Unjournalism

The New York Times wrote about it. The Social Times got me thinking about it again. I must weigh in here on Target’s non-participation policy toward blogs and a couple of related issues. To be clear, I am in no way interested in weighing in on the advertisement in question, the ad that brought this whole unfortunate situation to light. I’m strictly focused on the communication policy issue here and Target’s seemingly short-sighted response to a concerned consumer.

So let’s start right there: Did you notice my word choice - “consumer”? Target saw her as a blogger, someone likely to have “an agenda” but also likely to have too small of “an audience” to warrant a real response from a busy PR team.

The Social Times writes: “…basically Target doesn’t think anyone that goes to Target stores read blogs,” stemming from Target’s now notorious statement saying it doesn’t “participate with nontraditional media.” (Side note: Yes you do!)

In this case, it doesn’t seem to be an issue of “We’re big Target and you’re a little blogger and we’re not interested in whatever little audience you might have (and we’re ignoring the fact that you could incite a nice little blog storm).” To me, this is the important issue: The woman to whom Target sent this unfriendly response (likely a Target shopper or at least a model of Target’s “core guest”) had an issue with a Target ad, so she asked Target about it. And it seems as though Target blew her off because she’s a blogger.

The impression: To get a response from Target, you not only have to be a “core guest” but you also have to prove you’re not a “non-traditional media” outlet. Is that it?

I understand that there is a distinction to be made between the responsibilities of Target’s PR team and Target’s customer service department, but that’s not the consumer’s problem, nor does that distinction matter to the blogger who feels slighted. She’s slighted by Target, regardless of which department bears the blame.

Does every single inquiry a company might receive warrant an immediate, full-force response? No, of course, not. But this request for an explanation seems reasonable. Certainly, it seems to warrant more than a response along the lines of, “Oops! You said the B-word! No comment.”

If this woman had not identified herself as a blogger, it seems reasonable to assume she’d have been transferred from the PR folks to some sort of customer service representative and handled from there (hopefully in a more friendly manner). But in dropping the B-bomb, she was summarily rejected as not relevant to Target’s quest to reach the “core guest.”

Bloggers are people. People are bloggers. Some “core guests” are bloggers, and some “core guests” read blogs.

Photo courtesy of j.reed on Flickr. Thanks.

Tags: Target, blog, public relations by Mike Keliher
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Yesterday I saw an item in which the writer, Clarence Westberg, referred to Pownce, the “similar to but not the same as Twitter” microblogging tool, as a “social network.” (Actually, he called Pownce a “worthless social network,” but that’s a separate issue.)

This simple statement got me thinking: What makes a “social network,” in the online sense? And, of course, the related question: Why does this word parsing matter, if at all?

To kick off my thinking on this issue, I informed my Twitter crew:

I’m intrigued by people who refer to things like Twitter as a social network. Is a blog a social network because it has your picture on it?

Sort of a snarky statement, but the responses, which came quick and often, turned me from silly to thoughtful. I had always reserved the label “social network” for those sites that centered on the profile, a quality Facebook, MySpace and many others certainly share. I considered Twitter and Pownce to publishing tools, not networking tools.

In response to my statement, Connie Crosby took the old-school approach, reminding me that social networks are indeed composed of people, not Web sites, but that Web sites — even blogs — can be effective social networking tools if people put an effort toward truly connecting and interacting.

Thu-An Bui also emphasized the idea of interaction. So did Julio Ojeda-Zapata, a technology writer at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and all-around geek (in the best way possible). And so did Clarence. Cece Salomon-Lee did, too, and added an angle about being able to “interconnect [with other people] seamlessly - add, delete, block, follow, etc.“

I think you see the trend developing here.

Social networking is about the people. Sites like Facebook are definitely focused on profile pages and connecting with other people, which led me to my initial, narrower definition of “social network” — something like a fancy, interactive Rolodex. Sites like Twitter, which the people mentioned above solidly regard as a social network, are more focused on communicating, I’d argue, than connecting people, but those two ideas are so closely connected I wonder if the distinction is relevant.

Why does any of this matter? I still wrestle with that. Maybe you can help (see that comment form below?). But one thing I do know: You can do yourself a favor by not getting caught up in your own preconceptions (or in this case, misconceptions). The way people use a Twitter, or a Facebook, or an anything, matters more than the label or even the purpose anyone tries to force upon it.

Tags: Facebook, Pownce, Twitter, semantics, social network by Mike Keliher
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