His personalities range from a 10-year-old girl to a 78-year-old man and across different ethnicities, stereotypes and ages.
He makes you believe he’s one of your crowd whether that’s teenagers who love video games or stay at home mom’s lending one another support for tough times.
After winning your trust and proving himself to be your friend, even if he’s posing as that 10 year old girl, 78 year old man or someone, some demographic in between, it’s with an agenda.
You will visit his client’s website based on this marketer’s recommendation that’s been inserted ever so cleverly into the flow of conversation.
From The Escapist
To the millions of potential young consumers populating sites like Myspace, the internet is a communication tool, an information store, a recreational exercise, a friend, a confidant and a place to pick up chicks. It is, quite simply, the place where life unfolds, and it is through this medium that those who make their bread by convincing others to spend theirs are hoping to fill the rapidly growing advertising vacuum in the living rooms of America.
That’s where Jack comes in. Disguising himself as just another consumer turning to the internet for entertainment, advice and counsel, he prowls community forums looking for an opportunity to share his “opinion” of his clients’ products and services. But his task isn’t easy. Part of the reason many consumers are turning away from television in the first place is the pervasiveness of advertising, and they will not hesitate to thwart the efforts of marketers in what they deem as “their space.” For Jack, this is what makes his job both challenging and fun - avoiding detection becomes a game, and one that Jack is incredibly good at.
“I’ve never been caught,” he says. “No accusations have been made to or about the companies I’ve worked for or any of the clients that I have done work for. Most of the time, I can [spot an OGM like me]. I say ‘most of the time’ because there are others out there that are as successful as I am, and I have not noticed them at all. But OGMing isn’t some new-fangled complex idea; companies do it all the time. Often, the companies do not employ someone trained in online guerilla marketing - they grab one of the interns and tell them to do it. Or worse, the executives get the urge to try it. I have called out 15 different companies that have unsuccessfully tried to OGM their product because they were so obvious.”
“Many forums are tightly-knit communities of people who ‘know’ each other pretty well. Any [newbie] that starts posting random stuff about products and stuff is just going to draw an immense amount of … bad attention. That account and/or IP would be banned if I acted too quickly. For the tightly-knit forums, I’ll be charming people toward my client’s product after a week of innocent posts. Other super-huge sites … can be coerced within an hour.
“I never only have one account. I always have several accounts. Why? Because people follow the popular crowd … everyone does, just like a herd of cows being moved to the slaughter. If several people are talking about a certain ’something special’ and how awesome it is, it seems more popular than it really might be.
“Honestly, it’s a form of advertising that is completely legal, but ethically, I’m convincing the ‘online sheep’ to go where I tell them to, whether I personally think the product is good or bad. I’m a fun person [who] likes to socialize, go out on the town and hang out with friends, but when I’m working, I’m methodical, unrelenting, charming, convincing and completely uncaring of my targets and of the people around me. The problem with this ‘night and day’ mentality is that during the ‘twilight’ hours, I’m sad and remorseful of what I’ve done.”
If you prefer “unsolicited testimonials” to affiliate links… you might want to read the rest of this story. It might not be so “unsolicited”.
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