In early March, The New York Times ran a story with the headline "Wal-Mart enlists bloggers in PR campaign."
While the story itself is of interest as an example of how some PR agencies increasingly see blogs as legitimate communication channels, it is of greater interest to look at what the Edelman PR agency did in this specific case acting on behalf of their client—what went right and, more important, what didn't.
The story involves U.S. mega-retailer Wal-Mart and how, in January, they began reaching out to bloggers in the U.S. as part of what the Times described as a corporate reputation repair campaign, providing those bloggers with exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and inviting some of them to visit the corporate headquarters. That outreach had already produced some good results, a Wal-Mart spokesperson said in the Times story.
It's a good example of how any company can embrace the blogosphere by participating in "blogger relations" (think media relations but with bloggers rather than journalists) to build relationships with people who may have influence in the connections they have with others who read what they post on their blogs. The concept is illustrative of good business thinking by both Wal-Mart and Edelman.
Yet the Times story triggered a veritable landslide of passionate opinion and commentary in the PR blogosphere surrounding one aspect in particular of Edelman's Wal-Mart campaign: that of transparency and disclosure.
The discussion point centered on the question of whether Edelman exercised adequate disclosure of their relationship with Wal-Mart in the e-mails that the Edelman executive traded with bloggers. Clearly Edelman believed they had disclosed adequately. While some argued they had not, the majority of participants in the many conversations in blogs also felt that they had; an e-mail signature, for example, mentioned the name "Edelman."
Personally, I don't believe they did at all. The texts of the e-mails were ambiguous and did not make it sufficiently clear that the writer was an employee of Wal-Mart's PR agency.
Whatever the different opinions, one of the results was that the PR agency and the issue of transparency and disclosure became the story for a while, overshadowing the real one—groundbreaking work in the emerging field of blogger relations. It's an aspect of public relations practice that is so new, there's still no clear agreement on how to define the term blogger relations.
But while everyone is still trying to figure out what blogger relations means and how it works, it's worth revisiting some fundamentals of public relations practice.
The following two points are part of the advice I would give to any client or PR agency who is contemplating outreach to any constituent group, whether that group is bloggers, journalists, employees or investors:
1. Full and clear disclosure of who you are and who you work for is paramount at the very outset of your contact. If you make that contact by e-mail and assume that a brief e-mail signature containing an abbreviated name of your company or agency is enough, or that those you are reaching out to will Google you or guess such things from the e-mail signature, this illustrates a lack of respect (among other things) for those you are making contact with, which leads to the second point.
2. Respect those you are reaching out to by assuming they will not know who you are or who you work for unless you tell them, directly, clearly and unequivocally. If you work for a PR agency, you would do this by stating up front in your outreach that you are contacting the person in your professional capacity as a representative of X company, who is your client. Whether your particular approach in making contact is informal, folksy or formal, by e-mail, phone or face-to-face, doesn't really matter—that's a point of style and individuality in how you determine the effectiveness of your approach. What does matter is that you make a full disclosure at the outset, thus enabling your contact to determine whether or not he or she wants to have a relationship with you. It aids your credibility in the eyes of your contact and helps establish a foundation for trust.
Such points should look familiar to IABC members—see the preface to the IABC Code of Ethics.
Finally, here are some selected opinions and other commentary from around the PR blogosphere about the Edelman Wal-Mart campaign:
What's your opinion? Leave a comment in MemberSpeak.
Neville Hobson, ABC, is a communicator, blogger and podcaster, one of the leading early adopters and influencers in new-media communication for business. He blogs at NevilleHobson.com with commentary and opinion on business communication and technology.
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