{"id":190,"date":"2006-10-12T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-12T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulgillin.com\/2006\/10\/wal-mart-still-not-getting-it-in-social-media.html"},"modified":"2006-10-12T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-12T16:00:00","slug":"wal-mart-still-not-getting-it-in-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/wal-mart-still-not-getting-it-in-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Wal-Mart still not getting it in social media"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a company that\u2019s 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>, a blog written by Jim and Laura, who are ostensibly two ordinary folks chronicling their experiences camping across America<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> in Wal-Mart parking lots. The trouble is that the blog was really a promotional effort underwritten by Working Families for Wal-Mart<\/a>, an organization created by Wal-Mart\u2019s public relations firm, Edelman.<\/p>\n

Wal-Mart has come in for a lot of criticism over the blog since BusinessWeek exposed<\/a> Wal-Mart\u2019s indirect sponsorship in an article this week. Today\u2019s final post by Laura<\/a> expresses the couple\u2019s frustration at being swarmed by Wal-Mart\u2019s critics. \u201cSo now we\u2019re being attacked. Why? Because we dared to write positive things about Wal-Mart,\u201d she writes. \u201cThe people who hate Wal-Mart couldn\u2019t argue with anything we said \u2014 we were writing about real people and telling true stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, yes. But those true stories were apparently all positive (it\u2019s 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\u2019s real purpose and breached the conventions of transparency and honesty preached by its own name bloggers like Steve Rubel<\/a>. This was a bad idea that got a richly deserved upbraiding in the press. Interestingly, Rubel hasn\u2019t yet blogged about the affair. I\u2019ll look forward to reading his thoughts.<\/p>\n

The Wal-Marting Across America affair comes shortly after Wal-Mart shut down The Hub<\/a>, 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\u2019s surprising, considering it\u2019s advised by Edelman, one of the most innovative agencies in this area. Let\u2019s hope the company\u2019s next venture is a little more in-tune with its audience.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n


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For a company that\u2019s 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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pTy95-34","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}