A while ago, I posted (half as a social media type, half as a parent blogger) about what I thought was a bit of a #prfail for The Scottish Baby Show over their  lack of blogger engagement and a press day at the SECC venue next month. Now, all fine and fair enough, I have an opinion, I made some suggestions for future events and blogger/digital relations, polite emails were sent back and forth with the organisers and so on (a few exhibitors also got in touch with me). All very civil. No nastiness on either side. Everyone happy.

Now, some other mummy bloggers wrote about it as well and one of the exhibitors, More4Mums, spotted this. They then got in touch with the marketing department for the event and put some comments on the previous post. Again, all fairly standard stuff.

Then this turned up:

Its a shame that someone has took the hump over getting the knockback for free tickets.

i pay to go into all exhibitions, for instance the MCN motorbike show in the Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh. (anyone going??)

Try buying a ticket and maybe a product or two??? Then you can discuss value for money AND you are supporting the company’s you are typing about.

Blogging – Microblogging – Social Networks are now moan buckets for those who have learned to use a computer, swapping a pen and paper with a book of stamps for a keyboard and a clear attitude.

Please keep you moans and chips to yourself OR be happy =]

It works for me.

Blog Queen – Happy and Clean*

*if possible

Which kind of misses the point on a bunch of levels: I wasn’t on the scrounge, it was a polite enquiry, I pointed out that I had supported the event before by spending a chunk of money at it.

From the day job point of view, I found the paragraph about what they think blogging/microblogging/social networks to be quite discouraging, but that wasn’t what made me look again.

It was the fact that it was an anonymous comment with vague Hotmail address.

Now, I’ve nothing against them in principle. If someone is revealing or talking about something that could get them into trouble, I can understand the reason for anonymity. But the above? Hell, I don’t see why you wouldn’t put your name to it.

But here’s something a lot of people still don’t realise in this day and age – despite their having been warnings about it for a good 10 years and plenty of companies having been caught out – when you leave a comment on most blogs, your IP address is noted.

Now, from an IP address you can work out a lot of things, like which broadband service they use (Virgin Media) and the name of the company associated with the IP address. In this case that’s a company called SEC Limited, which is also the name of the SECC owners.

Oh and with an IP address you can also find street addresses (in this case, the south side of Glasgow) though sometimes that can be off a little.

Now maybe too many years of journalism may have just made me paranoid but a post criticising a SECC event then an anonymous comment from an IP address linked to a company which just happens to have the same name as the owners of the SECC? I’m sure it’s just coincidence.

Anyway, the point is: if you want to be critical of someone online, go for it but at least be adult and professional enough to put your real name to it. And if you don’t know how to engage those who use social media, draw up social media usage guidelines.

(Or if you’re going to try and be a social media bastard and go all blackhat and leave anonymous comments, at least do it from a machine that can’t be traced back to your work. Or hide your IP address.)

BTW in case this seems like a dig at the event, it’s not. The PR team for Stokke have been very good in dealing with this, as have a few other exhibitors, doing reactive response that everyone should be striving to do in this day and age of online customer engagement.

And for those wondering, yes, I do now have free tix for the event but I’m donating the equivalent of what the tickets would cost (and probably a wee bit more) to Yorkhill Children’s Foundation.