Protip: How To Astroturf

(Astroturfing is the term for artificial grassroots promotion.)

I have been asked several times in the last few months how to go about promoting a product in outside communities without getting the posts deleted as spam. Specifically, I am talking about a situation in which someone is assigned to join a message board for the purpose of promoting a product – and where the hosts of the message board quite rightly delete the posts as unwanted advertising.

The fact that the host is in the right doesn’t stop people from having to do this job. So today, three protips:

Tip 1: Don’t do it. It’s obnoxious. If you aren’t confident enough in your product, if you haven’t built your community such that you are including people with the right connections, if you can’t trust that your community evangelists will make some magic… focus on the product, not on finding ways to be rude.

If Tip 1 is out of the question:

Tip 2: Hire your community manager wisely. That means hiring someone who already has a respected presence in the desired communities, or hire the manager early enough that he can join communities, establish himself as a real member instead of someone with an axe to grind, and in three to six months, introduce a tasteful link in his signature file.

If it’s too late for Tip 2:

Tip 3: Reach out to the owners of the community you want to target. Explain who you are, what you want, and have something to offer the community in the way of swag, betas, prestige, or advertising dollars. Identify the person who is responsible for deleting your spam, and make them an ally.

The three tips have one thing in common: Don’t pose as a member of the community – be one.