Walmart v the Blogosphere

Link: BusinessWeek.

This can also be stated as PR vs the Community. I think that bloggers and all other communities should and do welcome business into their conversations. "Please join in and learn how you can better serve us, but do not insult our intelligence or think that being cute or entertaining is providing a service."

But let's pick this apart a bit and see who is being over-sensitive about Walmart's efforts and where thier efforts could be improved upon. I mean really - I applaud and respect Edelman for jumping into this so quickly and being willing to make mistake and then educate others about what they have learned. So, as bloggers, let's talk about how can someone with a personal interest also build an authentic community.

Once bloggers heard that Jim and Laura had undisclosed benefactors, they were furious.

Should people be paid to blog? Well, our lunch sponsor for the conference might have a few thoughts on that.

These are people with jobs and lives to support, why shouldn't they get paid? They are not actors or spokespeople, they are real people who took the job. As someone who has become very particular about who I will work for and what I will do for a living, I choose to look at this as a choice they made in good conscious. Alright, perhaps I am being a bit Idealistic, but that's what keeps me going sometimes.

What bothers me is that the article suggest that Edelman will suffer more than Walmart for this campaign. A campaign funded by Walmart, although the spokeperson for Walmart states;

"We won't comment on the RV tour, since it was a Working Families for Wal-Mart initiative and we didn't have anything to do with it," says Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar.

Yeah. Well, I think the comment could have been more along the lines of we are focused on building a community and letting people have an insight to what we do and who we are. But, it's a learning process, right?

As the competing PR firm stated;

"Today, there's nowhere to run and nowhere to hide," says Paul Rand, a partner at Ketchum public relations. "The moment you hide something, you will end up being exposed and picked apart."