Asymmetrical conflict in the blogosphere
Even without knowing whether the criticism of the client was deserved: for a single act, or a pattern of action, or not at all, it struck me that they were in a very tough and unfair spot. If you look at nasty blog posts or comment streams, it is hard to deny that there’s a piling on, hit them when they are down dynamic.
When hearing the people and effort that this client had deployed to try to respond to this, and how helpless they felt, i did feel sympathy. Once a thread about your company, or your product, or yourself, starts up, and gets interesting, it gathers a crowd, maybe because they agree, but just as easily because the attacker is funny or outrageous or clever in an evil way.
And then Google gets a hold of it, and before long negative diatribes become number one and two hits when people search for it. And there’s not a thing you can do about it.
Basically what’s going on is that individuals (bloggers but just as easily comment posters) invest almost no time, equipment or money to create essentially an attack which gets magnified 10 or 100 fold by the crowd mentality and then the search engines, and which the target, no matter how much time, equipment or money, cannot really defend against, even when it’s totally untrue or unfair. Asymmetrical conflict.
Yeah I know this is the way it goes on the web and it’s just one dark flip side of all the good that we get from the internet. But I know I personally will think twice before zipping off a blog post or comment in anger.
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May 23rd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Hi Pito - great post. I agree with you that responsible bloggers should think twice before slamming a company.
I also think that this new consumer architecture of participation can and should be used to reverse the power imbalance that exists between many buyers and companies. I am not sure that there is an asymmetry between companies and their buyers - just a better balance of power.
I have had many experiences where customer service issues only got resolved after I blogged about it.
Now all that being said, I have also seen companies that were unfairly targeted who were able to get other bloggers to rally around them and in effect neutralize the attack. Just like a company needed an crisis management plan in the old days, they still need one today. The difference is that a crisis management plan in 2008 needs to be more than a plan - it needs to include a pro-active outreach to potential allies in the social media space.
Francois
May 28th, 2008 at 8:46 am
What drives the anger. What drives the passion, the emotion. What is the difference between “mood management” (a billion dollar industry in those nations where psychology is close to law enforcement and buffering conflict due to deprivation issues associated with ‘globalization’ of economy,life chance reduction etc). Looking back at anger, Fidel Castro and his middle/upper middle class pals and gals in Havana and Santiago were a just handful who “unfairly targeted” the US way of doing things in “Latin America” and things got viral and folks rallied around them. So you say self censorship and other retentive behavior is best way to maintain some politically correct form of “democratic internet.” I suspect what we really have here is “job creation” ramping up for reputation management enthusiasts, sort of like “fire insurance” for internet business. It is human nature for humans to “attack” at some point, aggressively, passively, non-attack attacks. Regardless of whether you are a small business, or a big corporate giant or an oligopoly industry globally, attacks will happen. The reality is that we will always live in a “first punch” and “shoot first ask questions later” world. The internet and its power as a medium enables those who like to “attack” exponentially. So there is a new growth industry out there sort of like a new virtual mommy coming out with a towel to clean up baby’s mess. Like somebody closer to the sun once said… genius steals, excellence copies… See social psychologist Lev Vygotsky for details.