Public Relations Princess

Craig Olson of GeoLearning My Guest on PRP Wednesday March 17

It's been a while since I've hosted my Public Relations Princess Show, since it directly conflicts with my PR Writing class at Drake. But since it's spring break, my friend Brooke Benschoter has graciously allowed me back into the broadcast booth for a day. I've really missed my show.

I have an awesome spring break guest. Craig Olson is the Director of Marketing at GeoLearning. Join me at 4:00 CDT on DesMoinesLocalLive. Once you get to the site, click "watch the full video experience," and log on to the chat. What makes Des Moines Local Live such an interesting format is the chatters asking questions during the show.

Craig Olson has a diverse background in broadcast, public relations and high tech marketing.  He began his career as a reporter for KSFY-TV, in Sioux Falls South Dakota. For seven years, he worked as video communications manager in the Office of Public Relations at the University of Northern Iowa. His interest in high technology took him to Silicon Valley in 1996 where he represented the Sony Broadcast and Professional Group at what was then the largest high tech public relations agency in the U.S. 

Olson worked as Director of Corporate Marketing for TeamQuest in Clear Lake Iowa, before joining GeoLearning in West Des Moines as Marketing Director in July of 2009. He has a B.A. in Journalism from Iowa State University. He is an experienced team builder who is comfortable managing and motivating people while maintaining a sense of humor.(I can attest to the sense of humor!)

See you at 4:00 p.m. this afternoon.

Public Relations Blackout for Toyota Dealers

I was having lunch with a friend last week and he mentioned that his brother and he had wildly divergent careers. While my friend Larry chose to be a journalist, his brother followed in his father's footsteps and became a car dealer. This seemed like a good decision (money-wise) until last month's Toyota debacle started to unfold.

Larry related a jaw-dropping story to me that inspired this post. Aside from the extra money and replacement parts sent to the dealerships, Toyota did not provide its dealerships much guidance on how to handle the inevitable media crush. In fact, Toyota forbade a group of 1200 dealers from hiring their own crisis communication firm to help them deal with the devastating effects of the recalls.

Larry related his brother's own incredible experience as evidence of the disconnect. His brother received a call from the local ABC affiliate,and agreed to do a live interview. He was stunned when the local affiliate arrived with ABC national in tow! He had no media training and no approved key messages. Thank goodness, Larry's brother was able to keep his wits about him and not blow the interview.

What steps should Toyota have taken ahead of the crisis to help its dealers cope with a crisis of this magnitude?

1. Imagine all the things that could go wrong: The first step in crisis planning is taking on the role of Debbie Downer. You have to sit around a table with your stakeholders and imagine all the terrible things that could possibly happen to the business. In Toyota's case, a massive safety recall certainly would have made that list.
2. Spend the money to create a crisis communications plan. It's possible that Toyota headquarters had a plan before the crisis, though I sure couldn't tell. But one thing's for sure. The dealers were woefully unprepared to handle it. Even car dealerships need crisis communications plans.
3. Be familiar with your local media outlets and cultivate those relationships. Be available year-round for car-related stories and be a go-to source of information. TV stations, especially, are under tremendous pressure to find a controversial public safety angle. Don't take a chance that you'll be the one they pick to "expose."
4. Train your staff to recognize and react appropriately to the crisis. Every staff member should know their role. 
5. Get the advice of a public relations professional, even if you have to pay for it with your own money. No one has to go it alone, and there are plenty of well-trained crisis managers out there who are adept at steering clients through a crisis. Obviously, it's best to retain someone ahead of time so they can familiarize themselves with your business.

I know all my friends in the business can help me think of what I missed. In case you are wondering, I believe that Toyota will recover, but it might take 10-15 years for all the lawsuits to be resolved.

Jodi and Steve's Dell Fail Story

I never had any intention of being a consumer advocate for those who have had problems with Dell computers. But this story, sent to me by a young lady I have never met, was too compelling to leave alone.

After I posted on my blog about my bad experience with Dell, people started coming out of the woodwork. "The same thing happened to me!" many of them say. This story is about a young couple named Jody and Steve, who live in Indiana.

Here is the text of Jody's email:

Hi Claire:

I just read your blog and I am having the exact same issues. I've had 5 replaced hard drives in less than 2 years. The most recent on in September. Which was the worst timing ever. My husband died September 1, 2009. My computer crashed September 24, the day before our 1st child was born, erasing every photo I have taken of my husband in the last 2 years. I lost everything.

