Viral Marketing = Virulent Tactics?
by TomToronto
So I started out with a joke, and had a decent laugh about it. What better to follow up with than some heavy ethical questions! In specific, the ethics (or lack thereof) in viral marketing. Again, I’m a bit late to post on this, but I’m new to the PR blogging community and I need to catch up. Today I bring you Dan Ackerman Greenberg and his exposé on viral marketing.
Take a moment to read the link if you haven’t, it’s an interesting read. It’s basically a DIY checklist to rack up as many Youtube views as possible, by any means necessary. Some of his points are great suggestions, such as designing videos for remixing and releasing all videos simultaneously, both great ideas to draw people in deeper once they make first contact. Unfortunately, the rest of his methods range from the ethical grey area to the downright dirty. Here are some quick highlights:
- Reaching out to individuals who run relevant blogs and paying them to post embedded videos.
- Spamming friend lists through email and facebook with the latest client’s video
- Having various employees make posts under pseudonyms. Then having these employees (under their false identities) create debates and arguments to try and create controversy
He seems very proud of all of these, and gives a bunch of stats to pat himself and his company, The Comotion Group, on their backs. He has since done some serious backpedalling, but the damage has been done. To quote The Tragically Hip, nobody is interested in something you didn’t do.
So that’s the backstory, but here’s the part that I take issue with. He closes his first post with the line “my advice: fire your PR firm and do it yourself.” Woah buddy, slow it down.
Maybe that’s not such a bad idea? If you plan on acting unethically to drive up your Youtube views, you’re not going to want a PR firm around because they’ll be the first to tell you it’s a terrible idea. If you’re lucky, they might just quit on their own! Personally, if these were my social media tactics, I would employ two PR firms, because if this kind of activity got linked to my company’s name I would need all the help I could get.
What he’s overlooking is the fundamental difference between Public Relations and Marketing. There can be a lot of overlap, but PR at its core is about relationships and reputation. Getting out a client’s corporate message or vision is certainly part of that, but it is a mean, not an end. PR is about a client’s relationship with the people it deals with, be they customers, their own clients, or potentially interested groups. If you build something meaningful with the customer, they will respond favourably on their own. This is why social media is such a boon for PR, it can be used to create meaningful interactions between people that can create working relationships. Youtube isn’t about how many people see a video, it’s about how many people will still care when they’re done viewing it.
Deceit and payoffs are nothing new, but they have never been a substitute for good PR.
Comments
Great post.
I think its hard for that division between PR and marketing to hold in social media though. The connections and ‘relations’ ARE the medium in which marketers (and everyone else) lurk. Looking at lonlelygirl15 and even sites like suicide girls, the blur between still caring after being marketed to and building relationships becomes more blurred. interesting times to start up in PR indeed!
Very true, the web and social media are really a grey area when trying to distinguish PR and marketing, especially if the PR client is commercial. Plus this sphere is still very new, both fields are rushing in to utilize it, and everybody ends using similar methods. Except for some of us, like Dan Ackerman Greenberg! It’s a very exciting time for PR, no question! Thanks for the post Luke.