Depends on the blog and the blogger, but I don’t know if companies should ever do anything beyond issues statements, or occasionally making civil suits IF the situation warrants it. In this case, the blogger seems to have thought he heard something, but even if he misheard it, it’s not really an actionable case, I don’t think. It seems more like a case of “Did I hear what I thought I heard?” Things are open for debate. Unless the company can prove (and this would be tricky) that the blogger was acting of malice aforethought, they may have to chalk it all up to marketing buzz and discussion.

Now if a blogger repeatedly is wrong, they’ll lose their credibility or their blog will become synonymous with bad information. But I don’t think companies shoul do much…partly because such actions can take a chilling effect on freedom of speech. What happens when companies start going after people who actively don’t like their product.

I have been on the wrong end of that before, btw. When I worked at GamePro, somebody planted a story on Digg about GamePro editors being paid for certain reviews. Their proof: a review by GamePro Australia (a completely different division than GamePro USA) that gave a certain game a low rating. The story wasn’t even close to being true, but it got over a thousand diggs. But after a while more creditable folks started noticing that ALL this guy’s Digg stories were controversial and not backed up by fact. People do lose their credibility if they pull these stunts on a regular basis.

http://www.utterz.com/~u-NDk3OTM0NQ/utt.php#cmntNDk3OTU1MQ

My Uterz site is http://www.utterz.com/~h-AlbertMaruggi/list.php

Without the Digg action, this is just another “blogger being a little over-dramatic to get some attention” sort of scenario. But throw the misleading (and growing) Digg action, this is a bit of a different beast.

Of course, there are other instances when companies should absolutely get into the fray – perhaps when the brand is not as well known (and is unlikely to have many fans) or when an executive gets called out personally, for example. These aren’t hard-and-fast rules, of course, as every situation calls for an appropriate level of response. But it does call to mind that there are times when things are best left to the community and when they’re best left to the company.

This year we saw Enchanted and it was Great! Love the plot, acting was fun, and a perfect movie that spans generations and genders.

So back to this social media advice and see what happens in this PR case study, let’s trace my steps

1) I posted on the orginal bloggers blog
2) I posted on Digg
3) I posted here
4) I’ll post on your blog right after this post

So 4 positive comments and beautiful Enchanted mojo for the price of one dumb post. So that’s how this social media stuff works!

-John