△ MENU/TOP △

Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
SearchClose Icon

Edelman and the one-sided conversation

The first inkling I had that Edelman PR had stumbled again in its social media efforts on behalf of client WalMart came early yesterday when Laurel English emailed me a copy of the MediaPost story. Shortly after that, Donna Simmons—past president of PRSA’s Inland Empire (California) chapter forwarded along the same story. I covered the story in yesterday’s FIR, and have since been following coverage in the blogosphere. There has been plenty, not surprisingly. (And that’s just a small sampling; there’s more here, here, and elsewhere.)

The one source from which we haven’t heard—at least, as far as I can tell—is Edelman.

In case you missed the story, a blog ostensibly authored by a couple traveling across America in their RV and spending nights parked in WalMart parking lots turned out to be a fake blog, the brainchild of WalMart’s PR counselors at Edelman. While fake blogs (and other fake social media) are nothing new, it’s dismaying to see it emerge from Edelman, which has some of the smarter new-media people on its staff (Phil Gomes, Michael Wiley, Steve Rubel and more), and which touts itself as the PR firm that truly gets social media. This is the third time (as Todd Defren noted in his post) that Edelman has botched the whole social media thing on WalMart’s behalf.

Those smart PR folks working for Edelman are among the members of the PR community who advocate participation in the conversation. Some of them have been brutal when, to their way of thinking, somebody else fails to understand what it means to be engage in the conversation. So where is Edelman in this particular conversation? Missing in action. As dismaying as this latest misstep is, it’s even more dismaying to see Edelman’s high-powered social media experts failing to walk the talk. Nothing from Richard in his vaunted 6 a.m. blog. Nothing from Steve, who blogs at the pinnacle of PR’s A-list. Nothing from anybody (based on a Technorati search and a survey of the Edelman blogs).

I was surprised when PRWeek issued its Agency Excellence Survey (PDF), where Edelman ranked pretty low in terms of its social media savvy. Today, it doesn’t seem so surprising at all.

10/13/06 | 43 Comments | Edelman and the one-sided conversation

Comments

  • 1.Shel, the PRWeek link points to Edelman.

    Sebastian | October 2006 | Germany

  • 2.I'm trying to withhold complete judgment until we hear from Edelman itself. It's absolutely shocking that we still haven't.

    Bryan Person, Bryper.com | October 2006

  • 3.Shel has a post gathering and discussing some of the discussion around the latest Edelman (to use the hot social media word) kerfuffle.
    My question is, do we consider this astroturfing?
    It seems to me that if it’s not “technically” (w...

    http://flyovermarketing.wordpress.com/2006/10/13/t | October 2006

  • 4.Shel:

    I posted a trackback to this, but then was going through my feeds and came to the Micropersuasion feed.

    It's so funny and strange to read the stuff Steve has posted on his blog in light of the elephant in the room. It just struck me as funny how that's what is being portrayed and put out to an audience that's talking about everything but that.

    It really is a parallel of the marketing and PR world. Companies are still trying to control the message, still trying to tell you what they want you to hear, but we're talking about something else.

    The funny thing here is that it's not that we don't want to talk to the company, we're BEGGING them to join the conversation, and they seem to not care.

    Kevin Behringer | October 2006 | Whitewater, WI

  • 5.Shel, in concurrence and agreement with your comments on yesterday's FIR about the inappropriate response in the blogospher regarding Apple, I want to reserve my opinion until we hear from Edelman. But I have to tell you, if no reasonable explanation emerges, and given that Edelman has prior mistakes, I think you will have to rethink describing them as "Smart PR folks."

    What's that old saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice (or thrice), shame on me.

    Craig Jolley | October 2006

  • 6.Thanks, Sebastien; I fixed the link.

    Shel Holtz | October 2006 | Concord, CA

  • 7.Actually, Craig, the new expression is, "Fool me once, screw you." (Credit to Joseph Jaffe; that line appears in his book, "Life After the 30 Second Spot.")

    Shel Holtz | October 2006 | Concord, CA

  • 8.I was just being kind. <G>

    Craig Jolley | October 2006

  • 9.Elephant in the room indeed! I posted about the Wal-Mart debacle yesterday as well - and got five visits from Edelman staffers for my trouble. Interestingly, I actually had part of the story wrong (since corrected) and yet no one stepped in to correct or refute.

    Asleep at the wheel? Ordered to remain silent? I vote for the latter.

    maggie fox | October 2006 | toronto, canada

  • 10.Outrageous. Scandalous.

    The fraud was bad. The silence is worse.

    Todd Defren | October 2006 | out and about

Comment Form

« Back