How to respond to a negative blogger

Read one communicator’s account of how he traversed tricky PR waters

By all indications, we had a successful technology product launch. The software company I worked for pre-briefed select media, analysts and influential bloggers and publicly announced an innovative product at a Gartner trade show. The buzz was good … no, in fact, the buzz was great.

We had validation from customers and industry analysts—a fact that was reflected in the media coverage, which was both high in volume and quality. “Forward thinking,” “innovative,” has “leap-frogged the competition” were some of the favorable reactions we saw in the public domain. A PR dream, right?

It was for a few days until a post from a particularly influential blogger who casts himself as a skeptic of IT vendors and products. His headline accused our company executives of smoking drugs; that our claims and new product were a delusion. His post was merciless, scathing, and unjustified. He published his remarks without speaking to us or seeing the product.