Flogs: fake blogs that pose as a consumer creation
Search marketers know all about splogs — spam blogs. Well, there’s a new term to add to our growing glossary of terms.
Stuart Elliott of The New York Times tipped his cap yesterday to Tom Siebert, a reporter for MediaPost, for coining the word “flog.” A flog is “a fake blog that poses as a consumer creation but is actually produced by professionals to sell products.”
Another flog was exposed last week, when bloggers discovered that a video blog that praised the Sony PSP was created by Zipatoni, an agency. The video blog pretended to be the work of Charlie, an amateur hip-hop artist.
Other notorious flogs include the ones created earlier this year by Edelman on behalf of Wal-Mart. One flog posed as the travel diary of a couple, but didn’t disclose that they were being paid for their positive posts. The deception earned a rebuke from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association for violating its code of ethics.
More about:
The Merkle B2B 2023 Superpowers Index outlines what drives competitive advantage within the business culture and subcultures that are critical to success. It is the indispensable guide for B2B marketers to deliver world-class experiences and keep pace with the dynamic environment. Download Now
The ClicData survey found that various challenges exist that prevent organizations from achieving such gains. These challenges included inaccessible data formats and limited flexibility in displaying data in dashboards. Download Now
The need for fraud prevention in the digital world is critical now more than ever. Why? Thinking about your own behavior, consider how you complete transactions and how this has changed over the last 5 years. Download Now
The need for fraud prevention in the digital world is critical now more than ever. Why? Thinking about your own behavior, consider how you complete transactions and how this has changed over the last 5 years. Download Now