The Blog DoggerBe very careful when responding to a ‘blogstorm’

Do bloggers have your company in their crosshairs? Read this before you respond

Bloggers seem preoccupied this week with lists.

Take Aussie blogger Lee Hopkins’s post, “Three-and-a-bit ways to survive a blogstorm,” which, basically, is an onslaught of negative comments in the blogosphere.

Good advice from Hopkins, except that final point has a pitfall. If your response to bloggers isn’t carefully constructed, it might cause more damage than good.

Friday’s The New York Times featured an Op-Ed about the brain—“Your brain lies to you”—that explored how humans remember things. Based upon their understanding of the brain, neuroscientists Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt claimed that repeating a false rumor may inadvertently strengthen it, making the claim harder to dispel.

So when attempting to quell a blogstorm do not repeat the initial charge, instead state its opposite. Here’s one recent example.