I call Dell. 9 hours over 3 days and I FINALLY get some help. They dispatch someone to my house. They give me refurbished equipment AGAIN!! Now 6 months later same issue. Do you have the email address for Brad Laurich Community Liaison Dell? I truly need some help. I can not afford to buy a computer. I should NOT have too. I paid a lot money for this thing, bought the warranty and it suppose to work! Thank you for your blog! I hope you win your case! I've listed the link for my husbands obituary and a picture of us just so you know I'm not blowing smoke.

Jodi

Does Dell really have to get out its rule book to know that this lady is truly deserving of a new machine? Or to have new hard drive sent to see if any pictures could be recovered?

In my situation, it's been "One Week Since Dell's Talked to Me" and I'm still waiting. I did discover that Dell is doing a terrific job letting customers vent on its Facebook "Fan" page, but that there are no fans to discover once you get there, just a bunch of very mad people.

Dell, I'm waiting for your help and a fair resolution to my problem.

Top Ten Types of Twitter Spam

A few interesting interactions over the last couple of days have awakened me to the fact that many Twitter users still see it as a spam machine, and don't use it wisely.

My time on social networks is limited so I aim to connect with the people who add value to my experience, and unfollow the rest. I add as many followers as I can possibly handle, but unfollow those who provide no value, because I want my follower count to be a true representation of people I interact with.

Increasingly, I've noticed a disturbing trend. Some new Twitter "users" (I mean that word literally) see Twitter as a means to blast their ads and other annoying nonsense, interspersed with cloying quotes and retweets to disguise the fact that the "light's on, and no one's home."

Since I logged on Twitter three years ago, I've witnessed all kinds of spam activity. I've categorized it here and would love you get your reaction. Do these bug you as much as they bug me? Do you have any to add?

1. "Get more Twitter followers" spam: This is the worst kind, in my opinion. These are list brokers that will help you harvest and follow hundreds of Twitter users per day. This is why you should not "auto-follow" anyone on Twitter. Yes, you'll get a new follower, but it won't add any value to your conversations. I unfollow these people as soon as I catch on to what they're doing.
2. Spamming large amounts of people, hoping that just a few buy something. Last time I checked, that was the formula for "Buy an ad." But people don't use Twitter to get ads spammed at them. They come for the interactions. Twitter has an account that you can report suspected ad spam to. Or, just click on your "report spam" button. If you tweet ten ads to every "real" interaction, that ratio is backwards.
3. Empty shells: These people have a fake front business, but they're really just shameless self-promoters who use spam to eek out an accidental living. Most have no real skills to offer, but pride themselves on their ability to sit behind a computer and click some buttons. Put them in a real business situation, they fold faster than a poker bluff.
4. Porn spam: You know what I'm talking about. Obviously done by a bot, because why else would they follow me? Not at all interested.
5. Duplicate accounts: Last week,I was followed by several made up accounts in a row, all with the funniest names. They all had the same tweets displayed. My favorite was "Social Media Jew" and had a picture of a Hasidic Jew as the avatar. I have no idea how these people have so much time to make stuff up.
6. Repeat schedulers: I follow this guy because he makes me laugh (check out his profile, LOL) but he does schedule and repeat tweets over and over. Lazy and a bit disingenuous, in my opinion. I suspect that's why he doesn't have many followers. But it can be entertaining, I guess.
7. Trend followers: These are people who just tweet about breaking news all day with #trend hashtags thrown in. Do they do it because they really care about that natural disaster or shooting? Or are they doing it just to get followers?
8. Stat addicts: Usually on Twitter for a year or less, these people spend time just aimlessly pumping up their numbers, and actually belittle people for having fewer followers than them (which exposes their ignorance). This type of behavior completely misses the entire point of social media and has no place in the community.
9. Retweet dummies: These folks just go out on the Web, find random news articles and tweet 'em out all day. The only way this adds value is if you have an opinion on it. If not, I can find my own random articles. Thanks.
10. Quoters: This is a hallmark of spammers. In order to seem more like a real person and fool people into following them, these people will just tweet out random quotes from famous people, even if they are obviously not following that virtuous advice at all. I don't mind quotes from people every once in a while, but do it sparingly and it will be more meaningful.

Who are the most notorious Twitter spammers out there? Report 'em to Twitter first and then leave a comment here. For my next post, I'm going to list some Twitter users who add value and interaction to their tweets.

How Dell Computers Lost My Business Forever

Today, I was forced to tell a company that I have done business with for five years that I would have to sue them in small claims court for losses I sustained to repair two brand new computers.

