The Responsibility of Engagement
Originally posted in the blog Indirect Manipulation on 08/27/09.
There was a bit of a firestorm this week within the web design community, presenting no shortage of self-actualized vitriol and lessons to be learned. And as usual, a number of key points are being overlooked.
It started with a blog post from a designer at a Richmond, VA firm. After first boldly claiming himself to be among the best in the field, he compiled a list of notable names representing the top echelon of industry talent, followed by blunt criticism of each of their sites. The tone (I believe) was intended to be humorous, but the clumsy execution caused many readers to view the post as excessively sardonic.
Subsequent reactions ranged from indifference to amusement to outright hostility. Some commentators defended the work of their mentors and friends with the fervor of a 1960’s Beatles fan. Others took bayonet-sharp attacks at the company’s own portfolio. Sensing a public relations disaster, the company removed the post and offered a corporate apology.
(I hesitate to link to these pages, because frankly I find the whole argument rather tedious. In the interest of journalistic integrity, however, here is the Google archive of the original post and the discussion that followed.)
For any organization wishing to increase its footprint, the immediate and evaporative nature of electronic publishing presents a number of dilemmas. Companies want to appear more approachable, so they designate an (often) untrained author to be its “social media voice” despite potential risk. Employees want to position themselves as vanguards within their field, but their maladroit arrogance dooms them to ridicule. In this case, the author assumed a more potent affinity to a respected peer group than he was perhaps rightfully entitled.
What I find most intriguing, however, are the tactics employed by the company as a means of crisis control. After removing the offending blog post, the firm (to its credit) created a Twitter page to further massage the conversation. Such an effort would have more impact, I believe, if the company had already established a strong Twitter presence long before the incident. Crisis management is a component of any good social media strategy, and it needs to be implemented before unfortunate events take place.
Another point must be made on the importance of corporate responsibility. Social media is a dialog, not a pulpit. Authors need to understand that the words they publish on a company blog are a reflection of the organization’s values, clientele and mission. Choosing to engage with a potential customer base means assuming the role of public relations marketeer. What someone says on their personal blog is their own business, but when the company’s logo rests in the header that is quite another matter.
Finally, I’m reminded of the lessons learned from my years studying and working within communities of practice. Reputations are collaborative entities, always in flux and aggregated by common principles or interests. Andy Warhol once talked about a person’s “15 minutes of fame,” while mass digital amateurization has created an environment where everyone is an expert for 15 people. It is through authentic practice and constructive discourse where long-term respect is earned.
1 Comment
Chris Leone
August 30, 2009I want to thank you for this blog post. You made some excellent points that are helpful to us as a company as well as those who had nothing to do with it in the first place.
I agree having an already established Twitter account would have been more to our advantage than creating one in reaction to the blog post. Believe it or not, creating a Twitter account was on my list of to-do’s before Dave’s blog post. With that being the case, I would have never put “crisis management” as one of the purposes and intentions of the account. We are a very small staffed company (as you can see from our bio), and I never thought we’d be on the defense on the world stage like we were last Friday. It just goes to show that every brand should be proactive – no matter how big or how small.
To your point about the words published on a company blog should represent the values, clientele and mission of the organization, you are absolutely correct! This is why we’ve since removed the post and responded the way we have on our site. We have tremendous respect for others in our field and Dave’s words were certainly not reflective of that.
Needless to say, we’ve learned a lot from the past four days. It is my hope that people will judge our company not by the mistakes we’ve made, but how we respond. When it comes down to it, we care a lot about each other, our clients, and everyone else in our industry. We are grateful that despite Dave’s blog post, people like you were willing to offer constructive thoughts.
Thanks again for this post.