My good friend and awesome SocialCorp intern Bukola sent me a link to a worrisome job description on socialmediajobs.com for a position described as “Participate in Software and Small Business Discussions.”

Following is a portion of the job description:

4) Every time you make a comment, you will use one of 5 comment names and a number of different URls. For example, comment name = Small Business CRM, URL address = http://www.worketc.com/…_Relationship_Management

I cannot believe that they are openly suggesting that the person they are going to hire will use an assortment of comment names!

And later on, there’s this:

4) Your comments need to reflect that you understand our software tools. A bad comment would be “WORKetc is a great tool”. A good comment is “WORKetc really helped us create more accurate invoices”. A better comment would be “At our business we managed to produce more accurate invoices using the WORKetc billing software. This not only bought us in more money, but our customers appreciated the extra details”.

The suggested comment is written as if it came from a WORKetc customer, which would obviously be deceptive. This is a brief case study in how not to get a company into the “conversation” online. To reiterate:

1. Anonymous commenting intended to simulate consumer enthusiasm is called astroturfing and is unethical, and in many cases, is illegal or will soon be illegal, depending on jurisdiction.
2. Authenticity is key. As soon as you “game” the system or try to find a shortcut, you’ve broken the sacred trust with consumers/customers.
3. Check out the WOMMA Ethics Code or get a hold of some other ethical compass before embarking on your first social media initiative.
4. Don’t try to fool people.

I have contacted WORKetc for a comment, and hope they respond. And while I certainly support free expression and no prior restraint, I wonder if social media specific job sites might advise clients like WORKetc on matters like this before they publish a listing with obvious issues.

Update, midnight PST, September 11, 2008: I clicked on the link and the posting has been deleted from socialmediajobs.com.

Tags: Astroturfing, jobsinsocialmedia.com, social media ethics, womma ethics code

It wasn’t that long ago everyone (or so it seemed) was asking everyone else, “do you have a blog?” Or worse, “do you blog?” In the past week, two of my favorite bloggers — or people I choose to call “people who write blogs,” as I try not to use blog as a verb — announced they were going to stop blogging, or writing blogs, or whatever.

On September 4 came the announcement on my little brother David Postman’s blog that he is “leaving The Seattle Times. I’m also leaving journalism, at least for the next phase of my career. I am going to work for Vulcan, Inc., the company founded and led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. I will be doing media relations for the company.” Talk about a sellout! And how did I find out about it? On his blog. He never calls.

David is chief political blogger for the Seattle Times. Journalism and blogging were but two of the many things he set out to in life in which he seriously kicked my butt. He flew in the governor’s helicopter covering the Exxon Valdez spill. He met President Bush. In high school, he had an awesome Austin Healey “Bugeye” Sprite. And a vintage Honda into which I accidentally poured a 5-gallon “jerry can” of rusty water. (Dave, I’m really sorry about that.) In the 60s, growing up, my brother was known on Templeton Ct. as “Little Davey.” It was such a cool nickname, that when the family moved away from Sunnyvale, California, there were two other Davids on the block, and the younger of the two, asked, “Hey, do I get to be ‘Little Davey’ now?” Of course the answer was no. Sorry pal. There is only one Little Davey. Good luck on your new venture, Little Davey!

One day later, Michael Tangeman, who up until recently was not a “Knight Who Said ‘Ni!” but up until recently did write the Media Mindshare blog, announced that he has decided to stop blogging. Michael is a solid writer, with a keen eye for news and a sharp analytical mind. I have always enjoyed his blog. He’s a fellow Humboldt State University alumni. Michael decided to stop blogging because he wondered, as many of us do, whether he still had something worth saying, and whether there was a world beyond his blog. Michael concludes his two year foray into blogging believing there is a “case for the advancement of both traditional media and online media hand-in-hand — rather than the supplanting of the former by the latter.” He wonders if his focus on his blog has interfered with his more active participation in this process.

As the number of people writing blogs continues to grow, there will naturally be in an increase in the number of people who quit blogging to go on to something else, something bigger and better, something perhaps more rewarding. I think it’s very healthy to break out of something quotidian and comfortable and go on to take the next step, whatever it is.