Dell is a company that had so much promise. It has squandered that good will not only once, but twice. A few years back, with their stock prices in the tank and complaints about bad service at an all-time high, Dell's management made a decision to start listening to bloggers and try to improve their service.

Along the way, they lost their reasoning skills. At least in my situation, they've lost their common sense.

My story is a bit complicated. I bought three new laptop computers from April 2008-May 2008. A slight detour occurred in the Fall of 2009 when two of the three computers were stolen from my home. The replacement computers turned out to be clunkers.

For simplicity's sake, I'll name my computers for easy reference. My computer is #1, my oldest daughter's is #2, and my youngest's is #3.

Computer number one started acting up soon after I bought it. While typing on the keyboard, all of a sudden, the cursor would jump around and go somewhere else. It didn't seem to correlate with touching the mouse keypad on the computer. It was random and maddening. This still happens all the time. Dell has acknowledged this problem and offered to send me a new computer. There are thousands of posts on this site from hundreds of others who have experienced the problem too.

Computers number 2 & 3 were stolen from my home in August. Both of my kids were set to start college in less than two weeks after that. So, I called Dell to try to get some guidance as to how I could replace both machines for less money (I have insurance which covered it, but after a $1000 deductible obviously had less money to work with). I tried to call Dell, but didn't want to talk to someone in India. But I called the customer service line anyway. No one there really understood my problem.

I finally got a hold of a guy named Jubal in Dell's twitter sales team. He was a nice guy,and I ordered two more brand new machines. This is when the problems all started.

I had already purchased Office student and Home for the original stolen computers, but Dell did not send me a disk, they just pre-installed them. So now I was faced with the prospect of buying the software again, or just using my disk. I used mine to install on both of their machines. So Dell, now you know why you should always send the software you sell people!!! BECAUSE I MIGHT NEED IT AGAIN!!!!! Plus, it's MINE. I bought it.

Then, computer #1, still having the annoying jumpy cursor issue, now started having a much more serious problem. When my iPod is plugged in, I cannot access Windows Explorer. However, before I figured that out, I called Dell. I talked to a lovely young lady on Diwali. She had to work that day because so many of her co-workers had the day off. Since I spent six hours on the phone with her that day, we became friends. Turns out, Diwali is one of the most important holidays in India. I almost felt sorry for her because she had to spend six hours on the phone with me, but then I was charged $183.14 for the privilege. Only hours after completing Dell's suggested "fix," my computer started doing the same thing over again.

In early February, computer #2 mysteriously went black. It would not start. It was dead. Then a week later, computer #3 had the famous "blue screen of death" and would not start.I reached out to @teamblackhawk on Twitter and received no response.

Since I had already experienced Dell's inconvenient and inaccurate diagnosis and inability to fix machine #1, I asked a friend who he recommended. That is how I connected with Jason of Iowa PC Services. I left the machines in his care more than two week ago. The diagnosis? Machine #2's hard drive had failed. All data lost. Machine #3 was a software failure. Not a surprise since it has Windows Vista in it. I had ordered a Window 7 upgrade a few weeks before and not had the chance to install it. I had not been send another upgrade for machine #3, and when Jason inquired in February, they told him the offer had expired January 30, 2010. Thanks, Dell, for going the extra mile. How hard would it have been to just send the damn thing out?

I felt my last resort was to start tweeting my displeasure. On February 17, @LionelatDell started following me and got me connected with Brad. I had a very frank conversation with him about how this whole situation had inconvenienced me.

Here is the text of his email to me, with a fairly decent offer. But he ignored my request to be reimbursed for the estimate $650 repair that Jason is making to computers #2 and #3.

Claire, I have looked into this and here are the current solutions we would like to offer.

1. Exchange your system to a new system (same model) with Windows 7 (Please note new exchanges can take 10-15 business days). Please note that the remaining warranty will transfer to the replacement system. (Claire's note: If this is not an admission that my computer is a lemon, I don't know what it is)

2. Credit the Dell on Call charge (call to India) to the original form of payment.

3. Send out the other Windows 7 Upgrade disk that your daughter is entitled to.

4. Send out Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 (this is the version of the software that allows 3 licenses to be used in the same household) located here: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Business_and_Office/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=19&sku=A0754540 If receiving this software is not going to work, let me know and we can credit your account $140.00 instead.

