Lazycoder

Marketing in forums and weblogs

Penny Arcade has had a couple of news items that have caught my attention. Guerilla Marketing

I interviewed for a guerilla marketing business in San Francisco that targeted web forums.

I was told that if I accepted the job, I was to have at LEAST 50 identities on as many forums as I could muster (they wanted 100 eventually), with a goal of 5 posts an hour. The posts had to be well thought out, and the idea was that I was to establish multiple identities with a history on the forums, so that when the timing was right a well written but subtly placed marketing post could be finessed in. And regular visitors would recognize the post as coming from a long time poster.

They had 12 people working there full time, and were hiring 10 more. You do the math. No wait, I’ll do it for you: that’s 880 posts a day (if minimum was met). However he said the better ones could do around 8 or 10 an hour. And they had different “verticals” so there was the sports guy, and the games guy, the hentai, excuse me I mean anime guy, etc.

But the most critical point was this: develop and integrate the identity. No random “HEY EB GAMES IS AWESOME BUY THIS” stuff.

Kinda spooky.

I don’t know if “kinda spooky” is how I’d describe it. I’ve always suspected that some blogs and forum posters were shilling a product a little too much. But what’s worse than the devil you know? The devil you don’t know.

2) I actually hired a company called Hype Council (http://www.hypecouncil.com). These guys do a TON of gaming related stuff — I actually wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the company referred to in your news post. Their technique is quite insidious. Let’s say they were hired to pump up PA (not like you need the buzz, but whatever…). Using one of the hundreds of shill accounts they have across the net, they post a new thread that says something like “hey guys, I’ve been looking for some new web comics to read. Anybody have any recommendations?” This is non-threatening, and gets the community engaged. They then wait a couple days and post again, this time with “Well, I asked some friends and they suggested I check out Penny Arcade . I thought it was pretty funny, although I didn’t like all the cuss words. What do you guys think?” Again, seeking engagement, they now have stealthily inserted the client’s link, thereby encouraging trial. It’s all very measurable and very effective. You should see the monthly reports you get from these guys: everything is detailed. Spooky.

Just some food for thought the next time you see a blogger or forum poster ask for suggestions then come up with one. Sometimes the marketing and PR folks even go so far as to attack their product in blogs and forums just to stir up sympathy/support. I’ve often thought when reading the comments at certain blogs, where the same ‘anonymous’ people show up to attack the poster time and time again, that the points they make seem a little too convenient, the attacks seem a little too personal and spend too much time attacking the person rather than the points to really be a valid criticism. You’ll see it when shills for companies start a blog. They appear to be criticizing their company, but in reality they are just trying to stir up sympathy. Usually the things the criticize are either so blarlingly obivous that they’d be stupid to ignore or really meaningless. Generally, anytime I see the words “This represents my opinion and not the position of my company” or words to that effect on a web page, and the majority of the posts are about the speakers company. I suspect they are just shuckin’ and jivin’. Their words exactly represent their company, they just want the company to have plausible deniability.

This, of course, is my own opinion and not that of my employer.