Flogging

Following my earlier post about corporate blogging, I thought I'd better give a bit of attention to so called flogging. Often mentioned in the same breath as astroturfing, a flog is a blog which which has been set up by a company to promote their product or service, but which does not make its promotional origins clear to the reader.

Historically, corporate attempts to exploit the blogging format in this way have backfired. Back in 2006, PR agency Edelman got in trouble for setting up flogs for Walmart. The graph below, taken from themeasurementstandard.com, illustrates just how much negative PR the exercise generated for Edelman (red means bloggers saying bad stuff about Edelman - click for a larger image).
















Shortly after this debacle, marketing company Zipatoni and their clients Sony were widely derided for a cringeworthy flog site and viral video, while McDonalds were pulled up on two flogs which accompied their 'Monopoly' promotion. All of these sites have since been pulled.

In May of this year, the practise of flogging was made illegal in the UK under the new Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (pdf). The new regulation outlaws “Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not acting for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession, or falsely representing oneself as a consumer”.

And yet some marketing types still consider astroturf and flogs to be valid marketing tools and just another form of advertising. We are, the argument goes, already subject to so many misleading messages in our media, and flogs are really no different - The important thing is to be skilled in recognising when people aren't who they say they are.

Hmmm, maybe these people have a point. Lets test our skills in spotting astroturfers by having a look at this blog post. See if you can spot illegal posts by Carphone Warehouse's representatives in the comments section. Now imagine yourself as director of Carphone Warehouse and feel the rage.

Surely in an era of corporate openness, this kind of thing is bad form whichever way you look at it? Given that its probably just a matter of time before you're smoked out, can flogging or astroturfing ever be a good look for a company or PR agency? Comments please!!

People don't trust corporate blogs

Li and Bernhoff, the authors of the book Groundswell have just published research showing that only 16% of people. trust what they read on corporate blogs. A summary of their findings can be found on their blog (which looks to me like a corporate blog of sorts but ho hum), or you can have a look at this bar chart (click for a bigger version):

















Several things about this data. Firstly, it is from the US, but I'd guess that figures in the UK would be roughly the same. Secondly, the numbers are really quite low across the board for all communications channels - people really are very discerning when it comes to absorbing information. Thirdly, personal blogs fare little better than corporate ones.

The main lesson seems to be one which the PR industry learned some time ago - that messages are most effective when they come from a trusted and non-partisan source. It should come as no surprise that people don't trust the voices of strangers in the blogosphere. Nor should it be a massive shock to the system that corporate blogs are perceived as prone to bias.

So what are the most trusted outlets of information? Well traditional (ie print and broadcast) media ranks more highly than most social media, which should provide web 2.0 PR gurus with some food for thought. But ranking highest of all are good old fashioned friends and family, and consumer reviews.

The appearance of consumer reviews is interesting in this context because in theory the source is exactly the same as that of blogs (ie the general public). However, the difference as I see it is that unlike blogs, consumer reviews are aggregated, depersonalised, focussed and usually very brief. There is also a tangible honesty and credibility in consumer reviews that stems from having just shelled out an amount of money on something, and if the barchart above is to believed, this really seems to count.

Consumer reviews can also be very funny.

A Blogger talks about PR Agents

If a scientist was given a petri dish, some basic amino acids, and the task of synthesising the ultimate blogger, they would probably produce something very similar to Chris Pirillo. Chris is a self confessed tech geek who runs a blogging network called Lockergnome as well as having a significant online presence on such outlets as Youtube and CNN.com. Want to get your issue talked about in the blogosphere? You'll probably have to get it past this guy first. Luckily for us flacks he's produced this video about his attitude to PR.



The video contains some PR truisms (be transparent, do your research, know your audience, send them free stuff) that apply to most media outlets. However he also says a few things that go against common PR understanding:

1)Keep it short and sweet - And that means no conventional press releases. He recommends that releases should be Tweet sized - thats 140 characters, or the length of a text message!
2)Preferably employ an established blogger as your social media PR person.
3)Due to the uniquely meritocratic way in which information on blogs is ordered and disseminated, it pays to target not just the most widely read blogs, but also the most relevant.

Heard any other tips for obtaining blog-inches? Post them in the comments!