Please let me know if this is agreeable, and if it is, the shipping address you would like to use. On a side note this is not something we normally offer and a big exception to our normal policy, but after discussing this with you I feel these will be the best solutions for you. If you have any questions please let me know.

Brad Laurich Community Liaison Dell Inc.
1-800-822-8965 x72-33949

This last paragraph is very telling. Notice, there is no apology for the time I've wasted trying to get this situation fixed. And for good measure, they've let me know that making something right and trying to make a customer happy is not something they normally offer.

When I emailed back to inquire about the $650 expense I'm incurring for fixing computers #2 and #3, here was Brad's response:

Unfortunately this is not something we will be able to do. We can still put through the other items I sent in my previous email, but we cannot pay for charges to a 3rd Party Service Provider.
Brad Laurich, Dell 

Ok then, Brad, Lionel, and Michael Dell, that is not acceptable. I will be following up with letters to the Better Business Bureau, the Iowa Attorney General's consumer division and will be filing a claim in court to get my $650 reimbursement. I refuse to be held accountable for the mistakes of a multi-billion dollar company that should know better.

Dude, I'm gettin' a Mac!

Please feel free to leave your Dell Hell story here. Please feel free to blog or tweet about it as well.

Biaggi's Knows How to Train Staff and Provide Excellent Service

Last night Jim and me were out in West Des Moines returning a small pile of rejected Christmas gifts. Hubby does not like to shop or schlep around stores. So we made it as quick and painless as possible.

It was almost 8 o'clock and we were getting hungry. On a whim, we ducked into the Biaggi's parking lot and made our way in for dinner. After being greeted warmly at the hostess stand, we were seated immediately in a busy, warm and bustling dining room.

A staff member delivered a basket of warm bread and I started to people-watch, my favorite thing. Jim and I chatted, looked over the menu, and waited for our server. And waited. And waited.

Soon, the young lady who had seated us ten minutes before came around the corner with another couple and seated them at an adjacent table. She was scanning our table discreetly. As soon as she saw that we both had already closed our menus, and that there were no drinks on the table, she quickly hurried away and went to go report the situation to a floor manager.

Thirty seconds later, our server Tanner appeared, offering profuse apologies for not having shown up sooner. He quickly went through the specials and took our drink order. As far as I was concerned, Biaggi's staff had already done enough to make up for their initial error. Then, an amazing thing happened.

Andy Crounse, the manager of the restaurant, appeared. With a big, genuine smile and his hand folded in an apologetic manner, he approached our table. "I'm so sorry your server was late in getting to you. I'd like to buy your glass of wine for you. Please let me know if you run into any problems with dinner, and I'll take care of it personally."

This guy could not have been any more than 30 years old. He oozed genuine concern. I was very impressed. My mind could not help comparing this situation to the one that had happened last week at Legends. The one thing that I think made a huge difference was training. It was plainly obvious that the staff at Biaggi's had been properly instructed how to handle a sticky situation. From the young hostess who noticed the situation and did the right thing, to the server who quickly took the blame and tried to make it right, without blaming anyone, to the young manager who was empowered to offer a remedy.

My glass of wine cost $7.99. The cost could have been much greater. My hat's off to Biaggi's in West Des Moines, for taking customer service seriously. Our meal was excellent, too. We normally go to locally-owned Mom and Pop restaurants, but this place made me feel just as welcome and appreciated as a south-side neighborhood joint. Bravo, Biaggi's.

An added bonus was seeing my friend Tom Flynn III and his lovely wife, a few tables over.

Perhaps Mark Rogers and his staff should have their next staff meeting at Biaggi's. Let's hope no teachers are there!

Legendary Bad Service

It's not very common to see the owner of a restaurant yelling in a customer's face and shouting "Hasta Luego" after them as they leave.

It's even rarer still to have the "offending" customer be a teacher, patronizing a restaurant on a Monday at noon. After all, most teachers are unable to leave the school building most days.

Let me set the scene: A group of Des Moines Public School teachers were in an all-day in-service meeting in downtown Des Moines, and decided to have lunch at a popular eatery. One member of their party, unfortunately, had a hair in their salad. When she pointed in out to a server, she rolled her eyes, said it "wasn't her fault, and that she didn't put it there."

Shocked by the server's response, the teachers asked to speak to a manager, who didn't appear from the kitchen until they had paid their bill and ready to leave. That's when things got a little out of control.

