First there was the old saying: "Saw off the branch that you're sitting on."

Then "Destroy the village in order to save it," from the Vietnam War.

And now we can see what happens when:
"More brands will compensate bloggers and social media users in an attempt to generate chatter about their products"...from a recent Brandweek article reporting that spending for sponsored conversations rose 14% to $46 million in 2009.

Does anyone else see what a bad idea this could be?

Marketers who pay for social media mentions may gain a short-term advantage. At the same time they may be setting themselves up for a long-term disaster. Imagine that Brand X is realizing the advantages of marketing through social media: The credibility that comes from having one "friend" recommend Brand X to another. But what happens if friend number two discovers that friend number one is being paid by Consolidated Megacorp, the makers of Brand X?

Using social media is one powerful way to build relationships with customers. Customer relationships are built on trust. But trust will disappear when customers find out that you're bribing their friends. And before long, all social media users will be asking themselves: "Is this a real recommendation from a source I've always trusted? Or are they just getting paid to say this?" Everyone's social media marketing - both paid and legitimate, unpaid conversations - will suffer for it.

But some marketers will go ahead and do it anyway, because they believe they can gain the elusive "sponsor control" that's missing in marketing through social media. And because they've got organizations like Forrester Research telling them to "Add Sponsored Conversations To Your Toolbox - Why You Should Pay Bloggers To Talk About Your Brand." (Evidently it's OK if you say it's a paid conversation, and identify the sponsor. But this makes it an ad, not a conversation.)

Some marketers have short memories. They forget the controversy and loss of credibility that rose from another kind of "paid conversation" when brands like Sony, Turi Vodka, and Freedom Tobacco decided to indulge in undercover marketing, initiating real life (not virtual) conversations between unidentified brand representatives and prospects in bars, clubs and coffee shops. Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink and The Outliers said: "My problem with undercover marketing is not what happens in the moment. It's what happens a week, or two weeks, or a month down the road, when we discover we've been duped. And I think that the moment when we discover we've been duped causes a backlash. Companies who engage in this practice are courting that backlash. And that's a very, very dangerous thing to play with."

Are You On The Social Media Bandwagon?

Fortunately, not everyone's jumping on the bandwagon. At Social Media Today Augie Ray says: "I've observed that discussions about paid blog posts tend to focus on the logical reasons why brands and bloggers believe they can engage in sponsored conversations. This approach to the topic is fundamentally flawed; it considers only brands' and bloggers' justifications, but since trust is imparted and felt by readers, our justifications are meaningless. We cannot create trust where it does not exist by presenting cogent and reasoned arguments."