Ireland’s Advertising Standards Authority has announced new guidelines for blogging ethics. They are concerned about bloggers who review products without disclosing that they are paid or otherwise compensated for doing so. Under the proposed guidelines, such posts must be clearly labelled as marketing content. This is not a big change for most bloggers because they already do this. Business blogs are clearly marketing content.
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While the new standards are really only codifying best practices, they are a nice prompt to think about the importance of ethics and transparency in all communications. If your brand sends out products to reviewers, do you follow up to ensure that the blogger disclosed your arrangement? Often the deal is that the blogger gets the item for free in exchange for reviewing it, and the brand has no official say over what the blogger says. A company producing poor-quality products risks a poor review. After all, who is going to be upset at not getting more free junk?
Marketing is but one of the ethical issues bloggers face. Any time members of the public can comment on your blog or social media status, you run a risk of a troll invasion. The wrath of the trolls might be directed at your brand, a specific employee or another commenter. Or you could see an onslaught of spam. When and how should you step in?
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. You can enable comment moderation and ensure that only reasonable comments show up. Free speech does not extend to random people spewing spam or abuse on your internet real estate. If you ran a pub and a fight broke out, you would not hesitate to evict the offenders to ensure the other customers enjoyed their experience. Your web presence is no different. Debate is good, but if people engage in personal abuse against each other that undermines your purpose for having the blog or social media presence.
There is one time you should allow negative comments – if a customer complains. While you might initially cringe and reach for the delete button, a negative comment online is your chance to show off your customer service skills. Don’t get angry. Don’t return fire. Just confirm that you want to ensure all of your customers are happy and explain what you can do for the unhappy customer and how this person can avail of your offer to make things right. But remember – you do need to make sure the person is a customer. You don’t want to wind up making amends to people who have never purchased anything from you!
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By Irene Hislop
By Jeff Sheridan