No Response

Posted January 10th, 2008 by Char Lyn

Mack over at the Viral Garden had a post yesterday that gave a great tip for using Google to monitor your brand in the blogosphere. He also underlined the importance of corporations leveraging the free market research available through blogs. However, I disagreed with the underlying message of his post, which implied that corporations don’t monitor the blogs and should always respond to blog posts about them.

Good marketers know when no response is the best course of action. Here are some examples:

• A truthful, transparent response will incite more negative posts.
• Responding may expose the company to legal action or increased regulatory oversight.
• Entering the conversation opens a floodgate that requires continued involvement beyond the resources of the company.

Still don’t believe me? Then you probably also think the customer is ALWAYS right. Now I do believe that you should do everything within your power to make a customer happy, but there are some customers whose happiness would drive you out of business. When those customers blog, no response is the best route.

Do you have other scenarios when a corporation shouldn’t respond? I’d love to hear them. Also feel free to comment about your vehement opposition to the content of my post. Just be aware that I may not respond.

@Jennifer Laycock Please don’t misconstrue my post in any way. I loved your post and subsequent comments. In your specific case, Panera’s best response may be to allow each franchise location to determine the log in time interval, in which case you could get the local manager to give you unlimited access.

Entry Filed under: Blogs, Consumer Marketing, Digital Media Relations