When will companies ever learn?
Sometimes I wonder when will companies ever learn that they should never ever threaten to sue a blogger for writing a negative blog entry about their business. In fact, the last thing you want to do is to sue a blogger. Let me explain.
Bloggers are free to express their own opinions. Bloggers are influencer. People read blogs because of their frank comments, be it positive or negative. They have to be frank. It’s not hard to spot a blog which writes fake reviews. Reputation is very important to a blogger. Nobody wants to read a blog with untruthful reviews.
Companies must learn to understand that everyone have their rights to express their opinion, be it at a social gathering, kopitiam, forum, twitter, blog or any form of communication. Just because someone said negative stuff about your product/service doesn’t give you the rights to sue the person. A blog review is like a comment from your customer. If it’s a positive one, thank the blogger. If it’s a negative one, engage the blogger to see how you can improve.
You don’t sue a blogger just because of a negative blog entry. Just like you don’t sue a customer who walk up to you and give you negative comment about your company’s product/service.
It’s basic EQ lah. Engage those who comment negatively on your business. If done correctly, you could turn a negative publicity into a positive publicity. (Personally, I don’t not believe that bad publicity is good. A bad publicity is only good when you can turn it around. If you can’t turn it around, a bad publicity is a bad publicity)
I’m writing this after reading about the Obolo vs My Food Sirens saga. Yes, it has become a saga already and it is now turning into a complete PR disaster. You should never ever ask a blogger to take down an article because it is unfavorable to you. And you should never ever ever threaten to sue a blogger for a negative blog entry. NEVER.
When My Food Sirens wrote the negative review, Obolo had the best position to show everyone that they are listening to feedback and engaging their customers. If Obolo agrees with My Food Sirens’ review, they could fine tune their recipe and invite My Food Sirens back for the second time to review it again. If Obolo disagrees with My Food Sirens’ review, just email to My Food Sirens explaining that most of the customers like it this way and recommend other items on the menu which might suit My Food Sirens’ taste bud. Food reviews are very subjective. Her too sweet might be too bland for others.
Engage your customers. If they like your stuff, retain them. If they don’t like your stuff, convert them.
End of the day, you should never ever threaten to sue a blogger for negative comments. (or in this case, hint that you will) The last last last thing you want to do in your lifetime is to sue a blogger. Really. Anyone with a decent level of EQ will tell you that suing a blogger is just as bad as attempting to sue a traditional media (Remember Durai from NKF?). Even if you have a case against the blogger, it might not be that wise to do so unless there is really no other options. Engage the blogger. If the words are indeed defamatory, write to the blogger and request the defamatory portion be amended in a nice manner. Never ever threaten to use legal options unless all talks fail. It’s like politics. Do you see countries threatening to use military force straight away? Of course not. They will always talk and get things done thru diplomatic means. Military force is always the last option and used with care when all talks fails. (Except for George W. Bush)
If you are interested, try read up on a recent incident in US where a landlord sues a tenant after she tweet about moldy apartment. The tweeter has only 20 plus followers. But the whole world now knows about that one little 140 character tweet because of the lawsuit. And it doesn’t matter if the company have a case or not for this instance. Most people don’t like to work with a lawsuit-trigger-happy company.
Which is why I keep saying that you should never ever ever sue a blogger (or tweeter). I’m not sure how many people are following My Food Sirens. All I know is that after this incident, even those who are not following the blog knows about Obolo. The whole incident is so badly managed that it has become a talking point in the social media circle. I wouldn’t be surprised if this become a case study in the near future. A case study on things you should never do.
And if you read the comments in the review, quite a number of people are saying they will never visit Obolo again (including myself). It’s not because of the food or the negative review. It’s because of the way Obolo handles this incident.
And they can only blame themselves for that.
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[...] – My Food Sirens II: You mean bloggers can’t speak their minds? [via DK] – Dee Kay Dot As Gee: When will companies ever learn? – World Through Spider’s Eyes: Human Greed & The People Exploiting It [Thanks Kenneth] – [...]
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[...] – My Food Sirens II: You mean bloggers can’t speak their minds? [via DK] – Dee Kay Dot As Gee: When will companies ever learn? – World Through Spider’s Eyes: Human Greed & The People Exploiting It [Thanks Kenneth] – [...]
