Authentic Commenting: Learning Through Example
Earlier this week, I wrote a post discussing the
importance of authenticity
on the web. Posing as someone you're not, or pretending you don't have a bias
will only get you in trouble.
Look no further than the comment we received from someone named "John" who
contributed to a
post about rooftop advertising. You tell me: does this sound
like an authentic comment, or a blatant advertisement from someone who isn't
willing to admit who they really are:
It should come as no surprise to find out that this post came from a
computer in the same city as Werner General Contracting, and it's painfully
clear who within the company posted this comment. Stopping short of calling
him out, let's just say that there's a pretty good chance "John" knows what
Werner General Contracting's phone number is since it's on the phone bill.
The sad thing here is that the comment by "John" was in response to a
comment asking if anyone knew of companies doing this type of work. The
response was on topic but missed the opportunity to engage with someone
in an authentic manner.
The anonymized testimonial ends up coming across as a failed branding
attempt rather than an authentic form of advertising,
as
illustrated here.
Exactly, Nick. He COULD have been completely up front about who he is and who he works for. Imagine if this happened in the "real world" like at a party.
Person A mentions that they're looking for a recommendation.
Person B says they know a guy, and give you their guy's phone number.
When Person A calls Person B's guy, it's actually Person B.
People don't behave like that offline, and they shouldn't online either.
I agree with Ed, this was clearly spam, and I would have deleted the comment with no second thought...
I *may* have kept it if the guy would have been upfront with his identity and that his comment would have been relevant to the content of the post, but I doubt it :)
1. Posted by: Nick Johannes on June 13, 2007 3:11 PM:
What's so wrong about what he did? I don't think he used a bot or anything like that.
Would you be happier if he had approached it with something like 'Hi, I'm John from Werner General contracting and...'?
I'll agree - he probably shouldn't have done the 'I think their number is..' thing. That's a little shifty.