So you have embraced the brave new world of the Internet. You think it provides a real medium for communicating and influencing audiences and maybe even fostering new one-to-one relationships with journalists, customers, partners and other relevant publics.
So, what’s the first step? Lie. Yep, grab yourself an ‘alias’ and post untruths about competitors or unsubstantiated boasts about your firm or its clients.
At least that seems to be the growing trend amongst many of our brethern. The race to create ‘online buzz’ – the supposed nirvana for all communication programs – has continued unabated regardless of the economic conditions. But they mostly fail. Why? Well they are obvious, biased and are patently flogging a specific agenda.
I highlighted some examples of this online espionage here previously, most notable the Bivings Groups’ efforts for Monsanto. But there are even more ridiculous examples out there.
The Movie producers (who claim to be the most righteous when it comes to protecting THEIR rights online) are one of the most common offenders. From hiring actors to talk about films in bars and restaurants (pleeze) to posting false film reviews (Sony) and posting ‘excited’ messages to notice boards on the more popular Film websites.
It’s a great case study on how not to spread buzz. The website owners have traced all the posters’ IP addresses back to the movie studios – who claim they don’t sanction it – and they post the SAME message to different websites – DOH!
On top of all that, the movie studio flacks (and I use that term most advisedly) seem to think that the essence of ‘buzz posting’ is bad grammer, bad spelling, lower case and URL’s for film trailers. It really beggars belief.
So let’s all be realisitic. Good communications begins with an understanding of what your audience is looking for. Not lies but information, not subterfuge but value. It’s too easy to expose the liars online, if you’re going to try it, make sure you have a clear response for the angry ‘consumers’ when you’re found out. And here’s the LA Times story that inspired this Tuesday morning rant… [Comments]
Murphy's Law 