As noted in Sunday's blog entry, Motrin inflamed the blogosphere and Twittersphere with its recent Motrin Ad.  In amazing speed, the VP of marketing at McNeil Consumer Healthcare responded, apologized and pulled the ad.

While they made an amazing misstep, McNeil acted promptly to stem the ferocity of the negative word of mouth.  Kathy Widmer, VP of marketing at McNeil, introduced herself as a mother of three and wrote that the ads were intended to show "genuine sympathy and appreciation for all that parents do for their babies."

The power of social media, the value of listening, the impact of word of mouth and the influence of online moms all made themselves heard.  And we have a new case study!

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Serial Entrepreneur and NBA franchise owner Mark Cuban appeared in headlines today.  The SEC accused Cuban of insider trading for selling 600,000 shares of Mamma.com in 2004 after agreeing to participate in a dilutive follow-on stock offering. So how does a billionaire's trouble with the SEC relate to social media and word of mouth marketing?

In addition to running several companies, Cuban also maintains a well trafficked journal on business, NBA, investing, and Internet technologies at Blog Maverick. A prescient post from Aug 2008 entitled "The Life of a Story? The 3s" provided advice for public figures condemned by bloggers, journalists, and other media professionals.  Cuban suggests negative press has a maximum lifespan of 3 weeks if the involved individual or group does not provide additional fodder to continue the story. 

Cuban's public profile is his brand.  Similar to the perception of any corporation, Cuban's commentary (good or bad) reverberates across the Internet in different communities.  As demonstrated by the Techmeme snapshot below, the story has already spread through a number of high profile blogs with active communities commenting on each post.

Will Mark Cuban follow his own advice and avoid commenting on the story?  This afternoon, Cuban posted correspondence between his lawyer and the SEC but refrained from opinion or self defense. However, THREE HUNDRED THIRTY EIGHT comments followed as of 9:38 CST.  Read for yourself, the commentary is overwhelmingly positive including snippets like:

"This is typical of the SEC, Freddie and Fannie go bust and the congressional committees that have oversight get million in donations and nothing happens, but should a high profile investor make money..."

AND

"I cannot think of anyone who does not appreciate how you have given your insights into business and economics both freely and frankly.  The generous ways in which you sought to educate any who read your blog (with regard to markets) make these charges seem all the more ludicrous.  I say you go Larry Flynt and Kenneth Langone on their ass! Give 'em hell!"
 

How would your brand respond to allegations of illegal activity?  Do you have supporters to flood the comment section of your website with support?  Could Motrin have followed Cuban's theory?

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Looks like Motrin is quickly becoming the poster child for the most current social media and word of mouth marketing campaign gone bad.

Started following the tweets of David Armano on the new Motrin Ad and the backlash they are getting among the social media moms they were looking to engage.

The benefit of a smart, mom-focused word of mouth marketing campaign is that you can test and validate it before launching.  Motrin clearly didn't do this.  They have a chance to redeem themselves; let's see if they do it.  There is an upside: we all need new materials for our social media and word of mouth marketing "don'ts."

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They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

We are all pretty thrilled to have been recognized by Liz and the SOB [Successful & Outstanding Blogger] community here at The Word on Sustainable Word of Mouth Marketing.

The conversation is growing.

As new voices, and new cultures, embark down the path to visible authenticity, we all owe it to one another to reach out and build bridges. We all have something to learn. And we all have a fiercely intense reason to listen.

I'd like to share the other week 159 SOBs below. Please take a moment to visit their sites.

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Blogging as a business and blogging for business possess different success metrics.  Blogging as a business - or sites hoping to subsist from advertising - must concentrate on traffic.  Eyeballs are still essential to lucrative blogs, perpetuating the metrics used for nearly a century in print journalism.  Blogging for business (corporate blogging), however, removes advertising revenue and editorial competition from the equation, shifting the focus to quality over quantity.  In terms of blogging for business, a quality viewer is an individual likely to disseminate niche information to a larger, more diverse audience.

Examine the relatively low traffic levels for Coca Cola, Amway Global, and Johnson and Johnson corporate blogs:
 


The 1000 - 5000 monthly viewers to the sites above do not necessarily reflect a corporate blog's health. For example, Google's blog network focuses on cultivating quality viewers rather than mass quantity. The company ignores their real-world business model of driving pageviews, and instead allows employees to provide personal updates on their life and work at Google.  This obviously builds a necessary connection with customers, but also creates a location for people who Blog as a Business to retrieve corporate insight during the research process.  The Gmail group - responsible for Google's email service - recently posted about the integration of gadgets which created no community comments.  Within days, however, nearly 50 technology blogs referenced the development including highly trafficked sites like Read Write Web and Google Blogoscoped.  These two sites alone attract nearly 1.3 million viewers per month (compete.com).

So how can you organize a community to view your corporate blog as an open window to your company's culture?  The first step is not policing the content with the same tactics used for press releases and traditional publications.  FT ComMetrics corporate blog index recommends the following:

• Allow all to visit your site.  Do not require registration
• Provide the option to leave comments
• Post new content every 6-8 weeks at minimum
• Do not focus on a single event or occasion
  

Second, your Blog for Business needs to continuously (gradually) build personal relationships with industry peers, media professionals, and other potential influencers. Idea sharing is central to the social web and positions you as an active industry participant.  In the Google example - Philipp Lenssen of Blogoscoped and Richard McManus of Read Write Web certainly have developed personal relationships with staff members at Google.  Here are some tips for creating repeat readers:

• Include the URL on your business card
  
• Encourage employees to participate through comments
• Comment on related blogs with wider circulation 
  

If you are still uncertain about the differences between Blogging for Business and Blogging as a Business, examine a few of the several hundred corporate blogs listed at The NewPR/Wiki. Discover what conversations are of interest to a library or how sheet metal is applicable to daily life. 


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