The Alliconnect blog is only about a month old but doesn’t have many comments, which isn’t surprising. Why? Well, it’s new. And it is a corporate site named after a product and so if people write in to discuss their experiences with Alli - Glaxo’s over-the-counter diet pill - the comments must be reviewed for regulatory reasons and may not appear.

So a corporate blogging consultant hired by the drugmaker is trying to drum up reader involvement. Debbie Weil urged her own blog readers to “head on over” to the Alli site and comment. She then wrote a private note to some public relations colleagues asking them to do the same. Weil called it a “shameless request” and ended by saying: “No need to say that you know me, of course.”

Weil was quickly criticized by a few public relations professionals. “I am stunned that a leading proponent of blogging within corporations is behaving so unethically,” wrote Lee Hopkins on Better Communications Results. “Am I being some sort of a prig today, or does this get on your nerves too?” David Murray asks on Shades of Gray.

In her defense, Weil tells Pharmalot that Alliconnect is going fine and that she was transparent about seeking comments, but did nothing wrong, other than making the mistake of reaching out to people who wound up making ’snarky’ remarks. “I was open and transparent about calling people’s attention to it,” she says this morning. “If I wanted fake comments, I’d write them myself.”

“But it wasn’t intended as an SOS. Getting people to leave comments for a corporate blog is tough….

“…It’s not going to be aggressive and edgy; that’s the nature of the beast. And we can’t publish comments about specific experiences (with Alli). Entries have to be reviewed. But it’s not supposed to be about Alli. The blog is about weight-loss issues.”

Asked if many people won’t see Alliconnect as a blog devoted to the product anyway, Weil says “that’s their problem. It’s not. The point of the blog is not to be a customer service tool. We want people to talk about weight loss. But readers are shy about leaving comments. I was trying to stimulate discussion. And I don’t think I did anything wrong. This is hugely blown out of proportion.”

Well, we can understand the desire to stimulate traffic. And yes, promoting comments is her job. Perhaps she could have left out the last line of her private notes, but her request was on her blog for all to see. Steve Lewis on ZestDigital backs her up by writing “there’s no shame in soliciting comments…(Weil) is transparent as she can be.”

For Glaxo, though, her move reflects a deeper issue - whether a corporate blog can accomplish its mission. Alliconnect is still new, as is the pill, so there’s time for the blog to click. But this episode does point up inherent limitations - at least of a blog centered around a product. Most likely, Glaxo will have to work harder to promote Alliconnect, and send out a real SOS.