Years ago, before the age of blogs, I got an unsolicited email from a writer who wanted to share his political screed with random strangers. I responded, point by point, to the things I disagreed with and called him “a piece of work”.(I do live more dangerously than most of you.)
A couple of years later I was doing a random search on Google for my own name, to see where I ranked in search relevancy, and found my email! The political spammer had collected some of his negative responses, together with other famous people he didn’t like, and put it on a site called evilrepublicanbastards.com. It was the “piece of work” comment that earned my infamy, so apparently there is a pretty low threshold of evil to make his list.
My bad reputation was to be short-lived, however. The person who ran the site didn’t renew the domain name, and the files went away. Presumably it wasn’t worth the price of the name and hosting to keep my ilk in a state of virtual shame forever.
I thought all of this was a hoot. I told people about it, and wore it as a badge of honor that someone had to work this hard to say something bad about me. But not everyone is so sanguine about discovering that someone else is denouncing them on the World Wide Web.
My experience with local candidates has lead me to believe that there is nothing they fear more than someone criticizing them on a blog. That may be why they commit themselves to so little. They don’t want to be criticized by people who disagree. They worry about their reputations, and would rather lose an election than mix it up in a real debate. I find this moral cowardice repugnant. What do they think it will be like to actually get elected? They will be regularly scorned in print, online, and to their faces at public meetings. Political office is not for the timid.
Having a small business is like running for office as a career. You value the good opinion others have of you, and you live in fear of unhappy customers spreading their discontent. Having a website where people can leave anonymous comments seems more dangerous than inviting Al Qaida to Passover.
I turned my business website into a blog a couple of years ago, and I am pleased to report that no one has ever posted a negative comment. I am also somewhat disappointed, because I prefer to have disagreements out in the open, where I can deal with them. And how you deal with them is your chance to shine. If there is disinformation, you get to clear it up for anyone else who has the same issue, but didn’t want to say anything. If there is a legitimate complaint, you get to make things right before an audience, and this makes you look good!
On the local elections blog that I run, I do get comments. A few have been mad at me, but I just thank them for participating, and deal with the problem without getting ugly about it. The result has been that I get much more positive email about what a great thing I am doing by running this site.
In the final analysis, I believe that small business people who blog are engaging in good public relations. They keep the public informed about the latest offering or developments. By responding to comments, you show that you are responsive and helpful. And if worse comes to worst, abusive commenters can have their work DELETED. It’s all good.
