Wal-Mart Astroturfing debacle
Businessweek has a story about an astroturfing debacle where Wal-Mart was (indirectly) paying bloggers/journalists to say good things about them. This seems to be happening more and more. And it will, too.
I think the reason for this is a simplistic mind-set:
1) Big company finds bloggers saying bad things about said company
2) Big company pays money to other bloggers to say good things about the company
3) Other bloggers find out about the astroturfing and raise hell, creating more ill will than the first set of bloggers ever did
Except that the corporatoids who do the funding have a hard time getting it through their heads that the third item on the list will inevitably occur.
Comments
Paying people to write nice things about your company is the quickest way to get the public to think the opposite. That and deleting negative comments from discussion boards/blogs (except for abusive, racist, etc. types of comments) is a sure fire way to lose all credibility.
I think the best way for companies to handle bloggers like this is to either just out right ignore them or have a someone from the company contact them to work out a solution. Even if they can't work out a solution then at least it shows that they tried and are making an effort. I think that the public would feel better shopping at a company that they know if they have a problem that they won't just be dismissed and that the company will try to make things right.
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