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Silence isn’t golden in the blog-o-sphere

(Brad Lau has responded on his blog about the incident at http://bit.ly/c3X7uy)

Bloggers often lament how brands do not respond or take too long to respond to online comments. What happens when the tables are turned?

Brad Lau, blogger of Ladyironchef, came under fire after it was reported that he demanded a free meal from a Singapore restaurant. I blogged about the issue in an earlier post.

The article itself highlighted comments from the restaurant owner but Brad Lau was not quoted because he did not respond to the email. His Facebook profile has remained silent and a friend left a status to ask about his disappearance.

The apparent suspension of the blog has only added to questions about his disappearance.

The silence is deafening and has turned the possibly mild mannered Brad into a blogging thug.

Should Brad Lau be responding to the accusations?

In the traditional PR world, this is call crisis communications. Whenever a brand faces a major crisis, it is often recommend that they have a team ready to respond to queries by the media and the public.

In the blog-o-sphere, responding to the issue is a must for Brad.

The earlier post which only mentioned the issue saw a huge number of hits from Google searches on “Brad Lau” and “Ladyironchef”. If you do a Google search, you will also see lots of forums and other blogs highlighting the issue.

Brad should have taken advantage of this Google storm and post a respond to give his side of the story.

How should Brad respond?

First, he would have to give his side of the story. A step by step account that from the time he made the call to the restaurant to the point he left the restaurant.

My guess is that in between the conversations, there might be an agreement of a free meal which was somehow misunderstood.

However, if it is true that Brad demanded for a free meal, then the first thing he should is to admit it and apologise for creating a scene at the restaurant.

Next, he has to provide the reason for the outburst. Finally, a remedy to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

The next step is for Brad to share his personal ethics on blogging. It is even more important to focus on how he can be approached to blog about a restaurant.

Is it is important to manage your online reputation? Yes, because Google never forgets!

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