An altercation between blogger Brian Ward of Fitzroyalty and (allegedly) the owners of as-yet-unopened café Stencil has been bubbling away on the Fitzroyalty blog this month. Things heated up in recent days, with the café ‘banning’ Ward for six months, posting comments on his blog and eventually emailing him to suggest they collude to say their spat was all a joke, or a ploy by competitors. Ward has published the correspondence on Fitzroyalty.

Background

In June 2011 Stencil approached Ward asking him to promote the soon-to-be-opened cafe offering a free coffee or similar in return. Ward declined the coffee but posted a blog, 'Stencil Cafe Opening Soon on Brunswick Street' about the planned opening.

When Ward discovered in January 2012 another business had opened at the advertised address, he posted a blog, 'All PR and no action' including positive comments about would-be-competitor cafe Slowpoke and negative comments about Stencil's initial claims to become 'a Fitzroy institution.' Stencil responded by posting responses to 'their fans' in the blog comments, and with a stern email to Ward. Ward posted the email in comments on the blog.

On 22 January 2012, an email arrived to let Ward know he was banned from Stencil Cafe (which to date, isn't open). Ward reproduced the email within a blog, 'Banned from a Cafe that does not exist'. Stencil responded in the comments on the blog, both to Ward, and to another commenter who they said wouldn't be the kind of person welcome at Stencil.

On 24 January 2012, Ward posted a blog, 'Stencil cafe, Fitzroyalty, libel, fraud, bribery and the ethics of hyperlocal journalism' with a picture of a poster which had been emailed to him, promoting Stencil and quoting the Fitzroyalty blog. He also published an email from Stencil suggesting they work together to represent the stoush as either a joke, or the work of a competitor, in return for monetary compensation.

For media and marketers

Many bloggers provide information about their approach to advertising and public relations. Ward is particularly clear about his approach on a page marked ‘For media and marketers’. He states that he does not provide advertising opportunities or accept any freebies. As Ward points out, many bloggers do accept free meals or products for review. Those who don’t, usually identify this on their site, and it’s important to note.

Ward is known for the tone adopted on the Fitzroyalty blog – straight-up and unforgiving. In this context, some might consider he’s been quite easy on the Stencil representatives. In any case, when looking for exposure, it pays to consider the tone a blogger usually adopts, and their likes and dislikes.

Everything is on the record

Whilst each case is unique, responding in the comments of a blog criticizing your brand is extremely risky. The approach must be carefully considered depending on the audience, the audience size, their sentiment and particularly considering that the comments will be on public record.

It’s not unusual for bloggers who feel they have been wronged to reproduce correspondence in posts. In the case of Stencil, emails had already been reproduced in posts before they sent an email suggesting that Ward collude with them to mask the situation. Unsurprisingly, this email was posted on the blog.

Schadenfreude and amplification

Whilst the Stencil exchange on Fitzroyalty was gaining attention virally over the past few days, the most significant amplification has been via a news story on Crikey. Whilst some Crikey readers feel it’s not newsworthy, others believe it’s good reading for PR professionals and some admit to enjoying the schadenfreude.

There seems a particular appetite in media of late to broadcast public relations gaffes, with GASP and Qantas’ gaffes making major headlines in traditional media. Communicating publically makes it easy for media to reference and quote correspondence.

Search

Once a news story about a PR gaffe becomes popular, news about the story can dominate search results for some time. The top results for ‘Stencil+Café+Melbourne’ on Google are Fitzroyalty posts, with the Crikey story not far behind.

On a slow news day, it’s not difficult for a story like this to be reported on multiple sites, creating a nightmare search scenario, which is possible to fix, but much better not to have in the first place.

For more information on managing a crisis in a social media, see our interview with General Manager of Royce Communications, Matthew Mahon.