For a company that’s so well tuned-in to the psychology of its customers, Wal-Mart is a flop so far in social media. The company just shut down Wal-Marting across America, a blog written by Jim and Laura, who are ostensibly two ordinary folks chronicling their experiences camping across
Wal-Mart has come in for a lot of criticism over the blog since BusinessWeek exposed Wal-Mart’s indirect sponsorship in an article this week. Today’s final post by Laura expresses the couple’s frustration at being swarmed by Wal-Mart’s critics. “So now we’re being attacked. Why? Because we dared to write positive things about Wal-Mart,” she writes. “The people who hate Wal-Mart couldn’t argue with anything we said — we were writing about real people and telling true stories.”
Well, yes. But those true stories were apparently all positive (it’s hard to tell; the archive has disappeared). Wal-Marting Across America was an interesting experiment by Edelman that pushed the limits of what the blogosphere would tolerate. But Edelman went overboard. In setting such a sunny tone, the agency raised suspicions about the blog’s real purpose and breached the conventions of transparency and honesty preached by its own name bloggers like Steve Rubel. This was a bad idea that got a richly deserved upbraiding in the press. Interestingly, Rubel hasn’t yet blogged about the affair. I’ll look forward to reading his thoughts.
The Wal-Marting Across America affair comes shortly after Wal-Mart shut down The Hub, a social networking site for teens. Critics had roasted the site from day one for being too promotional and too restrictive on what members could say. Wal-Mart continues to thrash about in social media. That’s surprising, considering it’s advised by Edelman, one of the most innovative agencies in this area. Let’s hope the company’s next venture is a little more in-tune with its audience.
Free advice for unpopular companies launching a blog: more grass, less astroturf. Too many people will enjoy the opportunity to take you down if you do it wrong.
One side effect of the attention on blogging is that it’s pulling aside the curtain on what PR agencies really do. This episode teaches us that while Steve is writing good stuff about social media, the agency he works for creates a fake advocacy group to support their client. Only this time, the agency’s involvement gets the same attention as the client’s. I guess transparency can be contagious.