Here is a direct quote from the email that was forwarded to me soon after the incident:

"Several minutes later, an angry man came out and introduced himself as the owner. He repeatedly stated that he was understaffed that day and that was why our service was so poor. Each time we attempted to refocus on our server’s response to the hair, he would reply that the entire staff was stressed out because “all of these teachers keep showing up unannounced to eat."

"We told him that our concern was not with the speed of service, but with the response of his server when we told her there was a hair in the salad. From approximately 5 inches from my face, he yelled, “Let me ask you something! Did she charge you for it?” I told him that we were not charged for it, but the server’s response was inappropriate. He angrily said he did not see what the problem was. He said if “anyone” lets him know of the Des Moines Public Schools in service next year he will be ready for us. We told him that would not be necessary for us, because we would not be coming back."

When the teacher arrived home, she wrote an email and forwarded it to as many people as she could, some were fellow teachers. Then someone started a Facebook group called "Keep Legends American Grill Teacher (and customer) Free."

From a customer service standpoint, this was a total meltdown on the part of Mark Rogers, the owner of the establishment. Not only did he come completely unglued and act unprofessional, he set a stupendously bad example for his young staff. He should have used the whole situation as a "teaching moment." Pun intended.

Then, he apologized to the teachers on TV. He should have made a personal phone call or at the very least sent an email. Also, he should have joined the Facebook page and offered a sincere apology on behalf of his entire staff, and noted what he is doing to mitigate the problems so no one is ever treated like that again. The obvious strategy is employee training on what to do and say when a customer finds a hair in their salad. Since he is the boss and can't technically be fired, I would suggest anger management counseling and a long vacation for Mr. Rodgers.

Finally, as a gesture of goodwill, Legends should cater a hair-free lunch to the teachers' school. After all, teachers don't get out much for lunch.

The way I see it, there are at least 5 lessons to be learned here:

1. Make sure your staff is well-trained.
2. Right wrongs quickly and with a sincere apology.
3. Don't mess with teachers.
4. Get your business on Facebook.
5. Don't be a dickhead.

I was interviewed about this today on KCCI for a 5 o'clock story. I'll see if I can post a link later.

Update: here's the link to Steve Karlin's story. I was also misquoted in the text. The "10-15% of people will love you and 10-15% will hate you" language belongs to my esteemed colleague Eileen Wixted. And as usual, she's correct.

The State of Social Media in Academia

Last weekend, I had a fantastic opportunity to teach a social media seminar at Drake University in Des Moines,Iowa. The course offers one hour of master's level credit for a class that meets on a Friday evening from 5-10 p.m. and Saturday from 8-5. That seems like a really long time to be sitting on a weekend, but to me it went by incredibly fast.

I am a 2001 graduate of the university, and it seems impossible, but I typed most of my papers on a typewriter. I researched most of the material in the basement archive room in Cowles Library. I painstakingly read through research abstracts in the electronic databases and used a "state of the art" program to access all of the material. But I still had to drag those big green books off the shelves and make expensive copies.

Think about how much technology has changed and benefited both students and the academic community. Apply that thinking to the use of social media in universities and the adoption of a social media major in Journalism and Mass Communication Schools in the U.S. Social media has the potential to set a university apart from its competition and tell the stories of the student and faculty.

Colleges and universities should adopt a holistic approach to social media. The problem becomes herding academic types (which is worse than herding cats, times 1000) and getting them to make some decisions without over-thinking it.

My advice to universities for communicating with its "publics":

1. Get the buy-in of the president and the VP in charge of marketing communications. Once those two are in, the rest is academic (pun intended).
2. Form a small committee of people interested in moving the institution forward in using social media, including a representatives from the following groups:
   
   • Students
   • PR and communications staff
   • Admissions staff
   • Alumni relations office
   • Sports communications staff
   • Community relations representative
3. Set a goal of getting at least one form of social media up and running in one month,and having all members contribute and participate
4. Communicate with the group when something significant is happening that the other members can talk about too (i.e. A big basketball game coming up, FAFSA deadline, a snow day, a campus visit by a famous alum, etc)
5. Meet monthly to share successes and failures. Share information.
6. From the beginning, keep good track of metrics and report success to leaders
7. Visit other school sites to get ideas
8. Listen to people who are talking to you via social media and respond to them using social media

In my next post, I'll have some advice for those journalism school and business school deans who would like some advice on how to teach the next generation of workers about social media.

