Elaine Bussjaeger's Blog

The Whole Foods scandal I talked about in the last post was about blatant dishonesty in new social media. Now I want to post about finding the line between astroturfing and ethical behavior when talking about corporate social media. The blog post from The Buzz Bin, that I referenced in the last post, “Astroturfing on the Dark Side of the Moon,” by Geoff Livingston does a good job of discussing where the line should be drawn.

Livingston raises the point that all corporate social media efforts are funded marketing campaigns, so does this make them all astroturfing? There is a fine line between what is ethical and unethical in corporate social media.

In one example involving the corporate blog for the diet pill alli, the blog’s creator Debbie Weil sent out emails to colleagues asking them to comment on it. You can read what her email said here.

Is it fair to ask colleagues to do this? Or is it even a big deal? Considering the rules of new social media are still being written, it is more important than ever to remember that it always looks better to err on the side of truthfulness.

As Susan Getgood says in her blog, Marketing Roadmaps, the question should not be: is it ok to ask for comments– it should be: why isn’t the blog getting comments of it’s own accord? Getgood points out that it was because the alli blog focused on the product, not the people.

This is a great point to bring up when talking about transparency and authenticity. When organizations use social media effectively, they should be creating a genuine conversation with their publics. This has a lot to do with knowing who your publics are and what they need. When they actually need or want something; they will respond.