmusicplayer.com. He received more than 30 emails per hour at one point, many with photos of people s damaged iPods. Blogs of all kinds reported on the issue; a search on Feedster using the keywords Nano and scratches produced over 3,100 posts. Apple took about four days before responding, which it did through normal media contact. A press release generated interviews between reporters and Apple spokespersons. The mainstream media covered the announcement that Apple believed only about one-tenth of 1 percent of all the Nanos made were affected, and that those who had bought a defective Nano would get a replacement. Matthew Peterson, who created the complaint site, removed all the content, replacing it with the headline Apple does the right thing. In his introduction to the replacement narrative, Peterson wrote, For me personally this issue is over. I took down the web site of my own accord. I started the site to get Apple s attention. Mission accomplished. The issue, then, had spread through the blogosphere, but Apple never had to use the blogosphere to address it. Of course, if the attack is malicious and unjustified, you have the option of turning to your lawyers. The case would have to be particularly egregious to warrant this extreme, no matter how much you might want to sue somebody who attacks you or posts inaccurate information about you. Let s look at the reactions to the way two companies handled a similar situation. When two blogs dedicated to Apple s Macintosh computer posted leaked information about products in development, Apple responded by suing the bloggers one of them a 19-year-old college student to reveal the names of the Apple employees who had leaked the information. Apple is a popular company among bloggers but was nevertheless vilified for its action, which was condemned by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which provided pro bono counsel to the bloggers. Sun Microsystems also experienced leaks by employees. At Sun, the problem was handled entirely differently. Its chief executive officer, Jonathan Schwartz also the company s highest-ranked blogger posted an appeal to employees on his blog. For the sake of your colleagues around Sun, please do not share Sun s confidential information. There have been a few instances in recent weeks where crucial data and photos were leaked from Sun. It probably sounds counterintuitive, but this actually harms Sun s business, Schwartz wrote. He added (in addition to other commentary), As you know, I m a huge believer in opening Sun to the world that s what this blogs.sun.com infrastructure is all about transparency is one our best competitive weapons. But the unauthorized sharing of Sun confidential information is illegal, and against company policy. This was a remarkable approach to the issue. In a display of complete transparency, Schwartz posted the note to his public blog, knowing it was widely read by employees. Schwartz and Sun came off looking enlightened and employees got the message to knock off the leaks. This was a far better approach than Apple s. Others Will Monitor Your Blogs It is also important to realize that competitors, customers and others can monitor anything you or your company say. Although it is possible to have a private blog, one behind a firewall or with other limited access, most blogs are extremely public. When the public nature of blogs is combined with their informal writing style, occasionally slips are made. These can be broken down into two types of mistakes: ones where inappropriate company information is released; and ones where inappropriate personal topics are discussed or inappropriate personal information is publicized. A company-specific mistake is made when a blogger releases information that is not supposed to be public information. This might be upcoming product plans, internal financial numbers, customer-specific information or just about anything else. Bloggers need guidelines about which company information is appropriate to blog about, and more companies are releasing blogging policies that encompass appropriate company-specific guidelines. An equally or maybe even more common problem occurs when bloggers write about inappropriate topics or release inappropriate personal information. This can be either in a personal blog or on company blogs. There need to be guidelines (i.e., a blogging policy) as well as an application of common sense. Bloggers have been fired for what companies considered inappropriate blogging, including some very highprofile cases. Employees have been fired for divulging information in their own personal blogs, including a flight attendant for a major airline who wore her uniform in some photos the airline deemed inappropriate, and a new employee for a search-engine company who blogged about a company event at which apparently an excess of alcohol was consumed. People often are nastier and meaner in email than in person. Many a mild-mannered person occasionally releases surprisingly vitriolic emails, often entirely out of character. Blogs sometimes seem to raise this to an even higher and more inappropriate level. Bloggers regularly release details of their personal lives they wouldn t tell their closest friends, refer to their bosses by entirely inappropriate names, and say things they would never say in public. There needs to be a comprehensive and understandable blogging policy, an application of common sense, a realization that blogs are public and a distinction between public and private lives. Even if a blogger has an anonymous blog, releasing too many personal details can render that blog no longer anonymous. Spouses and bosses can realize they are being described (usually in less-than-flattering terms) and respond in undesired ways. More than one anonymous blogger has been fired for totally inappropriate and selfidentifying comments. Search Engines Search engines are extremely useful in monitoring what is being said in blogs. Several types exist, including generalpurpose search engines, blog-specific search engines and RSS search engines. It is important to realize that no search engine is perfect and it s necessary to use more than one. A search on Google versus one on Yahoo! will differ dramatically both in what they return and in the order of what they return. The first page results on the major search engines show surprisingly little overlap. A search using Daypop, a current-events search engine, will typically return more timely information but will search significantly fewer sources. A search with Technorati, which searches only blogs, will return yet another different set of results. Don t expect any of these searches to be exhaustive, even for the types of sources in which they specialize. They can and will miss information at times, which necessitates using multiple search engines. The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo! and MSN, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Together they comprise the large majority of Web searches. They index billions of pages each. Yahoo! is currently claiming 19.2 billion pages. Searching for your company name, executives names, and trademarks can reveal surprising information at times and is something you should do regularly. Google