Tuesday, January 24

On Frogs (Fraudulent Blogs)

Never fake a blog touting your brand.

That seems like an obvious rule to me, but in the light of recent attempts at faking blogs, it’s worth clearly articulating. I’m not talking about “blogs” clearly associated with a (usually humorous) online marketing push. Rather, it’s those clunky, ad copy interpretations of typical blog style masquerading as an enthusiastic consumer’s heartfelt ramblings that are the problem here. Invariably, when a fraudulent blog (frog) is exposed, it generates a heated backlash and negative press. Of course, that is exactly the opposite of its intended, brand-furthering purpose. Worse still, it deepens bloggers’ already deep mistrust of marketing.

Why do marketers continue to shoot themselves in the foot this way? Well, one reason seems to be that blogs are a genre. Like most genres, they have easy to mimic tropes and stylistic peculiarities that we all recognize and that collectively say “blog”. Apparently, in the light of all the hype about the blogosphere’s brand-messaging potential, faking it proves way too tempting for some marketers.

What they’ve failed to notice, however, is that beyond style, blogs also have intentional conditions on their identity. That is, a site’s being a blog is partially determined by the author’s intent. Just mimicking the genre’s style is not enough to make your fake blog acceptable. Blogs are a genre founded on the slippery notion of “authenticity”; and authenticity is particularly important if your blog is supposed to be of the “personal blog” sub-genre.

So, when a marketer attempts to sell something by mimicking a genre founded on the idea of authentic, personal communication, the impression given is fraud and deception, not just witty, post-modern appropriation of a popular genre. It’s just this sort of perceived deception that led to mistrust of all forms of marketing in the first place. Obviously, a solution is to avoid deceptive practices, to utilize a means of marketing in which you don’t have to hide your real commercial ends. Be above board and think a little, please, for your own good.

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Posted by Shannon Bain at 8:09 AM
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