McDonald’s Second Blogging Attempt
Related entries in Business BloggingMcDonald’s has thus far made some missteps in the blogosphere. First for it’s "fake blog", and now for it’s tentative "corporate" take on blogging.
Shel Israel has taken a firm stance against what McDonald’s is now doing, seeing it as a way to exploit this new "blogging thing", rather than as a way to build relationships or trust.
I do agree. Many companies come to blogging to see what they can get out of it, now what they can give to it. They want to suck out the most money from their blogging efforts as possible. Get that maximum ROI. It’s not focused on the people, the dialogue, the long term relationships or loyalty.
Shel has taken a step further an has offered McDonald’s some tips to blog more effectively:
- Start a conversation with your customers. [and be honest]
- Talk about a typical day in the life of a franchise owner
- Ask your customers what they want of you. [and listen]
- Drop the language of corpspeak.
- Read other people’s blogs. Join their conversations.
The blogosphere can forgive and embrace. But it will remain suspicious of motives when it comes to large corporations and previous missteps. We’ll have to wait and see if McDonald’s will reap the benefits of dialogue - benefits that could revolutionize their business concepts and ideas - or if they are publicly denounced for their "PR" approach to blogging.
Tags: business blogging, mcdonalds, pr
February 1st, 2006 at 10:12 pm
Arieanna, thank you for pointing out these flaws or weaknesses in McDonald’s newest corporate blog. I posted about it the other day, but failed to notice its potentially negative aspects identified here. I appreciate your perspective!
I think that the principle of reciprocity - what you sow, you reap - works fairly well in this context. In other words, if Mickey D’s talks to the common customer on its blog in an easy, comfortable, insightful way, its public image will improve. Or it can choose to look stiff and formal, and lose potential customers.
Same goes for any company and its communication habits, I would think. I’m still trying to understand the contrast between “small business” blogs and “big business” blogs. Do you think they are just differently-sized animals of the same species, or are they perhaps completely different types of beasts? In what ways are they similar/different?