Alerts will periodically email you when new occurrences of any search terms you specify are found. Google Alerts can search news, the Web, both, or groups. News Alerts are generated when a search term is found in the top ten results of a Google News search, Web Alerts are generated when a search term is found in the top 20 results of a Google Web search, and Group Alerts are generated when a search term is found in the top 50 results of a Google Group search. Search engines are continually changing and improving the ways they search and return results. There is an entire industry devoted to searchengine optimization, or SEO, which attempts to get high rankings for specific Web pages and Web sites in the search engines. Techniques continue to evolve as search-engine algorithms evolve. Getting a high ranking for popular search terms and products, which usually results in high visibility and traffic, is extremely difficult. Because search engines do not publicize their algorithms, SEO is seemingly partly magic. It s important to distinguish between natural or organic search results and paid placements. Paid placements can be bought, while organic results cannot. Paid placements are essentially a form of advertising. Most general search engines have paid placements, including Google, Yahoo! and MSN, as well as some specialized search engines, such as Technorati. Technorati describes itself as the authority on what s going on in the world of Web logs. It is a blog-specific search engine and currently tracks over 75 million blogs. A Technorati Tag allows application of simple category or subject descriptions to blog posts, as well as links and photos. For example, I could decide to tag my posts on business blogging with the tag bizblogging, and my humorous posts as humor or haha or funny or anything I choose. Tags are not predefined but can be chosen on the fiy. Blogging software that supports categories will automatically include tag information in the RSS or Atom feed. Users of blog software that doesn t support categories and RSS/ Atom feeds can still use tags by adding a small piece of code that defines a link to the HTML of a blog post. The general format is: <a rel=” tag ” href=”http: //www.bloggerandpodcaster.com/magazine/wp-admin/ technorati.com/tag/[tagname] ”>[tagname]</a> For example the following code snippet added to a blog post tags it as shave me, a tag name made up as an example. <a rel=” tag ” href=”http://www.bloggerandpodcaster.com/magazine/wp-admin/ technorati.com/tag/shave”; mce_href=”http://www.bloggerandpodcaster.com/magazine/wp-admin/ technorati.com/tag/shave”>shave me</a> The post will now display a link named shave me and clicking on it will display recent posts with the tag shave me. Two additional features Technorati offers are a watchlist and a blog finder. Technorati Watchlist is a list of Technorati searches. As new matches for the search are found in the future, they are added to the watchlist. Watchlists can currently monitor URLs, which can represent a blog, as well as keywords. Watchlists can be accessed from a feedreader via an RSS feed or directly from Technorati.com. In additional to Technorati search, Technorati also has a blog finder. Technorati Blog Finder returns entire blogs, instead of posts. Technorati Blog Finder is useful for finding blogs in areas in which you are interested, for example pharmacology, marketing and technology. This can be useful for finding blogs that focus on your industry or interests. One is Nielsen BuzzMetrics Blog-Pulse (www.blogpulse.com). BlogPulse describes itself as an automated trenddiscovery system for blogs. It includes some fascinating tools such as Trend Search, Conversation Tracker and Blog-Pulse Profiles. BlogPulse s Trend Search lets you visually track buzz over time for certain key words, phrases or links. For example, we see that approximately 3.5 percent of all blog posts mentioned Hurricane Katrina in early September 2005, and approximately 0.5 percent by the end of September. BlogPulse Conversation Tracker lets you track blogosphere conversations, which includes an original blog post, posts that have linked to it, posts that have linked to those posts, and so on. BlogPulse Profiles lets you get more information about a blog. A BlogPulse rank is based on incoming links from other blogs posts that are less than six months old. Links from blogrolls are not considered in a BlogPulse rank. RSS search engines search only information in RSS feeds, and sometimes Atom feeds. Because most blogs implement feeds, these search engines can be very useful. It is important to realize however that not all blogs have their entire posts in their RSS feeds. Some may have only post titles or partial text, which will limit what is found. Feedster (www.feedster.com), perhaps not surprisingly, also lets you subscribe to searches so you are notified about new matches as they are found. The new matches can be sent via email or RSS. This is similar to Technorati Watchlists. Google Blog Search also lets you subscribe to searches so you are notified when new matches are found. The new matches can be accessed via RSS or Atom. Monitoring Specific Blogs Search engines are great for searching for specific words and phrases, including names of companies and people. However, sometimes we don t want to search. We want to read specific periodicals, newspapers and books. Important blogs are now also on the must read list. For example, just as many investors read the Wall Street Journal, many software professionals read Scobleizer, Joel on Software and Slashdot. Many political pundits read Instapundit, Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo, and many gadget lovers and those in the gadget industry read Engadget and Gizmodo. There are a couple of major differences between traditional print media and blogs that affect your ability to monitor them: there are a lot more blogs, and they don t publish on a regular schedule. Important bloggers may post several times a day, or only when they have something important to say. Both these differences make blogs potentially more difficult to keep up with. As many have said before, So much information, so little time. Information overload is a serious problem for most of us. That s where feedreaders, newsreaders or sometimes news aggregators come in handy. They read RSS feeds you have expressed interest in by subscribing, and show you what s new in those feeds. Because subscribing to an RSS feed merely means that your feedreader is reading an RSS feed for that site, there is no chance that subscribing will result in any kind of spam. There are many popular feedreaders, including SharpReader (www.sharpreader.net), FeedDemon (www.bradsoft.com), and Feedreader (www.feedreader.com), which are standalone applications, and Bloglines (www.bloglines.com), Pluck (www.pluck.com), and My Yahoo!, which are web-based. The importance of blogs is rapidly increasing in business, and has reached the point that intelligent organizations need to be monitoring what is being said in the blogosphere. Your competitors probably are and so should you. Pages 32-39 Blogger & Podcaster :: July 2007
Source: www.bloggerandpodcaster.com

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