Have you ‘made it’ in business if you offend someone? | In The Know Magazine
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Have you ‘made it’ in business if you offend someone?

This magazine is still a fledgling enterprise, having just passed its first anniversary. Whilst our traffic is rising all the time, we still strive to get as many eyes as we can on our content.

Diane Hall

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Man offended shouting down the telephone

Despite a ‘clean record’ of no adverse reactions to our articles or social media until now, we’ve had three negative responses in a week. We’re not doing anything particularly different, but it made us wonder if this could actually be a positive; after all, if we’re offending people, they’re obviously reading our content. And whatever they’ve read, it’s stirred them enough to react—even if this has been with an angry face emoji or an email to make clear their objection; they’ve still spent time doing this.


In our eyes, we haven’t written anything offensive—just offering our opinions on business and lifestyle matters as per usual—but there were still clearly some aspects of the content we published that didn’t go down well. It’s a shame that only the email response gave any insight into what they perceived to be ‘wrong’—even if their claims were unfounded. An angry emoji tells us nothing; at least add a comment as to what you’re objecting to, so we can give you a reason for it or address it accordingly.


I suppose this begs the age-old question: is there such a thing as bad PR? Is it better that people are ranting about you than not talking about you at all?

People love to hate on Amazon

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There are certain brands, such as Ryanair and Amazon, that some people love to hate. It doesn’t matter what these brands do, they seem to receive flak regardless. But it doesn’t seem to harm them in the long run, when you look at their profits and business growth, so is there some truth to the ‘all publicity is good publicity’ claim?


It could be argued that these companies were well established when they began attracting adverse feedback and reactions, from both the media and the general public. Had they been a humble start-up, like ITK Magazine, would they have seen as much success? They must have got some things right in the beginning, at least, to have so many repeat customers and a huge client base that meant they could weather any bad publicity.


We don’t set out to upset anyone at ITK Magazine; however, it’s difficult to hold a view on a range of subjects that absolutely everyone agrees with.


The ITK article that attracted two angry faces was our shoutout/plea for guest posters on this magazine. By guest posting for ITK, a business is effectively receiving free advertising to more than 5,000 other businesses in their local area. It also allows them to establish their expertise and it provides a backlink to their site, which helps with SEO, in return for their time and effort. It’s something that benefits both parties…which is why it’s difficult to understand what made two people disgruntled. Guest posting is a popular and common occurrence; free advertising is not exploiting anyone, and we’re no different to any other magazine that welcomes contributions from members of its audience.


What are your thoughts? We do encourage interaction of all kinds—because, if we really are getting it wrong it is better that we know about it. Do you receive adverse reactions of any kind in your business? Tell us at @ https://www.facebook.com/InTheKnowMagazine

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