Blogging lessons learned
When a blog post draws this kind of ire, the blogger should step up, Brogan advises. "You do have to acknowledge it to some extent, but you don't have to be a whipping post. You have to make your case, but you don't have to do it two hundred blog posts in a row."
Not every indie blogger writing about the brand will do an equally good job of reacting well to criticism, he adds. Marketers need to realize it's all part of the game. "Content marketing is moving forward, even though the idea has taken some challenges," Brogan says. The necessary experimentation will certainly include some misfires.
The obvious lesson is that bloggers need to clearly define their rules of engagement with advertisers, difficult though that is. The less obvious lesson is that, to a great extent, the reactions of the blognoscenti and the Twitterati may not matter.
Brogan said K-Mart didn't even notice the flap. A more social-media savvy company might notice and overreact, as did Motrin. When mommy bloggers created a Twitter stew over an online ad, Motrin pulled the ad and apologized for offending them. But maybe K-Mart has it right.
According to Izea, the promotion was highly successful. See campaign results from Izea here.
Brogan dismisses the whole kerfuffle as "bloggers eating their own."
