Of Brands, Blogs, and Bullies
Posted on Wednesday, February 20, 2008by Greg Schneiders
General Motors has recently taken a bold and enlightened step into the brave new world of online engagement with www.gmnext.com. The site has a blog that encourages interaction between the company, its customers, the broader public and even company critics. It also offers a wiki that allows the public to help “build” the 100-year history of the company complete with personal and even emotional first-person accounts. There are photos, videos, podcasts, and personal stories from current and past customers.
But recently, most of the attention – on and off the site – is going to the blog where environmental activists are harassing company executives who gamely try to defend the company’s green initiatives (http://thecycle.prweekblogs.com/?s=gmnext). For the moment, GM has shut down the public comment space and “taken back control” of the site. It raises an interesting question and one we encounter every time we encourage a client to go interactive. When is enough enough? The purpose of these exercises is to give the public – including critics – a chance to be heard and, in turn, to hear from the company on issues that matter to both the public and the company. But, too often, they become nothing more than a soap box for activists (and occasionally bores) who just want to repeat a point of view often enough and loudly enough to drown out everyone else on the subject. We’ve all seen the non-digital version of this at political town hall meetings when, eventually, a heckler needs to be removed from the event. Of course, it is possible to digitally remove these online hecklers – by blocking them from the site but, increasingly, they are sophisticated enough to work around such measures and/or recruit enough like-minded folks to overwhelm the site. At those times, companies may have little choice but to do what GM has done and “take a breather.”
Too bad. Companies, their customers, and the broader public can all benefit from an open and honest give-and-take on relevant issues and GM exhibited what seemed to me, at least, a sincere effort to engage in a conversation even when it stung a little…or a lot. But no company can be expected to allow their assets – in this case their blog – to be used as a blunt instrument to bludgeon them endlessly and boringly until they cry “uncle.” Web 2.0, as a “society,” is still in its infancy and the rules of engagement are far from clear yet. Maybe the solution, eventually, will be for other blog participants, interested in the original intent of the site, to step in and help shut up (or down) the loudmouths. Such social opprobrium has long been effective in the “real” world. Might be worth a try in the digital world.
