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Ask Slashdot: My Company Wants Me To Astroturf, Should I?
An anonymous reader writes "Posting as AC for obvious reasons. The company I work for put an app in an app store. The marketing people think it isn't selling very well, so they sent out an email asking people to get on all their social media sites and friend or like the app to build up traffic. The thing is, most of the employees have not used the app, but we are being asked to say that we like it. We just saw stories about companies not being allowed to ask employees or interview candidates for access to social sites, but what does it mean when a company asks employees to astroturf? Will the marketing or HR people look at who has astroturfed, and who has not at raise time? How would you deal with this?"
liars are liars.
Putting the obvious moral issues aside, how loyal to this company are you? If the answer is "not very" then I think you already know what you should be doing (i.e, looking for another place of employment). If, however, you are a loyal employee, then suck it up & just do what they ask...finding a place to work that you actually enjoy is tough, especially in this economy.
Whatever happened to advertising a product? Spend money to make money and all that jazz.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
As a fellow anonymous, representing the big E and the A, we get it in our inboxes daily to astroturf our products.
This seems to be a common practice nowadays, and I guess it shows you have some faith in your product. I have nothing against it as long as you like what you are doing. If you don't like astroturfing for your stuff, then don't.
What concerns me though is that you seem to be not very keen on this app. Care to elaborate why?
I worked at a company where we were actively told to astroturf. It was a bad sign because the product sucked and instead doing something about the criticism, they buried their head in the sand. The criticism was completely well founded. My advice is to not worry about astroturfing and start looking for a new job. Your management isn't looking to fix problems, just cover over them.
A few startups ago, the marketing teams entire plan was "lean on your personal social networks". They'd have been better off standing outside handing out flyers.
If you like the app and think it's useful then it doesn't hurt to promote it a little. If it's just some crap, then don't bother - you'll just desensitize your friends and contacts.
Just saying "I'm working on app X, it's going pretty well!" is subtle and non-annoying, curious people will check it out.
Anyway, a company asking employees to lean heavily on friends/family for promotion is a sure-fire sign of a failed marketing vision in my book, a problem in the business side of the house.
Try the app. See if it's really worth saying good things about. If so, I'd go ahead and praise it as deserved. If not, send a message to the sales/QA/service department as appropriate saying why you can't promote the app. Keep a copy of that message just in case you have to show that you were fired for raising an ethical concern.
Of course, encourage others to do the same, and mention your plan to superiors. They might just admire your behavior, and suggest it to more of the company. Few managers really want to be the guy to let a bad PR situation loose, so they might jump at the chance to prove they're more ethical than that nasty sales department - especially if the app is actually decent, and there's a good chance it'll get astroturfed anyway.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
You could always try the app yourself then give it an honest review. If you genuinely like it, it's not astroturfing.
If you don't like it, you could consider feeding that back to the developers as that may reveal more fundamentally why it's not selling well.
So are we just talking about clicking the "Like" button on Facebook? That doesn't sound terrifically evil. It's not unusual for people to "like" something they don't like, and so I wouldn't even really consider it dishonest. Like I "like" one of my friend's websites, but... you know, it's just because it's my friend's site. My work has asked me to make use my LinkedIn Profile shows that I work where I do, in case the company gets looked up.
Also, are they simply asking you to do it, or are they somehow monitoring everyone's accounts to make sure they do it, and then threatening some kind of response if you don't "like" their product? If they're just asking, and you don't want to do it, then don't do it.
This doesn't seem like a serious problem.
Get used to it. Everybody does it and much of what you think of as news (especially tech news) is networked people astro turfing for each other.
If you think some of your friends will find it interesting, why not? Just serve your friends well. Use the app and be honest about what you like about it. If you can't stand it, just mention the app without saying you like it.
It is somewhat self serving and it may feel dirty but you are helping your company and yourself and informing your friends who may be interested and so everyone benefits. This is how the world works.
Can't say that I would do it.
The problem is the original poster, not the policy, at least so far. The original poster is an epic fail because:
The thing is, most of the employees have not used the app
You have to do that before you can decide what to do with:
we are being asked to say that we like it.
Note that you don't have to like the genre to say the product is best in class, or at least somewhat "like-able". Many years ago I was asked my opinion of an ethnic food product my former employer sold; I can't stand that kind of stuff, but I could honestly say my employers individual product was an excellent example of the genre. If I had to eat this junk in general, this is the one I'd eat. This is your out if the app is something like a female ovulation calendar app or kids educational app or whatever.
I deleted my facebook account years ago, but the social norm at the time was some dude you sat next to in 8th grade once is a "friend" and anything vaguely novel is "like", so its not as if they're asking you to get a tattoo on your forehead or become a booth babe. The standard for "like" an app is probably "it didn't make my phone catch fire, so thats good enough".
If its just too rancidly repulsive to appeal to you, or in your opinion, anyone, you need to run like hell and start emailing resumes because:
1) They're obviously grasping at straws if its so awful they have to pay people $75K/yr (or whatever) to grudgingly admit they like it.
2) After grasping at straws comes the layoffs, downsizing, bankruptcies, etc, next week. So get a jump to it.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
When marketing (or most anyone else) sends an email to the entire company, ignore it. Duh.