Tags: David Postman, Seattle Times, Michael Tangeman, Political blogger, Postman on Politics, Media Mindshare

You’ve probably read more than one post recently on all the great things companies are doing on Twitter. What’s less obvious are the companies that forgot to get on Twitter, or to otherwise monitor (or in some cases care about) what people are saying about them online. For those companies I have proposed My Almost Free Twitter-Based Corporate Social Media Strategy.

The idea for the article came to me as I observed a well-known truck rental company getting trashed on Twitter. (You can probably figure out which company it is, and if you-haul stuff, you’ve probably done business with them but I don’t see any benefit in naming them here.) This was more than just a rant session. These people were trying to get the company’s attention by complaining in a public forum. It was kind of an informal version of GetSatisfaction.

A company with even the most superficial presence on Twitter could have managed this situation, but instead, it just snowballed as angry consumers added their experiences and company spokespeople slept soundly at their desks.

David Alston, of Radian6, the “instigator” of the discussion, posted on this, and summed it up:

“Here we have a well-known North American brand seemingly oblivious to the goings-on in social media and to the pent up frustration with its brand.”

So where were the company’s representatives and spokespeople while all this was going on? Asleep? Too busy to communicate? Wherever they might have been, they were not on Twitter, they were not in the blogosphere, and they were completely ignorant of this groundswell of consumer discontent. And once apprised of it, they simply chose to ignore it.

I was unable to find any media contact information on the company’s website. Like most companies that employ the Web as a means of hiding from their customers, the company provided only a rudimentary inquiry form designed to limit customer comments and prevent consumers from learning actual company names and e-mail addresses, which, as everyone knows, if released to the public, will bring about the decline and fall of civilization as we know it.

I completed the form, and outlined for them the under-$500 Twitter-based social media plan. Not surprisingly, I received no acknowledgment of my e-mail. I did not expect the company, which has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of understanding of the most basic aspects of brand management, to actually sign up for Twitter — which was my recommendation. But what I did expect was a computer-generated “thank you we’ve received your inquiry” note, and I do not get that either. I am not sure why I am surprised that a company with notoriously bad customer service, and complete indifference to customer discontent, would behave in this manner. It just seems so basic. Interestingly, for a time, as this was all happening, a new user with the company’s name showed up on Twitter, posted a few test messages, and subsequently deleted the account.

No company “has” to be on Twitter, but with the low cost of entry, and the opportunity to get involved in and learn from some of these discussions (and possibly head some of them off before they become blog posts and social media failure case studies), why wouldn’t you? Corporate communications people who don’t know how to use Technorati, Google Blog Search, search.twitter.com, RSS and alerts to monitor online discussions about their company are nothing less than negligent.

Tags: twitter, david alston, radian6, customer service, failure, indifference

I enjoyed a recent interview with Amanda Chapel on Tom Cuniff’s iCPG blog in which she takes on some social media sacred cows (SMSCs) and warns prospective corporate social media adopters:

1. Beware of social media cancers. Know that by participating in social media you invariably expose yourself to and empower the virulent haters of your company or organization;
2. Beware of the demagogues. People and competitors are just waiting for you to make a move for them to leverage;
3. Beware of the SEC. Talk to an expert in SEC law to understand the long-term implications of “open communications;”
4. Beware of market pressure to relinquish control of your brand. Once it’s gone, you ain’t getting it back;
5. Beware of hucksters. I’d warn them about ROP (see above). You can and should predetermine precisely your expected real Return on Investment.

This is some of the best social media advice I’ve seen. As Brad Hamilton of All American Burger said, “learn it, know it, live it.”

Tags: tom cuniff, amanda chapel, ROP, ROI, social media

Interesting bit of news that Google is “launching a new product for the enterprise market, Google Video for business. It’s a new application in the Google Apps office suite, enabling workers to upload and share videos inside their organizations.” Pricing is $50 per user per year. Wonder if this will compete with Brightcove and similar offerings.

read more | digg story