Last Thursday the US Federal Trade Commission settled a complaint against a PR firm called Reverb Communications accusing the firm of posting online product reviews on behalf of their clients as if they were disinterested consumers. In the process they did not identify themselves or their financial motivation.

This reminds us all that identifying our bias online is a legally required mandate, but it also makes me wonder why so many people are astroturfing and what are the alternatives?

Too Many Reviews are Negative
Customers are all too aware of the power they have over the company’s success online. In the case of United for example, a customer intentionally created an online video about his experiences on a mission to destroy the company’s reputation. Every large company has dozens of angry customers just like him who are motivated to enact personal vengeance, but what motivation do happy customers have? Solicit happy customers to get engaged with your brand online to improve the balance.

It’s the easy way out.
The truth of the matter is, writing your own reviews is just easier than getting customers to do it. If you want to avoid the business risk of getting caught for astroturfing, you’ll have to get people who can do the work of getting your customers more engaged.

Control
Astroturfing means having complete control over the message. This is great, especially when the alternative might be a negative review. But if your customers seem to be speaking a different language than the messages the company would otherwise disseminate, the messages are what need to change.