I was looking over a few of the blogs I read once a week and I noticed something.  First of all, I’m about half-way done with a book called, “The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II,” by Dave Balter.  (or you can download it free-and legally) Word of Mouth is a book about… word of mouth marketing.  I’m likely to write more about the book later, but now I just want to talk about one section.

At one point the author describes a group of people, who he receives emails from all the time, who hate him.  They hate word of mouth marketing and probably any other form of marketing out there.  Now I don’t personally know the author, and I really don’t know what type of a person he is.  What I do know is that he is a great writer and knowledgeable marketer from what I have read thus far.  This is why I find it hard for someone to hate him and his work.  However, after reading the following reasons, I realize what leads people to hating marketers.

Here are the forms of marketing perversions listed in the book:
The leaner, who poses as a product advocate, but really couldn’t care less.  Often seen at bars, loudly ordering brand-name beverages.

The phony tourist, who asks real people to take his picture with a cell phone camera, making sure to mention the brand name.

Street teams, who create trumped-up scenes that disrupt the flow of real city life.

Guerilla marketers, who think of marketing as a kind of warfare, with sorties carried out against unsuspecting citizens.

Could you be considered one of these?
Whenever I do anything concerning anything, I always look at it through my ergonomic yet somewhat unfashionable moral goggles.  There is no real in between, at least non which I can think of, in terms of morality.  It is either right or wrong.

Bloggers and Useless Information

This is the reason I started writing this post- bloggers who market shamelessly.  You know the type and I’m not going to name names.  Every post for an entire week might be a product they are pushing.  Or every other post lately is some product that they somehow found time to try since they wrote their last post.  The posts themselves look like those long sales letters you see on the net for informational products- 5 screens in length, a ton of screen shots, and of course 15 call to action links.  The only difference between the sales letter marketers and these bloggers don’t tell you that they are selling you something. Where does it end?  This is the reason I dump a lot of blogs and stop reading them.

I used to attempt to make sense of this blog marketing by believing that the readers must definitely know that the author is promoting something for financial gain.  I figured that most people know this and would make their decision with that knowledge.  Yet, I soon came to the assumption that something else is in fact true.  This is especially true in the MMO niche of blogs.  The reader has come to the blog to find value and usually trusts the information that the author is giving them.  When the author promotes something, a lot of people see it as an honest review for a product of value.  A visitor might just trust the author enough to go out and buy whatever it is they are promoting because of that review.

Now there is nothing wrong with promoting products of value on your blog, but at least be honest to your readers and yourself.  Don’t post some product every other day.  After all, have you gone out and really tried every single product you are promoting?

In conclusion, I now know why their is a hatred of sorts in forums such as WF for MMO blogs.