This coming weekend more than 200 bloggers and retail representatives will be meeting face to face in Bentonville, Arkansas with the purpose of collaborating and creating "collective bias" for certain retail brands on the Internet. Collective Bias is actually the name of the organizers of the event. "Effective leveraging of the social space" is actually the term being used to describe the collusion between bloggers and brands that is expected to be the result.

At face value this seems to be a conference built on an ethical tightrope for both the bloggers and the retailers who will participate. While there are separate designated tracks and presentations for company representatives and bloggers, it is unlikely that the formal sessions are the attraction of the event. I doubt that retail marketing employees and bloggers who have the ability to influence consumer opinions are making the effort to visit the exciting metropolis of Bentonville for three days just because of the workshops. When these two contingencies share meals, hallways, hotels, bowling lanes and Happy Hour events for three days, there are sure to be some "relationships" (wink) forged.

The description of the Collective Bias "SoFabCon" doesn't list the relationships (wink) that will be created as one of the benefits of the event, but undoubtedly everybody knows why they're there. Making the connection between retailers who need some positive social press and bloggers who have the ability to generate it is what the Collective Bias business is all about.

The stated purpose of Collective Bias on its website is to "drive retail sales through the coordinated creation of social media stories." It's a worthy mission and there's nothing wrong with it. That is, unless the readers of these "coordinated social media stories" don't know that the blogger who wrote them was "influenced" to cover the topic and that they have a relationship (wink) with the companies that will profit from the positive press about the stuff they're writing about.

Kmart is one of the companies that has used the "coordinated social media stories" strategy, according to the Collective Bias website. Reportedly Kmart sponsored a blogging campaign for their Outdoor Living department products with 40 bloggers. In looking at the sample posts, it is clear that the bloggers were given clear instructions about what links to include in their articles and even some of the verbiage to use in their because several things are repeated by different bloggers in different posts.

Now, I'm sure that Kmart and Collective Bias will be quick to jump in and say that all of their bloggers are required to post the standard disclaimer... "I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™. #CBias #SocialFabric. All opinions are my own! " Legally, this seems to meet the minimum requirement for declaring a sponsorship relationship (wink). But the fact that this disclaimer is posted at the end of a long article, after several large photos, at least one video, and numerous links to the sponsors' website pretty much guarantees that it won't get read. Especially since it's often in 6 point type and barely understandable.

Really, does the average reader know that "compensated as part of a social shopper insights study" means the same thing as "one of 40 bloggers who received compensation from Kmart to write about their outdoor furniture and link back to their websites and social media accounts?" This is risky ethical business not because it's illegal, but because consumers often have a different opinion about right and wrong than courts and lawmakers do. Consumers don't like to be duped and they're not inclined to be forgiving after they find out they have been.

It's unfortunately not surprising that Kmart would engage in anything that could be considered risky social media business (and allow the Collective Bias website to proudly display it as a case study) given the desperate hail-mary marketing from Sears Holdings (SHLD) that has been using just to try and keep its business alive. Seemingly, though, this "leveraging of the social space" seems to be a great example of going after short-term gains at the expense of long-term relationships. This is probably the kind of managerial thinking that got the Sears and Kmart chains off track in the first place.

If long-term success is dependent on customer engagement and loyalty (and it is) and if customer engagement and loyalty are built on a foundation of trust (and it is), then the potential for collateral damage from these collusive blogging campaigns is huge. Not because anything is illegal, but because it's not as forthright as it could be.

Why isn't the legal sponsorship disclaimer posted at the beginning of the article so that the reader knows what's happening before they read the article? I can only imagine it's because consumers don't respond the same way to advertisements as they do to unbiased content. But the fact of the matter is that few if any of the 40 bloggers on the Kmart campaign had ever blogged about Kmart outdoor furniture before they were compensated to. So even the consideration of the topic was purchased, which makes the content biased. Consumers deserve to be informed about the bias up front, in my opinion.

Sears and Kmart are unlikely to win themselves a spot on the "Most Ethical Retail Companies" list with these kind of marketing smokescreens. And they're unlikely to rebuild their base of genuine loyal brand advocates with semi-deceptive strategies and purchased mouthpieces. You might be able to mislead people through your doors, but in the age of transparency, you can't believe you won't ever be called out for it.

This is not to imply that anybody is doing anything "wrong" or that Collective Bias is the only company that is in the business of connecting bloggers with sponsors. Blissdom is another company based in Canada that will be sponsoring a similar conference in October. Along with workshops, the Blissdom conference will include at least one Sponsor "Meet and Treat" event and classic trade show booth exhibits presumably manned by company representatives who want bloggers to talk positively about them.

It sounds like a walking talking full weekend swag bag. Not that there's anything wrong with that either for the participating bloggers or the sponsors like Chevrolet (GM), Microsoft (MSFT), Starbucks (SBUX), Indigo, and Sleep Country who will be courting their affections. They're just "taking a meeting."

