#esoteric, shocking importance of checking your content

A shocking example of the importance of checking your content

Twitter is home to a vast number of accounts that are set up anonymously, with the intent to build a large, loyal following to then sell on the account. I’ve may have been just been followed by one of these such accounts – positioned as being by a Social media expert.

And one that only wants to be followed by others directly in this area – so trying to gain maximum Klout/Kred/PeerIndex scoring. The full #typed note is here . . .

#social media, and avoiding the pitfalls of astroturfing

The social media space, can, for brands be unchartered territory – actually, a minefield.

And today, again, we see another example of ‘astroturfing’ and the consequences. Astroturfing is when content is developed and seeded online (or elsewhere) by an organisation and presented as being from ‘grassroots’ – consumers, users or non-connected others. This, in the UK, is now illegal – for a brand or company to represent themselves online using an alias or inferring they are a ‘consumer’

A developer has been banned from the iPhone App Store after Glyn Evans advised Apple that a reader of his blog had noticed similarities on reviews for a number of apps – all by the same company. The result is that over 1,000 of its apps for Molinker (from travel apps to instant chat-up lines) have been removed. For Heinz, it would be all baked beans tins being withdrawn from Asda. And Tesco, Sainsburys plus … .. ..

As users rate and review downloaded apps, report problems and share, good ratings see apps rise to the top, bad not.

For brands this is simply, stupidity. And a reminder that social media can build and well as destroy a company.

Update: The Guardian on Astroturfing

#business development, is it an art or a science?

#marketing rod geoghegan metropolis partners growth marketing business development

Business Development

One of the performance objectives of an agency is achieving growth and new business targets – or more accurately, over-achieving them.

So is new business an art or science?

I know that management board and investors demand reliable, consistent and predictable new business – without left-field hits or surprises, and look to have the team in place that is fully in control of delivering against targets month in and month out.

The full #typed note is here . . .

#business development, procurement, a new age of austerity?

I have written before on the importance of marketing agencies engaging with brand procurement teams.

Promotional Marketing (November 2010) has written this month about how agencies are being tested in these current times.

It writes of the knock on effect of the current spending cuts at governmental level – and that anecdotal evidence suggests there is already a huge impact on the market research sector with some agencies already having closed their social research units.

The full #typed note is here . . .