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Two Social Media Lessons Learned from a “Disney” Blog

By: Amber Morris | 09/28/2009

Lesson #1
I worked for Walt Disney World Publicity in the mid ‘90s. Back then, Disney fiercely protected its brand. For instance, for the 25th anniversary of the park, we had planned to create video profiles of a few Disney fanatics, but had to suspend the project because most of them had unlicensed Mickey images and the video would have forced legal action - ironically against some of the people that love Disney the most.

Things have clearly changed over the years because I recently stumbled across a blog that is so "Disney-fied," I thought it was company run - Disneyfoodblog.com. However, after a little digging, I learned the site is run by a Disney fan hard at work to dine around the "World." In the past, I think something like this would have been shut down by Disney lawyers faster than a theme park ice cream cone melts in the Florida sun.

We counsel our clients to embrace social media conversations about their companies - that it's this authentic dialogue that consumers want and trust, rather than the one-way marketing speak companies pushed out pre-Web 2.0. Companies unable to let go of their strong desire to control every message could learn something from Disney when it comes to this blog.

Lesson #2
The two major points we hammer home in blogger training are the importance of transparency and that a blog is about building a relationship between the blogger and his or her readers. Disneyfoodblog.com misses the mark on both because it is annoyingly purposefully unclear about who is actually blogging: 

• The "about" section is very vague and only talks about the purpose of the blog. 
• The "contact me" section is a form with no contact information listed.
• The only e-mail address is webmaster@disneyfoodblog.com in connection with a plea for readers to send in photos.

I guess one could argue that with a brand as endearing as Disney, your relationship is with the brand itself or maybe with "the mouse." But when it comes to a blog, I want to know who the author is. And for a topic as fun as Disney food, it would be nice to personally bond with the writer so that I could experience the tastes right along with them.

What do you think?

Posted in Brand Positioning, Digital Communications