Chris Brogan, Business Strategy and Social Ethics
As I was catching up on news in the social media sphere today, I got wind of the whole Chris Brogan Kmart Promotion controversy. IMHO, its just silly. Who begrudges someone for being totally transparent, following all the dictates they talk about and exploring new ways of advertising?
This whole thing made me respect Chris more. He lives in the real world, has real world concerns like feeding his family and consistently explores tons of ideas and concepts he share with others. Fanatical purism or idealism in any form is dangerous, and that includes social media.
He didn’t even do it on his main social media blog, he did it on Dadomatic.com, specifically because half of it was on toys and related to his son and kids. Plus, come on, he gave most of his profits to charity. How many of you can say the same?
The review wasn’t what I’d call glowing. He just talked about elements he liked and elements he didn’t; it just so happened that for his purposes, e.g. toys and kids, Kmart ended up being pretty handy. That was his message and he makes Kmart’s agenda clear too.
A good journalist isn’t made any less because he’s asked to do a review and decides he likes the company who gave him the money to do the review.
Tons of bloggers get “compensation” in the form of goodies for reviewing products, especially if they’re popular bloggers.
Restaurant and movie reviewers, including critics, are paid and get goodies from the industry they’re reviewing for all the time. Does that make most of you respect them any less? Probably not.
So props to Chris for adhering to all the social media standards he lays out. Balancing business strategy with social ethics is an ongoing process and we all need to take a note and investigate new ideas for engaging.
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