A Sad Customer Service Lesson

Tonight I had dinner with my daughter and her friend Jessica. Last Sunday night, Jessica and her friends were hanging out, watching football and having a good time. Jessica's friend Lindsay left her friends to go pick up her boyfriend, driving into worsening road conditions and probably going a little too fast. Eight hours later, worried sick and unable to sleep, her friend's roommate called. She had just received a call from police officers, who were on their way to the apartment she and Lindsay shared.

As you can imagine, the news was not good. She plummeted over a freeway bridge and her car flipped over, killing her. Jessica and her friends spent the rest of the night alternating between throwing up and crying.

Two days later, after the sober reality of what had happened was sinking in, Jessica and her boyfriend arrived at a U.S. Post Office to mail a pair of red shoes to the funeral home in Kearney, Nebraska, where Lindsay's body was being prepared for burial.

Being 21 years old, they arrived at the post office with the items in hand, but no box or packing material. They stood in line behind several other customers and the clerk eyed them a few times, slightly shaking his head at Lindsay's belongings.

Once the reached the counter, the postal worker sarcastically broke the news: It was 4:30 and they didn't have time to get the package ready. And besides, they weren't doing any overnight deliveries to Kearney, Nebraska. What happened to "If it fits, it ships?" Hmmm...

After tearing across town, they reached a Fed Ex store, where the clerk helped them out with the appropriate packaging and got the items sent. 

My heart broke for Jessica tonight, but the PR Princess in me was incensed. Could it have been that hard for the postal clerk to have handed them a box? Or asked where the package was going? Or admitted the U.S. Postal Services hires Fed Ex to make some of its overnight deliveries?

Wal-Mart Manufactures Fake Public Support in Chicago

Wal-Mart is up to its old tricks again.

Ever since I decided to stop shopping there more than five years ago, I've kept track of Wal-Mart's gaffes and legal blunders. I've also given Wal-Mart credit for being a leader in making its buildings more energy efficient and encouraging vendors to use less packaging.

When I tuned in to Twitter today, several people had pointed out that apparently, Wal-Mart has learned nothing from its first fake foray into social media.

Chicago is a difficult market to break into for a retailer. That is a fact. Wal-Mart's frustration with not being able to waltz in and build one of its mega stores without resistance from organized labor and neighborhood groups is without a doubt frustrating.

But under NO circumstances should a company ever be tempted to use "fake" grassroots support. That is exactly what Wal-Mart attempted to do, with the help of the Chicago Chamber of Commerce and its public relations firm, Serafin and Associates.

As a powerful and influential member of the Chicago Chamber, Wal-Mart has shown that it is learning how to play the game in local markets in which it's trying to gain influence. Instead of just flying into town with its gigantic legal team and blanketing the airwaves with branding ads, it's trying to gain influence in some very traditional ways. Joining the Chamber of Commerce, as a tactic,  could not have been more old school.

Wal Mart (hiding behind the Chamber banner) has launched a fake grassroots Web site called, "Our Community, Your Choice" to highlight the benefits of having a Wal-Mart in the community. The site is incredibly "on message" with Wal-Mart's normal talking points it uses when moving in to a community.

According to the site, Wal-Mart would bring jobs and healthier food choices to residents of the South and West sides. Ok, I'll buy that (albeit low wage jobs with no health insurance for most employees). This is where it goes fishy, though. The site says the new Wal Mart will attract more shoppers to other businesses! What planet are they on? It's pretty well documented that Wal-Mart has a tremendously negative effect on adjacent businesses when it moves into an area.

Then it gets even better. The Chicagoist tracked down the IP address of the commenters defending Wal- Mart on its site. You guessed it! Paid astroturfers (read: fake grassroots). Once they figured out the true origins of the campaign and requested an interview, Wal-Mart went into hibernation and stopped answering phone calls and emails regarding the issue.

I wonder when big companies and chambers will stop trying to get their message out by using disingenuous methods. They must know by now that transparency and honesty are the cornerstones of the social media universe. Serafin most certainly should have known. The Chicago Chamber of Commerce is basically laundering Wal-Mart's money by putting its name on the site. Wal-Mart should have just put up its own site and taken responsibility for its own position.

The Chamber and Wal-Mart both have the right and the responsibility to get their side of the story out to the residents of Chicago. There are undoubtedly benefits to Wal-Mart to have a presence in this lucrative market, and benefits to the community to have Wal-Mart there. But to manufacture fake support in this manner is simply disingenuous and does not have a place in the social media sphere.

The only people who have not weighed in are the citizens of Chicago. If you are one of them, please leave a comment and share your feelings about Wal-Mart trying this tactic. Does it move you to action?