Web 2.0 Ethics & Social Networks & Business Jon on 16 Jul 2007 05:25 pm
How not to handle social media
There have been some recent revelations (see article) on Whole Foods CEO John Mackey (aka “rahodeb”) who, from 1999 to 2006, made several anonymous postings on financial forums and sites putting down his company’s rival competitor Wild Oats. Among other postings, Mackey wrote that Wild Oates’ management “clearly doesn’t know what it is doing” and that the company “has no value and no future.” Oddly enough, Whole Foods announced this past February that they were buying Wild Oates for $565 million - perhaps the tofu-organic equivalent of “no value.”
According to the article, Whole Foods is saying 1) that many of Mackey’s comment, in that they were written over the course of many years across the web, are being taken out of context and 2) that the comments were Mackey’s personal comments and not those of the company. Uhhh, sure. Semantically, that may be true. But if this is the person who runs said company, might there be some cross over? I think maybe.
To be realistic here, I highly doubt that any of Mackey’s anonymous comments had any effect on stock price or investors’ handling of their Wild Oats stocks. Nonetheless, it’s still bad PR and it reflects poorly on the company and its leader.
Recently Mackey has been blasting the FTC on the Whole Foods’ blog about their desire to block his company’s purchase of Wild Oats because of anti-trust concerns. While this may be raising eyebrows in some corners of the business world, from a social media standpoint this is certainly more proper behavior. We know who you are, we know who you work for and you can say whatever you want.
There have certainly been several examples of companies misbehaving in the social media space, often pretending NOT to be who they are to be more credible. (The irony being, of course, that once they are discovered the company’s credibility is shot.) This will likely continue until the end of time. In the same way that person to person interaction requires some feeling out before you start taking stock tips or buying a new sneaker brand, people in online spheres are pretty savvy and know not to believe every post in every forum. But not everyone knows…Ask me if my mom would know how to spot something online that might be a solicitation from an anonymous marketer and I’d say no. To her, and to many, the internet is where the information is…and it’s all right.
Surely people will continue to get fooled (not just my mom, mind you - me, you and everyone else…and multiple times). For small companies or individuals with no reputation at stake, aside from integrity there’s just not much stopping them from lying to people online. It really will be incumbent upon all of us online, just as in person, to pay attention to what information we’re taking in. But for large companies, it’s just not smart business to handle social media in this way. Don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want my company’s CEO pretending to be someone else online and talking stock tips about my company and its competitors. Mackey and Whole Foods lose credibility online instantly.
…on the bright side, however, if no respect from the investor community he did score himself some more female fans with comment like this - “I like Mackey’s haircut,” “Rahodeb” said. “I think he looks cute!” (See full WSJ Article)