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People in Glass Houses Shouldn’t Talk Smack!

by Jennifer Gniadecki on August 25th, 2008

I was meandering around the Internet today looking at how companies talk about each other.

Wow. Did I find some examples of poor blog writing as well as some massive smack-talking!

Now, you know that I’m the first person to jump up in a room and say that negativity never works. But, let’s be honest, now and then everyone says bad things about other companies. Perhaps even people they wish were competitors. If you do this, you have to make sure you’re not committing the same faux pas you are accusing other companies of doing. You need to make sure your righteous indignation is well placed and you aren’t playing “I’m rubber, you’re glue!” Because it will come back and stick right to you. 

In this post there is a list of people that the owner of this “company” takes to task for using NAMES for their products! Here are a few tips if you’re going to talk poorly about other websites using jargon:

1. Using the term “media agnostic” to describe your company. Agnostic means “a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.” (dictionary.com) So if no one can have ultimate knowledge, why shouldn’t everyone just do it themselves? Or, you know, wing it completely. Because you are basically admitting you don’t know what works.
2. If you were really anti-jargon, I can’t imagine one would call their company “an independent consortium of outstanding experts in branding and marketing execution” because THAT is the ultimate in jargon.
3. If you’re a company that claims any expertise in branding, how about having a domain name that’s, you know, your company name. That’s not smoke and mirrors, it’s common sense. People are going to think Tugboat and then type in tugboat…where are you? You’re not on Google, I couldn’t find you. That’s generally why companies choose names that aren’t, you know, nouns.
4. Basically, it’s a company that specializes in branding but does not have a defined target market. Jack of all trades, master of none. I’d much rather deal with a company that used jargon and specialized in one or two things than a company that uses jargon, gets negative about others using jargon, and not having a niche focus. Maybe you can’t have a niche if you’re “media agnostic.”

But, you know, it’s okay because they can “step in at any point during the process to add value in a variety of capacities.” Uh huh. Yeah. What you said. 

Mostly my problem is a branding company talking smack about other branding companies when their site is pathetic and they don’t even get all the names right. Beyond that, my secondary concern is that if you have a proprietary technology, she’s saying you shouldn’t give it a name because that’s just jargon.

If she believed that so whole-heartedly, why not just name your company your name. If you’re going to make a stand and name other companies, you really need to make sure you are a purist in that philosophy.

A branding company that doesn’t have good branding…really…that’s living in a glass house and throwing boulders. Just sayin’

Maybe this post will give her some much-needed traffic. Because the “what NOT to do” examples are always fun. They help the rest of us learn.

The worst part is, now that she’s thrown down the gauntlet, what happens when she runs into these people at networking events? All the companies she talked about are either Chicago-based or have an office in Chicago (When I say Chicago, I mean Chicagoland, and her company is there too.) Will she casually forget she talked poorly about their companies in public? Will she just brush it off and make the excuse that she needed content for the blog? How will that look if in the group she has to explain herself in there is another person that could have been a potential client. Or will these other companies have reps that just look at her with that, “Oh, poor thing, tried to get traffic on our backs.” look. Man. You would think if she was going to throw stones, they wouldn’t be local stones, but I guess she’s trying to get clients. By being negative.

This is just an example of bad online networking at its finest.

How about your blog? Do you tear people down or do you bring yourself up? Or do you have the best of intentions but accidentally make a snide comment here and there? (I think we all know which category I fall into! LOL – Oh, was that me tripping on my moment of snark?)

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POSTED IN: General Networking