Missed Opportunity

I am amazed at the lack of response from Ketchum PR.  It is one thing to get batted about in the blogosphere, it is quite another to let it go unanswered.  Ketchum has missed opportunity after opportunity to post a response to their own site (which lacks a real blogging interface…i.e. comments and trackbacks) or to the sites where the critics are gathered. I posted some comments on one of the sites which are as follows:

 

The Q&A referenced was an ideal spot for a "comments" section. It isn't there because of one or a combination of reasons:
1) they're afraid of what might happen (criticism seen in public)
2) they don't know how to filter comments
3) they didn't know you could filter comments
4) they plain don't understand the value of comments
5) they view what they're doing as one way communications where they and their clients feed information to an audience of bloggers

 

Ketchum has an opportunity to create its own case study on how to work with the blogosphere to improve its own image. In the meantime, they are getting savaged and are not responding and are creating a case study (for use by others) on how not to engage the blogosphere. PR in the blogosphere is, in large measure, about engaging people in a dialogue and responding rapidly to qualified (as opposed to crackpot) criticism.  The critics are qualified and raise good points and Ketchum needs to address them rapidly.  At this point, they are killing their new practice (at least with clients who are capable of doing their own Google search) before it ever gets a chance to flourish. 

Comments

[david parmet]

Jeremy Pepper has the update - apparently they are now calling their 'blog' a one-month demo project by some rouge office in the mid-west.

Too bad, talk about missed opportunities.