Does it count as astroturfed if a publisher sends a prerelease copy to a media outlet, and the media outlet reviews it? When a PR firm markets a nice story to the media?
So, on /r/television - at least 50%, probably more, of popular posts/comments that advertise a particular show are 'organic', as in made by actual users OR content-agnostic repost bots. Some of those posts are links to news sites publishing PR material, though. And no doubt some posts/comments are explicit 'astroturfing'/advertising, although what the proportion is. You have to keep in mind, hundreds of millions of people watch television, and a solid 5% of those want to discuss that on the internet, and will enthusiastically post/upvote/comment - 'astroturfing' has to either have a lot of volume and subtlety to beat that, or function in a less direct and less "astroturfed" way. The same goes for politics, and the accusations of 'russian bots' or 'liberal bots' - they aren't bots, they are the millions of politics-obsessed normal 100iq people.
How much of this niche is captured by “influencers”? I get the impression that advertisers try to leverage existing following, maybe openly (sponsorships) or maybe not.
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Notes -
Does it count as astroturfed if a publisher sends a prerelease copy to a media outlet, and the media outlet reviews it? When a PR firm markets a nice story to the media?
So, on /r/television - at least 50%, probably more, of popular posts/comments that advertise a particular show are 'organic', as in made by actual users OR content-agnostic repost bots. Some of those posts are links to news sites publishing PR material, though. And no doubt some posts/comments are explicit 'astroturfing'/advertising, although what the proportion is. You have to keep in mind, hundreds of millions of people watch television, and a solid 5% of those want to discuss that on the internet, and will enthusiastically post/upvote/comment - 'astroturfing' has to either have a lot of volume and subtlety to beat that, or function in a less direct and less "astroturfed" way. The same goes for politics, and the accusations of 'russian bots' or 'liberal bots' - they aren't bots, they are the millions of politics-obsessed normal 100iq people.
How much of this niche is captured by “influencers”? I get the impression that advertisers try to leverage existing following, maybe openly (sponsorships) or maybe not.
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