I'm not sure what the laws in Canada are regarding sponsorship transparency, but if readers are unaware that their favorite blogger's affections are for sale, it's less an issue of legalities as it is an issue of trust. It seems like both bloggers and retailers would want to factor in the value of customer trust before doing anything that jeopardizes it because genuine trust is one thing that will never have a price tag.

More About Business Blogging and Social Media:

• Most Popular Retail Blog Posts and Topics
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• Business Blogging Is More Than Babble - Building Social Media Equity With Customers

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March retail sales in the U.S. retail industry were disappointing, and that disappointment is likely to extend to April when same store sales are reported next week. The New York Times attributes the recent retail sales slowdown to increased payroll taxes. The U.S. Bureau of Census points a fiscal finger at the government's spending sequester. Redbook Research blames it on the Boston Bombings.

No doubt the U.S. retail chains that report disappointing same store sales next week will cite one or all three of these external forces that were beyond their control to explain their performance.

It's convenient to report and even more convenient to believe that any or all retail sales disappointments can be blamed on external forces. But what if the truth of the matter is that retail sales are down because in-store retail employees and managers just didn't do a good enough job in April?

It is inevitable that when... read more >>

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More than 900 senior executives attended the 10th annual Great Place to Work Conference that was staged in Los Angeles last week to focus on the art and science of creating workplace engagement, job satisfaction, and happy employees. Just reading that sentence causes involuntary eye-rolling from plenty of leaders in the U.S. retail industry who either don't think it's necessary or don't think it's possible for a retail environment to be a "great" place to work.

There's plenty of evidence to support the eye-rolling leaders in their belief that happiness, engagement, and satisfaction may not be possible to attain in a retail workplace these days. Not only are retail employees participating in walkouts and mini-strikes in major cities, but also a 2013 survey conducted by Manpower Group revealed that 74% of the survey participants were occasionally or often using their computer to look for a new job while on the clock at their current job. That's not exactly a marker for job satisfaction.

Another survey from CareerBliss.com produced a "50 Happiest Companies in America for 2013" ranking list, based on more than 100,000 employee-written reviews. Of the 50 companies on that "Happy" list, the only companies that have even a remote connection to the retail industry are companies that have retailing as a significant, but not primary, part of their business like Apple (AAPL), Dell (DELL), Ford (F), and Google (GOOG).

Where are all the companies whose primary business is just retailing? You can find those retail companies filling up the Worst Retail Companies to Work For list instead. And not surprisingly, the retail companies that employees rate as being the "worst" places to work are also some of the retail companies that are floundering in 2013 - Radio Shack (RSH), Sears/Kmart (SHLD), Rite Aid (RAD), and GameStop (GME). Could it be that there is a correlation between happy employees and retail sales performance? That's a cutting edge managerial hypothesis, eh?

Retail experts often get lost in a chicken-egg debate about whether unhappy employees are at the root cause of their struggles, or whether, after the company started struggling and started demanding more and caring less that its employees became unhappy. "Both" is almost always the answer to that discussion. But even if it's one or the other, the important point is that there IS a connection between happy employees and company performance.

An awareness that happy employees produce happy results is not helpful to the retail leaders who have the chronic conditions of low pay and limited advancement working against them. Additionally, the retail industry is often viewed as having the "jobs of last resort" for those who can't find work in their own field. There are plenty of those wrongly-employed people working in the U.S. retail industry right now.

Is it possible for employees who are... read more >>

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Where a growing number of retail workers stand on the federal minimum wage hike is not complacently behind a cash register wearing their company-issued polyester garb. Instead, where retail and restaurant workers are standing on the issue of increased minimum wages is on the sidewalks of Chicago and NYC - outside of the front door of their retail employer, with matching t-shirts and ponchos, holding protest signs. Unfortunately, where frontline workers have chosen to take a stand is on a picket line far beyond President Obama's proposed federal minimum wage line in the sand that lawmakers are unwilling to approach.

Retail workers who want to make sure that lawmakers know exactly where they stand on the federal minimum wage issue are not waiting for a Gallup Poll or Harris Survey to ask them. Following an organized retail and restaurant worker walkout staged last month in New York City, employees from an estimated 30 different retail companies in more than 100 locations in Chicago staged their own wages walkout last week.

Chicago Macy's (M) hourly employees joined forces with Chicago Sears (SHLD) and Victoria's Secret employees. Chicago McDonald's (MCD) employees walked shoulder-to-shoulder with Chicago Dunkin' Donuts and Subway employees. Altogether it's estimated that employees from 100 different locations of 30 different retail and restaurant companies participated in last week's Chicago retail wages walkout and mini-strike event. Retail employees were not shy about expressing their job dissatisfaction in Chi-town.

What the retail and restaurant protesters want is $15 an hour, which is more than double what the current federal minimum wage is. Obama has called for the federal minimum wage to be raised to just $9 an hour, and he's having a difficult time getting lawmakers to seriously consider this 24% increase. So it's unlikely that retail and restaurant workers are going to get the pay that they want any time soon, and it's equally unlikely that they're going to be satisfied with anything less.

What's a manager to do in a retail or restaurant environment where employees... continue reading >>

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