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Engagement

Astroturf - Slash It, Burn It

August 14, 2006

Posted by Phil.Gomes

I know I'm a bit late in acknowledging this, but I was thinking a lot about the topic of online identity this weekend and was moved to point out the Cook/Young Anti-Astroturfing campaign.

Folks around here seem to view me as our internal Emily Post of online behavior. In fact, few things irritate me more than astroturf, professionally speaking. So, with that said, I hope you don't think I'm overstating the matter when I say that PR's relevance (and lifespan) is only as solid as the attention paid to the astroturfing problem.

"People are making this too hard," WOMMA president Andy Sernovitz said in an early episode of earSHOT. I tend to agree. The WOMMA code of ethics lays it out country-simple.

Someone ought to tell Samuel L. Jackson, though. From ContactMusic:

The screen star often goes incognito in the online community to find out what fans really think about him. He says, "I remember one day I was having a conversation with this guy and he was saying, well (Jackson's) not that great, he's done a couple of films that were okay. "And I was like, 'what would those be'? He named a few films and I started naming some more films I thought I was good in. And he was going, 'Maybe you're right, maybe you're right'."

Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, marketing, astroturf

posted by Phil.Gomes

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What's Talkshop

TalkShop is a blog about word-of-mouth and the Me2 Revolution, published by Edelman and hosted by Phil Gomes, the company's Senior Counsel, Online Communications. This blog pulls in thoughts and opinions from members of the worldwide Edelman network.