The Dark Art of Social Media Community Building

In the online marketing world, there are three schools of thought – whitehat, blackhat and greyhat. I think you can guess what each one means!

This post is definitely focusing on the blackhat part of social media. The dark arts that once you are exposed to, you will be forever tempted – but as good online marketers, who believe in the purity of social media and the sanctity of the platforms we try use to introduce brands to their consumers, I’m sure you will resist.

For every marketer who says that social media is not about fans, followers and views, there are likely nine who may be less sophisticated in their outlook and who see these things as primary success indicators. I’m not saying they’re wrong – in fact its likely as good a place to start as any.

Its equally true that while each of the major social media platforms has an advertising option to boost fans, followers and views, there exists a cottage industry around each one offering the black market equivalent for a blackmarket price.

So, if you were an unscrupulous marketer looking for as many fans, followers, views and +1s to your site as possible, no matter the quality, you could look no further than this list to get you started. Please try to resist…although $29 for 10,000 YouTube views does seem very, very tempting.

• Buy Facebook Page Likes and Fans – 20,000 for $900
• Buy Twitter Followers – 75,000 followers for $3,150
• Buy YouTube Views – 200,000 for $500
• Buy Google +1 Supply – 10,000 for $750

I do not believe in using these tools but by shedding some light on them, I hope we can discount them and dismiss them when they are proposed.