Online Guerilla Marketers - stand up and be counted!

[warning]

Very interesting article in The Escapist on Online Guerilla Marketers.

Like an undercover cop or secret agent, Jack's effectiveness at his job depends on his ability to remain anonymous. He'll often spend days, even weeks, infiltrating a community to earn the trust of its members before he strikes - inserting a recommendation in the right place, at the right time to generate interest in the products he represents.

A typical day for Jack starts with checking "to make sure I haven't been discovered," he says. "I check logs and IP pings, and I revisit forums and posts I recently made for comments. I return to the threads, chat rooms or other places and respond to posts I have already made. I then go through and talk like a normal poster would - commenting on other subjects, talking about politics, throwing in some wood into a flame war, etc. - pretty much just to fool anyone that might be suspicious of my activities to show them that I'm a 'real' person and not some corporate shill.

The rest of the article is just as fascinating.  So who here is an OGM?  It's time for them to be "out-ed" by the masses.

[JLu]

I vaguely remember reading something like this at some point; either that or I'm having wicked Deja Vu.

And if I were clever, I'd make a comment about some product helping that; but as far as I know, nothing helps for curing Deja Vu...

[CeeKay]

Are you trying to admit to something warning?  I always thought something smelled funny about you 

[Grievous Angel]

Are you trying to admit to something warning?  I always thought something smelled funny about you 

Then he should use Axe body spray. That stuff is extreme! To the max!

[Kobra]

3 of the last 4 corporations I worked for had departments or people to do this internally, so it isn't as rare as you think.  One popular game company I worked for, called their OGM's "Forum Advocates", another company called them "Product Boosters".  I wasn't ever employed under this function though, I'd like to make that disclaimer.

A few strong advocates can make the difference of thousands upon thousands of copies sold of a particular product or game.   For example, Stardock benefited GREATLY by the stink caused by a Starforce forum moderator (not an official Starforce employee) singling it out and posting that link to download it, and the advocacy that followed by the fans of the product/company.  I would say it probably increased their sales by 20-30% on GalCiv2, that's huge! Accidental or otherwise, and I make no claims to any knowledge of the incident other than what was publically posted.

[Knightshade Dragon]

Son of a....you busted me.  This whole site is a big sham.  I'm a shill marketer for Starforce.

....

....

BAHAHAHHAHHAA!  I'd just like to mention - Starforce's forum is still under contruction and has been since I posted my thread there.   

[CeeKay]

c'mon Ron, we all knew you sucked StarForce dong from day one.  whiteboyskim let us in on your dirty little secret and warning followed up with some first person shots.  We'd have said something, but we all have a pool going on how may Mr. Johnsons you'd hit before you caught on.  So far Arkon, who had bet on 144,000, is the most recent loser 

[Knightshade Dragon]

c'mon Ron, we all knew you sucked StarForce dong from day one.  whiteboyskim let us in on your dirty little secret and warning followed up with some first person shots.  We'd have said something, but we all have a pool going on how may Mr. Johnsons you'd hit before you caught on.  So far Arkon, who had bet on 144,000, is the most recent loser 

This coming from the "Ass shot" signature guy? 

[Tebunker]

3 of the last 4 corporations I worked for had departments or people to do this internally, so it isn't as rare as you think.  One popular game company I worked for, called their OGM's "Forum Advocates", another company called them "Product Boosters".  I wasn't ever employed under this function though, I'd like to make that disclaimer.

A few strong advocates can make the difference of thousands upon thousands of copies sold of a particular product or game.   For example, Stardock benefited GREATLY by the stink caused by a Starforce forum moderator (not an official Starforce employee) singling it out and posting that link to download it, and the advocacy that followed by the fans of the product/company.  I would say it probably increased their sales by 20-30% on GalCiv2, that's huge! Accidental or otherwise, and I make no claims to any knowledge of the incident other than what was publically posted.

Well you ARE a not-so-guerilla Costco marketer...

I don't really have a care with regards to stuff like this. It takes more than one person to have any major impact on a forum, there are exceptions of course(sometimes I wonder if the gonegold effect was all a marketing ploy that someone paid the owners of that site to push on us...).

[depward]

I'm in the search engine optimization and search engine marketing business and some practices somewhat dabble in that sort of thing, but not to the extent that the article goes into.  Though, there's definately some blackhat shops out there that do employ those sort of tactics.  Though, in general, it's not so 'guerilla' in search engine marketing as it is 'social media & networking.'

But that's a bit too crazy.