Digital Marketing and Bribes

The first rule of bribes is: you do not talk about bribes. The second rule of bribes is: you DO NOT talk about bribes! Use words like gift, incentive, free contest, perk, or value exchange instead. And watch out for the UK Bribery Act on 1 June 2011.

With social media and user-generated content, we are all journalists and marketers are finding it quite easy to bribe people. 

Here are some guides to give you the idea:

• Free Gift
• Incentives - “Like Gating”
• How to Build a Great Contest - The Daily SEO Blog
• How to Run a Successful Social Media Contest - Social Media Examiner
• Perk

And some reports from other sites:

• Update 31 May 2011: “The best little twist is the fact that users had to try and get a celebrity to Retweet them as the very last clue to win the phone.”
• Update 11 June 2011: Introducing the Facebook Like & Save. Turn one customer into thousands while increasing your product exposure
• Update 18 June 2011: NO! I am not willing to SPAM my friends for a free bottle of aspirin
• Update 18 June 2011: Do you bribe your friends to hang out with you? - AntiSocialMedia

I think most of us can agree that large bribes are wrong. But it’s much less clear with small bribes. Three examples:

1. Suppose you click a link, or signup for a site that offers a prize contest for doing so. Probably with an average value of a few cents. Like millions of other people every day. Do you declare it and look like a pompous ass?
2. Suppose you use one of the techniques above to attract extra Twitter followers, so increasing your company’s profile, and winning extra business. Is that wrong?
3. This also boosts your Klout score so that you get a cheap holiday in Vegas. Klout asks you to declare the holiday, but not how you qualified to get it. Is that wrong?

Make up your own mind. Preferably before a client asks you to buy some social media influence for them.

This is a difficult issue for me, because the borderline between advertising (which I don’t mind),  gamifying (which I like) and things like paid-for retweeting (which I don’t) gets very fuzzy.

I think I have two rules: (1) disclose anything that might appear big enough to affect my judgement, and (2) consider the damage done. A small reward to subscribers is fine, providing it is “fun” and has minimal side-effects, but spamming with bogus retweets or paid hashtags is not. Even if it’s a tactic used by Super Bowl advertisers.

NB: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

What do you think?

More links on the subjects of bribes and marketing:

• Publish, engage, sell with ‘ethical bribes’
• Is bribery necessary for social media success?
• Three social media marketing techniques that brands should probably ditch

Also the UK Bribery Act comes into action on 1 June 2011, so

• UK Ministry of Justice, Bribery Act Guidance (PDF)
• UK Bribery Act (Gifts below £500 are ok)
• UK police to chase link brokers and link buyers? 

Thanks to Jordie van Rijn, for inspiring this post.
Picture © Helder Almeida - Fotolia.com