Kodak – how not to engage the blogopshere

Dealing with corporate bloggers is like dealing with political bloggers 4 years ago. They are easily offended, they ask you to do more work in order to “get it”, and then they go home.

In response to my Kodak blog review, here’s what I got from Kodak’s…umm….trying hard not to laugh when I type this…..

Director, Brand Communications and New Media
Corporate Marketing & Business Development

Titles with 11 words are such a great start to blogosphere conversation. Anyway, here’s the email.

Tom from Kodak here. Your review of Kodak’s blog was kind of harsh, but hey,
that is your take. We have been doing this since September of 2006 and have been
getting all kinds of positive feedback by the people who come by. We have published
each and business day since then which is no small feat and no, it is not a big budget
item for us – we do it on our own time

[That shows. Moving on.]

I did want to point out a few things to you to make sure you get the whole
picture. Our product blog is at http://pluggedin.kodak.com you might want
to check that out to see more of the product level information.

If you had dug deeper you would have found more variety.

Stop right there. You NEVER tell a blogger to dig deeper. It assumes they didn’t dig, assumes the accuracy of your own opinion, and assumes that a blogger isn’t paying attention. A blogger will spend however much time at your corporate blog as they want, which is likely to be about 5 seconds on average. You telling them to spend more time is a non-starter. Corporate blog projects enter the blogosphere with this level of arrogance all the time, and it still remains a hallmark of the lesser political bloggers.

We aren’t
just a travelogue as you suggest. Check out some examples of some
posts I highlighted at our 1-year anniversary:
http://tomhoehn.1000words.kodak.com/default.asp?item=671879
You make me think that we must consider providing a link to top posts
from the main page to help new visitors get a good sense of the breadth
(thanks for the idea .

If you want to know more about what makes me tick you can see the posts I have
contributed here:
http://tomhoehn.1000words.kodak.com

If this helps to sway your opinion, great. If not, at least you had more
information to make your evaluation.

No one in the blogosphere wants to know what makes a marketing PR guy with an 11 word title “tick”. They know what makes you tick. Money. What they visit your blog for is information about your company that they may not be able to get elsewhere. My email response.

thanks for the response. just a couple things.

i’m doing this project in order to pitch myself for blog consulting to corporate blogs. i’ve gotten some response from potential clients, and would be happy to discuss this with you if Kodak is interested.

on the ugh-ness, while i agree that a little digging would be useful, bloggers don’t dig much beyond the front page unless they have a specific issue they are looking for. your front page, on a daily basis, is the impression that is left.

again, if you’d like to discuss consulting further, let me know. thanks again for the response.

tim

Note that I am completely upfront with my purpose immediately. There is no spin, no hidden agenda, nothing that could leave Tom with the wrong impression. Tom’s response to my blog post did the opposite, as does Kodak’s blog.

Within this example are several learning points for corporate bloggers and companies seeking to start a corporate blog presence, and I’d be happy to elaborate on it as a consultant. In the meantime, I will just point out that – nothing personal against Kodak – this episode is a completely predictable and fine example of how not to go about engaging in the blogosphere.

Which is fine, because that’s what I’m trying to help out with.