Brought back down to earth by Astroturf
Posted by Mark White, Blog Consultant in Blogging News , Business Blogging FAQsWell, a timely reminder for myself this week on two fronts – maybe even more.
I was reading a post about “astroturfing” yesterday in Into PR by Owen Lystrup where Owen commented on a video he had been watching of Seth Godin talking at Google (Aside: well worth a look by the way).
I was confused.
While I enjoy listening to Seth Godin and have come to expect the unexpected when he talks, I was still bemused about why he wanted to talk about artificial lawns and how it related to a “permissions business model”. It was only on my third reading that the reality finally dawned that when he referred to “astroturfing”, he wasn’t talking about his artificial grass replacement options, but rather something else. After a little checking, this “something else” turned out to be the dubious PR practice of orchestrating PR activities to make them look like spontaneous “public initiated” events. (Check out Wikipedia or Answers.com for a fuller explanation).
Aha! The fog suddenly clears.
So why this post? Well, I consider myself to be fairly well informed, certainly interested in marketing & PR and generally up to date with what’s going on in the online marketing arena as a whole – and yet I had never heard the term “Astroturfing” before or, as I now discover, that there is an “Anti Astroturfing” campaign and who knows what else.
It has therefore been a timely reminder to me not to presume levels of knowledge and understanding based on my own experiences, either in my blogging or my workshops. We all have our own areas of expertise. The business people I work with are all very knowledgeable in their own fields, but as we examine the “benefits of corporate blogging” or “the potential of RSS”, it’s important for me to remember that these will be totally new areas for some which need to be explained properly before delving into their many business benefits. Hopefully, my “Astroturfing” experience will remind me of this.
So two notes to myself:
- check through my Business Blogging workshops and make certain that there are no areas of assumed knowledge and that I have managed to explain things as clearly as possible;
- add “Astroturfing” my Glossary of Blogging.
Right – now I’m off to the park where there’s definitely no artificial grass or lurking PR groupies to confuse me!
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September 1st, 2006 at 8:44 am
Wow, Mark. Thanks for the links and for reading my blog. It’s great that I was able to be a channel of precipitation for your knowledge of astroturfing.
Sorry for the confusion, though. I had done an earlier post about astroturfing, and didn’t bother to define it in my post about Seth Godin’s speech.
While Seth didn’t mention Astroturfing in his speech specifically, it was clear that was what he was talking about. The question was whether or not companies should post anonymously about a company saying favorable plugs for it on various forums and blogs. The answer, of course, is no. This is Astroturfing.
I think what Seth said was the most important, and I’m paraphrasing, don’t be fake; you’ll get caught and it will be very bad for your company.
The permissions thing is when a customer is granting a company permission to advertise or market to him/her. Google Adsense is a perfect example. The customer is already doing a search for the very thing your company is advertising for; hence, your company has permission and that’s why it works so well.
Great post in defining Astroturfing. And please do spread the word about the Anti- campaign. It’s important that we all try to be ethical and positive business/PR/marketing advocates.
Love your blog.
September 10th, 2006 at 11:38 am
It’s as if PR people can’t resiste the urge to fill the space on a comment form in an attempt to promote a client.
I remember all the fun and games during the Cillit Bang episode, just check the results of a Google search on their name now.
If you are going to be honest and open when writing a blog, this has to progress to the promotion of it as well.
Offer helpful advice and information on both your own site and in the wider world, and your readers will do the PR for you.
(Great site by the way – RSS feed in Bloglines
September 10th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
Craig – couldn’t agree more. It’s got to be open and above board and the Cillit Bang episode last year was a perfect example of what can happen to you when you try to do things you shouldn’t.
I loved the end of the article from Mobhappy which said:
“If marketing people (and I’m one of them, by the way) want to use blogs to get closer to customers and engage in dialogue, I think this is a good thing. But you have to do it openly, honestly, humbly and with authenticity. Shabby tricks, faux blogs, clever-clever and short cuts will backfire and bite you on the arse.”
Thanks for your comment about the site as well and glad that it is proving useful.
All the best, Mark
September 10th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
Thanks – didn’t know what this is either! I think of Rogers Stadium in Toronto (the Sky Dome) when I think of astroturf. Great explanation on wikipedia – isn’t that a great site? I think that the whole idea of comments on blogs is a type of astroturfing – what do you think?
September 10th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
Hi Chad – yes Wikipedia is very impressive. When I first heard about it, I thought “Nice concept but it’ll never work!” but there it is and just keeps growing and getting better!
Comments on blogs as Astroturfing? Don’t really think that it is, although it could be done. I think that to make it “Astroturfing” you would have to get a large number of different people to leave comments on a post, and I guess that would have to be a post on your own blog. That would then be an attempt to make out that what you are writing about has piqued the interest of the masses (so to speak).
I still think that leaving valid & useful comments on blogs is a genuine way of making your thoughts known and, by implication, indulging in a little bit of marketing of one’s own blog.
Mind you, judging by the amount of spam comments I receive, not everyone shares that opinion – thank you Akismet! All the best, Mark
September 12th, 2006 at 4:26 am
Thanks for the reply – I guess it would be difficult to “blogstroturf” (I coined that) but I wouldn’t put that past the blogosphere.
PS - don’t get me started on Askimet.
May 20th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
As someone who works with artificial grass, I find it strange that the term Astro Turf is now used to describe business tactics.