Forrester confuses cash bribes with true customer desires

Forrester Research has a not altogether glowing record in the social media space of assuming that people can be bought at some small price (anyone recall Beacon Fan-Sumers) . Read Write Web:

Analyst firm Forrester published a report this morning telling corporations that it's a good idea to engage bloggers in "sponsored conversations," or the exchange of goods or credit in exchange for blog coverage. The report, titled "Add Sponsored Conversations to Your Toolbox", is 8 pages long, focuses on a number of high profile examples like the case of KMart and Chris Brogan, and sells for $795.

Well, we can save you $795 straight away. Don't buy it, they are largely wrong. Doubtless its what their corporate customers desperately want to hear however, and shifts their reports. But the evidence to data is that "Sponsored Conversations" are picked up fairly quickly as phoney if hidden (Acer Ferrari. WalMart travellers etc etc) and the resulting firestorm does a lot of damage.

The report argues that if the interests are declared, they have an impact above other forms of online advertising - but what people forget is that every new type of Ad media has a higher than average hit rate while it is novel, but once people suss out that its the same old same old, it declines in impact. Even popoup ads once had high click-throughs. The idea that there is a medium term, sustainable competitive advantage model from what is basically user generated Ad copy is - while seductive - not borne out by experience to date. Social media enables this, but also enables it to be seen through.

Also, Google sees these and devalues them - as Google's Matt Cutts noted with respect to the recent KMart paid Conversation spat:

The Forrester report discusses a recent “sponsored conversation” from Kmart, but I doubt whether mentions that even in that small test, Google found multiple bloggers that violated our quality guidelines and we took corresponding action. Those blogs are not trusted in Google’s algorithms any more. (Hat Tip eConsultancy)

Now, I have had some PRs tell me that it is possible to write hidden "sponsored conversations" that the public don't smell a rat with, but I suspect that over time users will become more sophisticated - its an arms race. And when one gets rumbled, the fallout will (as always) be bad news for the brand, and owing to (i) the low reach of most blogs and (ii) the high reach of most blog firestorms.

Forrester's Jeremiah Owyang, defends the report and notes other comments on this issue: