Payola SEO

In the 1950's, the world of U.S. music was rocked by the Payola Scandal. Disc Jockeys (DJs) such as Alan Freed were caught being paid money by the music industry, to play particular records instead of others on the radio, thus making them more popular. In the 1960's, the UK music industry, after identifying which record shops were being used by the BBC to judge record sales for the UK music charts, would pay people to go and buy armfuls of singles (music downloads for the younger audience) from those record shops. These records would become hits very quickly, get big exposure and then go on to sell even more based on this publicity.

Having read the article Why You Shouldn't Buy New Followers For Your Business it really made me think about the whole morality and efficacy of paying for   'likes', 'followers' and 'shares'  in Social Media. Do we really think that because a brand or person has more 'likes', 'followers' or 'shares' than another, that indicates success or kudos? Are we more likely to also 'follow', 'share' or 'like' a social media presence because it already has a large following? Apparently we are, otherwise why would people pay for 'likes', 'followers' or 'shares'  or even contemplate doing so? There are many firms offering this service on the Internet, so there must be money to be made, and people prepared to pay for it.

The Search Engines must also be fooled by this, as I cannot see how a search engine could figure out whether  'likes', 'followers' and 'shares' are fake or not. This would require A.I. beyond that which is currently available. However, as humans, we can usually identify fakes if we have time, but usually we don't have time, and we just look at, and trust, the headline figures.

So, do we live in a world of social media spin and inauthenticity? Are we all just spending our time using 'slight of hand' and 'sideshow magic tricks' to fool each other, in a massive cybernetic illusion of un-reality?

In the 50's, was Elvis Presly really that good? or were we just fooled into liking him because apparently everyone else did? Was there another great singer, much better than Elvis, left lurking on some Southern US porch, rocking his rocking chair and not the world, because he wasn't backed by Payola? Was there another Liverpudlian band, 'The Butterflies', who returned to their work on the docks, after selling loads of records in the 'wrong' record stores, only to find that their neighbours 'The Beatles' were topping the charts, being interviewed on TV and going on to conquer the world?

BY SEO STEER