Update: Thanks for reading the blog and commenting! Just to clarify, I sat on this post over 24 hours in the hopes that my requests on Twitter for clarification of the situation would be answered. They weren't. There was no undone homework or gun-jumping here, and I stand by the case as a classic example of what not to do. Cheers and thanks for reading!
Developing an effective Social Networking strategy requires patience. A posse won't just appear before your eyes when you snap your fingers; it takes time to meet folks, talk to them, and get them into your contact sphere. One thing is certain, though, you will develop your network as you work it.
Patience isn't a virtue for many folks, myself included, and the temptation to cut corners in any business is often strong. In social networking, the temptation is to artificially increase the size of your friends/followers list. One of the most common shortcuts in this regard is the use of the sockpuppet.
As a kid's toy, the "sock puppet" is when you draw a face on the toe end of a sock, put it on your hand, and go to it. In the on-line world, a sockpuppet user is when a person joins a forum or community under multiple names. The user then plays ping-pong with the two accounts. The user posts an announcement, position, or argument under their primary account. They'll switch to the sockpuppet account to offer support for the argument, or possibly an endorsement of an event or service. If the position is attacked by another member of the community, the author can convey the impression of outside support.
This sort of behavior is almost universally frowned upon in most online communities. It's the sort of thing that gets a user "banned" from a site. Even if the owner of a sockpuppet isn't banned from a site, the original user's credibility and integrity are brought into disrepute. For example, Lee Siegel of The New Republic was slapped with a suspension and his blog was shut down by the magazine when it was discovered he was using a sockpuppet to defend his writing in comments to the blog.
It's important to make the distinction between the use of sockpuppets and the use of an anonymous persona on the web. Anonymity is permitted in many communities, both mainstream and offbeat. Political communities often permit the use of pseudonyms to protect a user's identity. Even if the user's positions don't constitute whistleblowing, expressing political opinions that conflict with an employer could well cost that user their job. Since political blogging can't compare salary-wise with many full-time gigs, best to conceal real identities.
There are other situations where anonymity is a good idea, from back when Errol Laborde (now of New Orleans Magazine) used to do parade reviews for Gambit Weekly (@gambitweekly on twitter) as "Rex Duke," to mommy-bloggers who don't want to reveal too much about their personal lives. In Laborde's case, it was better to praise and/or criticize carnival krewes under a pseudonym to have a level of deniability in public. Mommybloggers, like many female writers online, have to be concerned with the possibility of stalkers. There are a lot of psychos out in the world, and when we start talking about intimate details of spouses, children, family, and friends, it's possible to feed the twisted minds. My friends who blog under pseudonyms don't lie about their experiences, they just don't give you their names. It's easy to take away the point the author's trying to make without knowing their real name in these circumstances.
Of course, some folks are open books online. I'm a good example of that. I use the nickname "YatPundit," but all you have to do is look at the "about me" section on my blog to find out more than you want to know about me.
Either way, however, the anonymous user and the "out there" person are both just being themselves. They don't join a community with the intention to deceive.
And that's the purpose of a sockpuppet account--deception.
The case that prompted me to write this article comes from the social networking community, twitter.com. Twitter is an immature technology, drawing inspiration from chat boards, instant messaging services, and SMS/texting on phones to create a new paradigm. I'm enjoying twitter at this stage mainly because it's full of "early adopters" who are more tech-savvy than the "regular" users who will invariably follow as the site matures. Since it doesn't take a lot of technical knowledge to use twitter, we're seeing a number of people style themselves as "social networking experts." When you characterize yourself as an authority on something, it's logical to want to present the appearance that you know what you're doing.
On an interactive system like twitter, the way to look like you know what you're doing is to gather a following among users. Readers of a popular blog will welcome the author's appearances in other media, such as Pam Spaulding (@pam_spaulding) or Wil Wheaton (@WilW). It's natural for someone actively involved in self-promotion to want as many followers as the man who once was Ensign Crusher on ST:TNG, but that has to happen naturally. Creating those followers yourself rarely works out.
There is another type of twitter user that deserves mention: The accounts used by established news outlets. I don't know exactly if the owner of the twitter account for the New Orleans newspaper, Gambit Weekly (@gambitweekly) has a personal twitter account. I also don't care if TV personality Tavis Smiley's twitter account (@tavissmiley) is controlled by Tavis himself or someone on his staff. There is a common understanding on such accounts that they exist to promote their paper, show, etc.; there is no intent to deceive.
Which brings me back to my latest sockpuppet encounter. I found a mommyblogger who was promoting a product-sales website that's a family operation, mother and two daughters. The lead daughter is a good writer, and their mother isn't that much older than I am, so what the heck, I followed mom and daughter. Two days ago, I discovered that the daughter was posting on twitter not only under her account, but also as her mother.
Sockpuppet!
When confronted with this, the original user made light of the situation. While that could be dismissed as a rookie mistake, this woman claims credentials as a Social Media coordinator for not only her family business but another mommyblogging site.
In other words, she should know better.
It's a shame, too, because I don't think this young woman is dishonest or unethical by nature. Still, I can't help but look at messages from her that now come through twitter and wonder, do her sister and mother even participate on the website, or does she do it all? Her almost-amoral dismissal of my concern that she was running a sockpuppet could be attributed to the arrogance of a twentysomething, but there's that little something that nags the back of my mind, making me ask, is she just a liar?
The immature nature of a site like twitter makes it unlikely that the site admins can be called upon to police sockpuppets. Given that most of the current twitter community consists of computer professionals at one level or another, it makes sense that users by and large aren't interested in interactions with dishonest people. It's hard to re-build a reputation that's been tarnished in such a way. Bloggers who take controversial positions leave themselves open to challenge and mockery by their detractors. Operators of e-commerce businesses have a tough enough time distinguishing themselves from the phishers and scammers online.
Develop your social network slowly. Expand it naturally. If it doesn't take off as fast as you like, be patient. Work your contacts, meet folks in their networks, participate in their discussions. Karma comes back as we give it out.
And don't cut corners!
