Damage Control Blogs?
Recently, three leading global brands have been affected by a major crisis: Dell, Apple and Sony.
Both Dell, and then soon after, Apple had to launch a massive battery recall program because lithium-ion batteries with cells manufactured by Sony can overheat, posing a fire hazard to consumers.
So I became curious to learn how the corporate blogging strategy of these three companies enabled them to do some damage control.
Dell
Dell’s official blog [http://www.direct2dell.com/] has published so far 9 posts on the battery recall issue. Several user comments are posted, some of them actually “applauding” the effort. In addition, Dell established a dedicated site [http://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/] to manage the recall. Of course the blogosphere is pointing out the fact that Dell waited for too long and that the recall will give enterprise IT managers headaches but overall, most bloggers are fairly supportive of the initiative.
Apple
Apple doesn’t have an official corporate blog. It is managing the crisis by providing a link on its home page to a dedicated support section [https://support.apple.com/ibook_powerbook/batteryexchange/].
Debating the recall is left to the usual blogs focused on Apple and I am not impressed with what I’ve seen there:
-scary pictures of destroyed PowerBooks [http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/] (see below picture of a sad PowerBook powered by Sony)
-comments around Apple “following” Dell’s lead.
Apple could have manage the debate more proactively by having a forum, such as a corporate blog, to do so.
Sony
Like Apple, Sony doesn’t have a corporate blog. It seems to be avoiding the debate by simply letting Dell and Apple take the forefront. What is more surprising is the fact that this is the second time in a short period of time that Sony is hit by a situation where damage control is needed. The first time was last year when BMG included a Digital Right Management rootkit on some music CDs without letting users know about it. Already then did many people ask the question: “Does Sony Corporation Need a Damage Control Blog?” [http://blogbusinesssummit.com/2005/11/does_sony_corpo.htm]. I search in vain Sony’s site to find any information about the battery recall. May be the communication team simply know that the problem will go away if they keep quiet?
Conclusion
I believe that corporate blogs are not a suitable tool for damage control unless the company already has one established. A company needs to build trust from readers over a relatively significant period of time before expecting to leverage a relationship to do some damage control. More useful could be a corporate blog to actually do some damage prevention. Comments offer an easy way to ask questions, provide feedback, and put pressure internally on a company to be proactive. At the same time, it seems to me that Dell benefited from being able to communicate on the crisis (from several angles) from its blog. By doing so, it deflected some of the comments out of its core site. Both Apple and Sony suffered from the absence of that alternative communication channel.
More information and perspectives available at: http://www.intuitive.com/blog/blogs_for_damage_control.html
Both Dell, and then soon after, Apple had to launch a massive battery recall program because lithium-ion batteries with cells manufactured by Sony can overheat, posing a fire hazard to consumers.
So I became curious to learn how the corporate blogging strategy of these three companies enabled them to do some damage control.
Dell
Dell’s official blog [http://www.direct2dell.com/] has published so far 9 posts on the battery recall issue. Several user comments are posted, some of them actually “applauding” the effort. In addition, Dell established a dedicated site [http://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/] to manage the recall. Of course the blogosphere is pointing out the fact that Dell waited for too long and that the recall will give enterprise IT managers headaches but overall, most bloggers are fairly supportive of the initiative.
Apple
Apple doesn’t have an official corporate blog. It is managing the crisis by providing a link on its home page to a dedicated support section [https://support.apple.com/ibook_powerbook/batteryexchange/].
Debating the recall is left to the usual blogs focused on Apple and I am not impressed with what I’ve seen there:
-scary pictures of destroyed PowerBooks [http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/] (see below picture of a sad PowerBook powered by Sony)
-comments around Apple “following” Dell’s lead.
Apple could have manage the debate more proactively by having a forum, such as a corporate blog, to do so.
Sony
Like Apple, Sony doesn’t have a corporate blog. It seems to be avoiding the debate by simply letting Dell and Apple take the forefront. What is more surprising is the fact that this is the second time in a short period of time that Sony is hit by a situation where damage control is needed. The first time was last year when BMG included a Digital Right Management rootkit on some music CDs without letting users know about it. Already then did many people ask the question: “Does Sony Corporation Need a Damage Control Blog?” [http://blogbusinesssummit.com/2005/11/does_sony_corpo.htm]. I search in vain Sony’s site to find any information about the battery recall. May be the communication team simply know that the problem will go away if they keep quiet?
Conclusion
I believe that corporate blogs are not a suitable tool for damage control unless the company already has one established. A company needs to build trust from readers over a relatively significant period of time before expecting to leverage a relationship to do some damage control. More useful could be a corporate blog to actually do some damage prevention. Comments offer an easy way to ask questions, provide feedback, and put pressure internally on a company to be proactive. At the same time, it seems to me that Dell benefited from being able to communicate on the crisis (from several angles) from its blog. By doing so, it deflected some of the comments out of its core site. Both Apple and Sony suffered from the absence of that alternative communication channel.
More information and perspectives available at: http://www.intuitive.com/blog/blogs_for_damage_control.html
posted by Francois Lavaste at 9:25 AM
1 Comments:
Interesting read. It took us a while, but Dell now recognizes the importance of the blogosphere and the importance of having yet another channel to communicate directly and quickly with our customers. We're still figuring things out, but we're glad to be here and part of the conversation.
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