Tom Siebert from OnlineMedia interviewed me last week for a story he broke on a Pro Wal-Mart blog which, as it turns out, was put together by a professional writer and photographer, and financed by Wal-Mart through their PR firm, Edelman, and a funded non-profit called Working Families for Wal-Mart.
Siebert's article had a predictable outcome, an outcry by PR bloggers and anti-Wal-Marters.
Shel Holz complains that the Edelman, the PR Company, has been silent on the issue.
Wagner Communications says: If there's a lesson we can learn from Wal-Mart's attempts to burnish its image, it should be this: You can't run a corporate communications effort like you would a political campaign.
My quote on Siebert's article: "People are experimenting to see what works--where does the truth matter?" Maybe it does, maybe not.
If anything can be learned from LonelyGirl15, the object of the last big "identity scandal" in the social-media-sphere, is that faking identity to earn an audience will cause an outcry.
However, I have a saying which goes "That's a Good Problem." LonelyGirl15 is, as of this week, the #2 most viewed site on MySpace. Either her audience doesn't care that she has been putting them on, or she just attracted a whole new customer that is more into the entertainment than the reality behind it.
As an aspiring actress, LonelyGirl15 may just have a ticket to Hollywood. But this is a stunt that the public at large won't accept more than a few times, whether the story comes from her, or Wal-Mart.
For the record: I am who I am. My blog posts are my own thoughts and my own writing. Greg may, on occasion, fix my seplling errors.
