Influencing Positive Reviews the Ethical Way
MobileCrunch reported that a sales, marketing and PR agency has been paying interns to create positive reviews for its clients on community forums.
This means that readers of the reviews would perceive that a consumer had used the applications and had been satisfied, without knowing the review had been internally generated. This practice is drastically unethical and tarnishes the reputations of PR practitioners.
Nowadays many people seek the endorsement of peers through reviews online to make purchases, which is why that practice is deceptive. I’d be interested to find out if there are any legal ramifications to the agency’s actions. But I think this situation leaves many companies wondering how you can ethically influence conversations and reviews generated via consumers while remaining transparent, and how your PR agency can help you with this.
Communities form when like-minded individuals come together to share ideas and ask questions about topics of interest. Very simply, with or without the help of an agency, a company can monitor for mentions of its brand or company online – there are many services out there capturing that data. It can also locate industry-specific conversations. An agency can help identify where those conversations are happening, common themes, tonality and more.
The company can then enter the conversations transparently, and an agency can help counsel on the most effective ways to touch consumers. Thanking purchasers of a product, offering advice and technical support, correcting inaccuracies and stirring dialogue go a long way in creating a loyal and enjoyable client experience. In addition, influencing true brand evangelists will propel consumer endorsement both on and offline much further in the long run.
Real brand devotion comes from trust in the brand and product – something that the agency and its clients may find out the hard way when consumers learn the products they bought based on unbiased reviews weren’t all that unbiased after all.
What are some other ways that companies can harness the power of online conversation to drive brand endorsement? What companies are doing a great job of this? And are paid positive reviews now part of this?
Rachel Kay
photo credit: Justin Baeder
I can’t believe that after all the recent and not-so-recent examples of bad PR and marketing, agencies are still tripping up in this way. Did they really think that no-one would pick up on this? Reviews are often the most focused-upon aspects of any blog or site, from the sheer fact that people are smart enough to know how reviews can be manipulated.
What’s doubly galling here is that clients want this approach as well – and then they wonder why their business starts to drop off…
Great stuff as usual, Rach – you’re really on a roll!
I think the problem stems from the fact that there are still those who are trying to control social media rather than participate, contribute, and most importantly ( as you point out) use it as a means to listen to the marketplace.
I do think that more and more company’s are starting to “get it” and there are plenty examples of those doing it right. Best Buy and Comcast have, with good reason, been cited numerous times for how they are leveraging Twitter for customer service. In the banking industry, Wells Fargo remains both an early adaptor and leader of building online communities to connect with customers. You’ll find frustrated customers, along with loyal supporters leaving comments on their blogs and in their commnunities, but that’s ok. It’s real. And over time, it helps to build trust. Forrester put out a report in 2008 noting that Only 16% of online consumers who read corporate blogs say they trust them. I wonder how many people trust online reviews and fear how the unethical actions like those you’ve described may impact trust in what should be a very useful and important tool for consumer research.