TIL there is a road where the use of seat belts is prohibited

luckyj · 1 year

Cool.

joliane_ · 1 year

So... communal tips for screening and detecting for melanoma?

Pro_Tester · 1 year

We each had many accounts on all of the communities we visited. I had at my disposal at least a dozen Reddit accounts created periodically over the years. All those are still communal property of the company, and the passwords have been changed. ... I checked.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

Everything pretty much falls under those categories. I can't imagine the principles we used are any different than traditional marketing: hype the good, dismiss the bad, go for the emotional appeal.

Because it's an attack on an emotional vector, it's pretty hard to counter. We are all emotional creatures, so unless we know we're being manipulated and can use that to create a counter-emotion, the subconscious will want to believe the speaker, his statements, and his propaganda.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

All the time.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

There's no money in indiscriminate hate. If we were paid to discredit a person or product, it was by a competing company.

When it comes to Bieber or the like, I would say it's just natural. Things, whether people or products, that are more popularity than their value commands quickly become the targets for popularity-haters. It's then just as popular to hate on them as it was to like them. (If you're into economics, think about what happens when the Fed artificially creates a 'boom.' Eventually it's followed by a corresponding 'bust.') Contrast this with something like Firefly, which is incredibly popular (in the right circles) but has intrinsic value to back up that popularity, so it doesn't garner the popularity-haters, whereas hacks like Black, more or less, purchased theirs.

Who knows, maybe some day the people who hire companies like mine will catch on to that...

Pro_Tester · 1 year

When advertising invades even your daily conversations, that doubt is a healthy thing, don't you think?

Pro_Tester · 1 year

It really depends on the community. With one cooking site, the thing that people want might be organics, on another it might be low-salt, and on another it might be non-fat. We didn't really invent much; we usually took something that was there already and made it more well known, using it to dismiss any criticism. (I say we didn't invent much, but we did lie a lot. However, the lies were often to quell those speaking against us, and not the basis for the promotion. Only in the political campaign did things get lie-centric.) Take anything or anyone with a positive or negative saying about it/them that isn't an official slogan... someone had to make it popular, right?

Pro_Tester · 1 year

I don't think I understand you; what makes a good comment, as in factfinding, research, and having a good understanding of the topic, or what makes an opinion changing comment, which typically invokes emotional bandwagoning?

The biggest surprise is how I let myself continue in that line of work for so long. But, I know what you mean. Probably discovering that by mock-arguing with each other we were able to sway a larger group faster than by doing the standard talking-up thing. It's obvious, looking back, but if two people have an ideological fight, and one clearly loses, it's emotionally difficult to back the loser, and most people will therefore join themselves with the winning (or, already-won) camp.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

"Easier?" Not really. Just different. As I said, people are people.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

I don't want to give too-specific information for fear of legal and/or financial retribution.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

No. Our methods evolved in the environment as the company slowly changed directions. We made it up as we went along. My background is in psychology, so I drew upon that education to help direct some tactics, but we were never given instruction or training from the company. We just kinda... found what worked, and went with it. Our biggest breakthrough was finding that mock-arguing with each other provided better results than publicly agreeing with each other. ... Though, maybe I shouldn't make that public knowledge.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

The only time I was, personally, involved with a political client, it was to discredit a particular underdog and turn his supporters elsewhere (we weren't told specifically who to endorse, but we deflected a lot of his supporters toward a similar-yet-very-different candidate on the other platform and others to his party's forerunner candidate). I ended up voting for the underdog I had worked so hard to discredit.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

I don't think so.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

Yes, I do mind.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

I guess what I mean to say is that the only reaction they could have, whether honest or to save face, is to say "What you're telling me is terrible and unethical. I had no part in this, if what you say is even true. Why would you do such a terrible thing if you knew how unethical it was?" It'd be a damn good counter, I think. I, personally, don't know that he had anything to do with it, I can't name the person in his party who hired us, and in the end, it is my actions that were unethical.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

What's the difference? Sometimes I liked the products I was promoting, sometimes I didn't.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

AFAIK we all just got paid the same salary rate. They measured word count as a metric, but I don't know if they ever acted on it. Good and Bad were subjective, and often up to either the supervisor or an individual's teammates. Eventually I found it hard to wage a campaign against the political target whom I personally backed, and I guess my performance was noticed by either the team or my super. It was the closest thing to a reprimand I was ever involed with, and mostly it was a "leave your personal life at home; you've got a job to do."

How the company got paid, I don't know. Information like that didn't generally flow down to us grunts. There was a pretty good information barrier in that regard.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

No, we started off by delivering reports on the impact of internet advertising on certain online communities and demographics. We would commonly do an assessment, then the client would push a new advertising campaign, and we'd do another assessment afterwards to gauge the impact. We just sorta grew into trying to control the reaction, I guess. I don't know if it was anyone's conscious decision or plan, or if it just evolved naturally.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

People are people.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

I can't say. I have no idea how many other companies there are doing this.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

I answered an ad on CL. "Strong computer skills necessary" was the primary requirement, I recall. Said nothing about marketing.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

We had a word count that was done that is like a quota, but no, there were no hard metrics, like "Number of forum users converted" or anything. Success was defined by us, primarily, reporting to our supers in the weekly reports, and they would translate (or maybe just transfer) those to the client, I guess.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

No, I was never privvy to that kind of data. While I feel that we, on occasion, changed public opinions greatly on the 'net, I have no idea what it would translate into sales-wise.

Pro_Tester · 1 year

The way I figure it, we didn't "start" anything. At best, we took some dormant, recessive views and turned them into living, dominant movements. There were a few big turn-arounds in some communities, yes. Ask yourself, what was really popular a few years ago that is now regularly denounced today? Or the other way around, what has recently boomed in popularity even though it's been around, unpopular or unliked, for awhile? It's possible we had a hand in that.

Pro_Tester

TROPHY CASE

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