Launching Brands in Public

sethgodin.typepad.com

12 points·bdfh42··3 comments

Honestly, I don't like these business models of trying to force brands to interact with their own customers on someone elses terms. It instantly reminds me of the 37signals vs GetSatisfaction debacle, albeit with slightly more product disclosure this time.

Edit: Link to 37s blog post http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1650-get-satisfaction-or-else

"Each page collects tweets, blog posts, news stories, images, videos and comments about a brand... If your brand wants to be in charge of developing this page, it will cost you $400 a month."

This is extortion.

Hello, I made this page collecting negative reviews of your company, would you kindly pay $400 a month for a chance to reply? (Sorry Seth, you can say all day that feeds will be "algorithmic" and include positive reviews as well, but you have no business incentive for keeping it that way. And anyway people will always complain about a brand more than they praise it in public.)

"You can organize it [what people are saying about you] by highlighting the good stuff and rationally responding to the not-so-good stuff"

Of the example links, only Trader Joe's had a list of "Not so happy" Twitterers. And all they complained about was not having a local Trader Joe's.

I don't think any brand can manage bad press from a single page. But it would be nice to be proven wrong. Good luck!

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