OPINION
23
How Should Wal-Mart Handle Blog Ridicule? Ignore It
No right move on 'People of Walmart' pics of fashion misses
By Harry Kimball
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Posted Sep 9, 09 6:09 PM CDT
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(Newser)
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A wildly popular new blog mocks Wal-Mart and its customers, and encourages others to join in by uploading their own photos and comments. So what should the retail giant do? Nothing, writes BL Ochman in Advertising Age. The site—People of Walmart—isn't “likely to do lasting damage to the brand,” Ochman writes, unless the company tries to stop it. “If Walmart tries to squash the site, they'll quickly become the laughing stock of social media.”
On the other hand, Ochman says, “if they laugh with the site, they'll be accused of laughing at their own customers.” The best course, which Ochman doubts Wal-Mart will take, is to be quiet and let the fuss die down. It may take a while: At last count, the site had 15,000 Twitter followers, and the group of twentysomethings who started it needed to get bigger servers.