Wal-Mart not a Blog Council member, but should be
If any company should be a member of the Blog Council, it's Wal-Mart. After three failed attempts at conversational media marketing, the world's largest retailer can use all the help it can get, especially now that they've launched yet another, a blog called Checkout, written by a group of employees.
Jeremiah Owyang has confessed to be a "hopeful skeptic," but I'm less so. The fact that it's written by a group of "expert" associates is enough to turn me off. Plus, the posts I've read seem facile and contrived. A post entitled Team Kills is just one example...
"Here is one to throw around and discuss a bit. Just got through playing a marathon session of Warhawk today and there is this guy on the same team who is getting his jollies by team killing. He is out there knifing our glorious red team for no apparent reason. That really gets me. Just wondering what others think about this and became inspired (emphasis mine) to write to you here."
Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks so. The site is lacking in any kind of meaningful dialogue in the form of comments. The most commented on post only sports three, none of which have anything to do with the topic of the post itself.
"yall should make sure your bios dont have spelling mistakes," says commenter Seth
"Hey Seth does my bio have a mistake?" says blogger Tifanie
"He may be referring to 'distain' should be 'disdain'," says another commenter Connie.
(NOTE: Tifanie has yet to correct the misspelling.)
Considering the site only launched this past Thursday, I guess I can give them a pass. According to a comment left by an employee of Wal-Mart's PR firm Edelman over at Mack Collier's Viral Garden blog, so far little has been done to attract readers, calling it a "soft launch."
However, inasmuch as this is a) a Wal-Mart endeavor, b) that they've had three highly publicized mis-fires, and c) that popular bloggers like Jeremiah, Mack and Shel Holtz, to name a few, began talking about it almost immediately, the fact that my little ole blog has more comments than theirs is remarkable. I'm also skeptical that the comments that do come won't be of a derogatory nature. Comment moderation is turned on, though the Edelman commenter indicated that no comments had been censored at that point.
Now, I'm going to come right out and say it. I'm no big fan of Wal-Mart. Coming from small town America I've seen them ring the death knell to more than one small, locally-owned business once they hit town. I've also seen how they treat vendors, one of whom (a personal friend) supplied fishing lures to them. Over time, 80% of his business was with Wal-Mart. That is, until they buyer calls him up one day and says they would no longer be needing his products. It nearly killed him.
But, that's another story for a different post. It should not color my judgment about large corporations and their ability to carry out conversational media marketing initiatives. I just wonder, doubtfully, whether Wal-Mart's corporate DNA can truly accommodate them. (A "meatball sundae" is how Seth Godin would characterize it.)
Buy, hey, you gotta commend them for continuing to try. If, however, this one tanks, I think Wal-Mart should reconsider their relationship with Edelman. Used to be that three strikes and you're out. Wal-Mart is up to bat again with their fourth attempt.
To conclude as I began, Wal-Mart should definitely join the Blog Council...assuming an invitation is extended.
Wal-Mart's blogging efforts so far, have admittedly been abysmal. And this one so far doesn't look like a world-beater, but it does look a far sight better than what's come before. In fact, this effort looks a bit better than Dell's One2One effort last year. But then again, that means that Wal-Mart's at least a year behind Dell on the blogging curve, which is really bad.
Still, if Dell can turn it around, I think Wal-Mart has a shot.
Posted by: Mack Collier | December 09, 2007 at 11:59 AM