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Companies should learn about something called the ‘Streisand Effect’.
.-= xizor2000´s last blog ..Random Discourse – Crime Prevention =-.
Yeah, unfortunately for these companies, free speech applies to the blogging/tweeting world too.
I doubt any of these lawsuits would ever hold up in court. I just hate the bullying,
The big Corp companies should be worrying about business expesense keeping their biz going instead of bloggers and twitters who have a right to say what they like. We have freedom of speech and we are allowedto use it as we please.
Yah, Obolo just committed a kamikaze and missed the target. Even if the cafe owner has never heard of Social Media, they should have seen how the AWARE case was spread thru blogs, twitter and fb. Now the only way out is to change their cafe name.
.-= Cloudywind´s last blog ..Singapore through my N97 – Kopi-C, Prata and Bak kut teh =-.
Well, AWARE is really small case. China’s Internet has better examples where several corrupted, power abusing and corrupted officials got their just deserts when exposed on the Internet. There’s even this case of a junior minister or something losing his post for threatening to close down all the sites that dare write anything bad about him.
Simply put, it’s not about social media or not social media. You simply DON’T fxxk around with the Internet!
.-= xizor2000´s last blog ..Random Discourse – Crime Prevention =-.
Hey DK,
Agree with your views on this. I was wondering what your thoughts are on defamation, libel and slander in the blogosphere?
I think we could still follow your recommendations to do engagement, but what happens if you can’t get an amicable resolution? Do you think, if the misrepresentation by the blogger was serious enough, and no resolution could be reached after engagement, then that would justify legal action on the part of the company/individual?
Really, those guys shoot themselves in the foot. I have seen positive reviews of their macaroons on other blogs (follow Ms Glitzy for macron reviews : http://glitzy.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/m-for-macarons-obolo ) , and I have not seen them rave about that. Instead they chose to focus on the negatives! Silly!
You gotta see whether are there any libel in the comments, be it negative or positive.
The interpretation of libel laws is quite complex and you and I are not in a position to generalise any cases and advise actions.
Everyone is free to sue as long they believe there is a clearcut libel,…you or me included. Courts will decide who is right after reading the interpretation.
AS long one day you feel that there is a need to take a matter to court, then go ahead.
Kelvin: If someone defame you, you have the rights to sue the person. But that doesn’t means you need to. The best way to settle the issue is to talk to the person and try to settle it without the need of a lawyer.
But if like you said, after talking and still can’t get an amicable resolution, then it really depends on a case by case basis. Is the blogger very prominent and influential? Does he/she has a very high traffic? Does the readers believe in his defamatory statements? And most importantly, do you really want to be involved in a troublesome court case? Is it worth the effort?
There are other ways to settle the problem. Like commenting on the blog to defend yourself/company. Other blog readers might also stand up for you. Or if you have a blog yourself, you can also post your stand point on your blog. The beauty of social media is that nobody is in control absolute of it.
End of the day, if a blogger post defamatory/untrue stuff on the blog, he/she is just risking his/her reputation. Once it is exposed, the his/her statement has no weight and people will just treat that as bullshit.
Lawsuit should always be used at the last last last option. (I sound like I’m nagging already) Not say cannot be used, but using it is like pressing the red button to launch nuclear missile. Don’t do it unless left with no other options.
Good post
Companies are using the threat of legal action in order to scare bloggers who write negative reviews to take it down. On their end, it’s part of the strategy to get their objective done through any minor hole they can squeeze through.
What they don’t realise is the huge implications their actions have on free speech: if somebody doesn’t like what you say, he/she can force you to retract your words purely by threatening to sue them.
This is a blatant abuse of the legal process, and a fair judge would not look favourably on the plaintiff.
.-= pkchukiss´s last blog ..So… the money belongs to the government now, eh? =-.
The same applies to government agencies. They may not have customers but they do need to recruit good employees. I’m hard pressed to think what advantage A*Star gained from threatening to sue Acidflask.
another ongoing saga will be boingboing vs ralph.
To add some sort of closure to the issue, Obolo had given some sort of statement. It should be on My Food Siren’s blog by now.