Posted on August 28, 2008
Fired for Astroturfing: A Social Media Don't
BY JASON CORMIER
To partially quote from Wikipedia, Astroturfing is when an individual disguises the efforts of a commercial entity as an independent public reaction to a product, service or event. It's an orchestration of overt outreach tactics by covert means.
More to the point, it's something you don't do as a responsible marketer. The thing is, the rules are easily bendable, the tactics are highly tempting and the ethics are typically questioned. After all, what "harm" can it really do? Well, actually a lot -- and I have a fresh and unfortunate story to share with you about it.
To give some background: One of the main activities we do as a social media company is key influencer identification and blogger outreach. Our outreach efforts are always about approaching people on a personal level. In other words, asking for permission, being short and sweet about our agenda, and even apologizing up-front in the event our outreach is perceived as irrelevant to a blogger's interests and audience.
Recently, we came across an influential blog that posted about our client's product. But before we could start slapping high fives, the blogger made an additional post that specifically called out one of the commenters. Although the commenter in question had good intentions, clarifying some false statements made about the product, his enthusiasm took things to the point of spewing marketing jargon in his comment. Dead giveaway.
As one of the shark commenters clued into the chum, the blogger was inspired to do a little investigation. You know where it goes from here. What he easily found was the commenter in question was using a fake name with a standard email address. From there, the blogger not only identified the commenter as a marketer, but even discovered when he was hired.
So of course, he owed his readers a juicy post about this discovery. Today, that marketer was fired. And as many might agree to that being an over reaction, the reality is the marketer's company and client was dragged into a search engine index-able conversation among far more than a normal room full of people.
Could it quickly smolder out and go nowhere? Absolutely. Could it be dragged to other blogs, becoming the latest meat puppet case study in social marketing? Absolutely. So the harm, aside from possibly losing your job, is not only the potential of short-term brand damage - but also long-term search engine results associated with the brand, its' products, services, etc.
From my position, I understand how someone could be reasonably fired for this. At the same time, I believe this particular person simply made a naive mistake that blew up like a firecracker in a child's hand.
If he would have disclosed who he worked for up front, this all could have been avoided. In all fairness, the most obvious things are sometimes the hardest to see - and in the world of internet marketing, learning on the job is commonplace.
This just in (this post has been evolving throughout the day as I've written it): the marketer wrote an apology to the blogger today. The blogger responded by emailing an apology regarding the job loss, removing his original post about the client's product, and the post that called out the marketer as deceptive. Wow.
What is your take on this? How would you have respond as the blogger? How about the employer or client?
All employees have an obligation of loyalty to their employer, especially when legal agreements have been signed. This employers decision to fire the employee was fair enough as trust would be hard to completely restore after this kind of unfaithfulness.
"From my position, I understand how someone could be reasonably fired for this. At the same time, I believe this particular person simply made a naive mistake that blew up like a firecracker in a child's hand." That's the true and he was not guilty alone. We we don't have clear visions and crystal prospects, This always happen.
The position of web blogger is ever changing I have found a site that gives clients a clear picture of a variety of marketing solutions that are out there. Social media and social marketing is always changing on the internet. Finding the right firm to complete a project can be narrowed down in a short amount of time.
It seems like the marketer really dropped the ball on this one. How hard can it be to not blow your cover and come across as a company rep?
As the blogger, idk if I would have called the guy out like that...but that kind of deception takes away from the credibilty of the blog itself so I understand where he's coming from.
Seems like this guy was canned for good reason. He's a liability to the business and just simply not doing his job. However, I am a firm believer in second chances and learning on the job.