BW
11-11-2007, 04:00 AM
Hi guys, a couple of things just hit my mind. I don't want to do this personally (got other things to do), but I'm actually wondering if this could be considered a viable business plan. Feedback is welcome, as always.
Introduction:
1.
Thoughts and ideas of your consumer base can be considered as assets, just as important and valuable as any piece of machinery or equipment.
There is money to be gained by placing thoughts favorable to your business or industry in the minds of potential customers.
This is the fundamental principle of advertising.
2.
Recent developments in Information Communication Technology (ICT) have enabled many new methods of advertising, not all of which are equally effective.
Email-spam and telemarketing are cheap and can reach a large number of people, but have poor results per-case.
The trend is now to focus on community-driven and word-of-mouth advertising (both of which have better results on a per-case basis).
3.
Online forums (such as this one) present and intersection of ICT and community.
These communities are bound by common ideas, interests and backgrounds.
However, ideas and interests can be taught (or read off a cue-card), and backgrounds can be faked.
4.
Cheap labour can be sourced from India, China and other developing countries
Much of this labor is educated in technology, and is accustomed to using ICT, thanks to an established and experienced call-center industry.
English is passable.
5.
Elements of globalization, ICT, and community can be added together to form a new type of spamming. Spamming, redefined.
One could hire cheap labor, teach them basic facts about a particular topic, and have them join various forums.
Have them post our ideas, in hopes of influencing others. Remember, ideas = money!
----
Okay, hope all those bullet points didn't hurt your eyes too much. But, let me go a bit deeper into the details about it. Basically, we get some cheap labor, either poor local students, or from developing countries abroad (such as India), and use them to do the ground work. Let them learn about the topics of the forum (so, in the case of TTOL, they would learn about our oil-dependance, our crime rate, our PNM government, as well as a few odd bits). They can then post relevant and informed topics on the forum, and thus establish a foothold in the community. They will establish trust and respect from other members.
Remember,
Trust makes advertising more effective!
Trust = money!
They can then be paid to promote the company's ideas. Not necessarily a particular brand name or product, but more general stuff (like the rise of electric cars). They don't need to be overt about it, but it certainly needs to be present. Maybe they could just wander a little off-topic or just be a little biased in a discussion.
In case the idea sounds familiar, it is because it contains elements of Astroturfing. Here's a quick Wikipedia definition.
Astroturfing is a neologism for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising that seek to create the impression of being spontaneous, grassroots behaviour. Hence the reference to the artificial grass AstroTurf.
The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt ("outreach," "awareness," etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by anything from an individual pushing their own personal agenda through to highly organized professional groups with financial backing from large corporations, non-profits, or activist organizations.
Of course, this theoretical plan takes this to a new scale. Using foreign call-center labour, astroturfing can be done on an obscene scale. It's got the effectiveness of astroturfing, with all the mass-market potential of email and telemarketing. It can infiltrate every little island-bound forum and community, and promote every idea and cause imaginable (for a small price, of course).
There are some potential drawbacks though.
The writing style of foreign (particularly Indian) call-centers should be easily apparent to everyone. Also, there's only so much somebody could 'learn' about something via an internet reference. Topics they know will be limited and stereotyped, and that again could be picked-up upon by forum members.
And there's the question as to how forum-moderators and members will react when this new form of advertising hits them. General consensus is that astroturfers will be ridiculed and banned, but that's not always the case. A few years back, Nvidia (a computer hardware company) was caught doing dealings with a well known astroturfing company. Several computer hardware forums had the leading members "exposed", but nothing actually happened. People were more than willing to forgive the 'forum leaders' that they had grown accustomed to!
Anyway, again I'm not suggesting anyone try this, but it is something to look out for. Hell, we might even be seeing it soon on our own forums! :|
Introduction:
1.
Thoughts and ideas of your consumer base can be considered as assets, just as important and valuable as any piece of machinery or equipment.
There is money to be gained by placing thoughts favorable to your business or industry in the minds of potential customers.
This is the fundamental principle of advertising.
2.
Recent developments in Information Communication Technology (ICT) have enabled many new methods of advertising, not all of which are equally effective.
Email-spam and telemarketing are cheap and can reach a large number of people, but have poor results per-case.
The trend is now to focus on community-driven and word-of-mouth advertising (both of which have better results on a per-case basis).
3.
Online forums (such as this one) present and intersection of ICT and community.
These communities are bound by common ideas, interests and backgrounds.
However, ideas and interests can be taught (or read off a cue-card), and backgrounds can be faked.
4.
Cheap labour can be sourced from India, China and other developing countries
Much of this labor is educated in technology, and is accustomed to using ICT, thanks to an established and experienced call-center industry.
English is passable.
5.
Elements of globalization, ICT, and community can be added together to form a new type of spamming. Spamming, redefined.
One could hire cheap labor, teach them basic facts about a particular topic, and have them join various forums.
Have them post our ideas, in hopes of influencing others. Remember, ideas = money!
----
Okay, hope all those bullet points didn't hurt your eyes too much. But, let me go a bit deeper into the details about it. Basically, we get some cheap labor, either poor local students, or from developing countries abroad (such as India), and use them to do the ground work. Let them learn about the topics of the forum (so, in the case of TTOL, they would learn about our oil-dependance, our crime rate, our PNM government, as well as a few odd bits). They can then post relevant and informed topics on the forum, and thus establish a foothold in the community. They will establish trust and respect from other members.
Remember,
Trust makes advertising more effective!
Trust = money!
They can then be paid to promote the company's ideas. Not necessarily a particular brand name or product, but more general stuff (like the rise of electric cars). They don't need to be overt about it, but it certainly needs to be present. Maybe they could just wander a little off-topic or just be a little biased in a discussion.
In case the idea sounds familiar, it is because it contains elements of Astroturfing. Here's a quick Wikipedia definition.
Astroturfing is a neologism for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising that seek to create the impression of being spontaneous, grassroots behaviour. Hence the reference to the artificial grass AstroTurf.
The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt ("outreach," "awareness," etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by anything from an individual pushing their own personal agenda through to highly organized professional groups with financial backing from large corporations, non-profits, or activist organizations.
Of course, this theoretical plan takes this to a new scale. Using foreign call-center labour, astroturfing can be done on an obscene scale. It's got the effectiveness of astroturfing, with all the mass-market potential of email and telemarketing. It can infiltrate every little island-bound forum and community, and promote every idea and cause imaginable (for a small price, of course).
There are some potential drawbacks though.
The writing style of foreign (particularly Indian) call-centers should be easily apparent to everyone. Also, there's only so much somebody could 'learn' about something via an internet reference. Topics they know will be limited and stereotyped, and that again could be picked-up upon by forum members.
And there's the question as to how forum-moderators and members will react when this new form of advertising hits them. General consensus is that astroturfers will be ridiculed and banned, but that's not always the case. A few years back, Nvidia (a computer hardware company) was caught doing dealings with a well known astroturfing company. Several computer hardware forums had the leading members "exposed", but nothing actually happened. People were more than willing to forgive the 'forum leaders' that they had grown accustomed to!
Anyway, again I'm not suggesting anyone try this, but it is something to look out for. Hell, we might even be seeing it soon on our own forums! :|