Ballsy marketing company comes clean about their tactics

Ballsy marketing company comes clean about their tactics

Gaming Reddit is easy

They've since pulled down the article, the original title was

How We Hacked Reddit to Generate 5 Million Media Impressions in 3 days

Archive: web.archive.org/web/20170711000453/http://www.hack-pr.com/library/how-we-hacked-reddit-to-generate-5-million-media-impressions-in-3-days

These guys are using a really blackhat tactic that lots of other companies use. The difference here is that they come clean with their tactics and they kind of throw the client under the bus by giving all the details about the campaign.


Highlights:

Other urls found in this thread:

archive.is/Iv8Hi
news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14740423
web.archive.org/web/20170712010113/http://adage.com/article/special-report-the-awards-report/dumb-ways-die-dissected/245195/
youtube.com
archive.is/http://www.hack-pr.com/library/how-we-hacked-reddit-to-generate-5-million-media-impressions-in-3-days
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

If it's that easy, why aren't we doing it?

Lol the comments. Can see why they pulled the article.

Because Reddit actively deletes content which it does not approve of. If we were on the same po(z)litical spectrum as Reddit then we absolutely could utilise this method. However if we attempted this with some Redpill-tier information then the mods of whatever sub we made the thread in would just delete it as soon as it started to gain traction and if we made our own sub then that sub would just be “quarantined” as soon as the upboats started pouring in.

Having said that the people at Reddit aren’t to bright, we could probably trick them with some sort of veiled propaganda.


It’s absurd isn’t it? This firm just made the easiest million dollars of their life whilst actually managing to deliver what was asked of them. What do they do? Brag on their shitty blog about how they “ripped” the client off (which is subjective anyway as they got what they paid for) thus cutting this method of easy revenue off AND pissing off what was presumably a happy client up until this point. People in marketing are fucking idiots 9/10.

pics

wait, that was their campaign?!
that's almost pol tier

Libshits know deep down they have been manipulating social media with bots and try to reverse it on us.
Read this article the faggots wrote a few days back.
Research links pro-Trump, anti-Macron Twitter bots
archive.is/Iv8Hi

I guess it depends on your point of view. Like a guy who was paid millions of dollars to back up corporate computer systems for Y2K, does nothing, and rolls in dough for the rest of his life when nothing happens on 1/1/00. Take advantage of idiots, then laugh at them for being retarded, and force them to be more intelligent about how broken their system is.

Yes. They "hacked" reddit by paying for le premium upboat packages.

That's true but this gained a lot of traction in marketing circles and they have their name recognized. I'm sure lots of clients want to replicate the success they got for this company.

The article however lays out how to do it yourself, which is semi rare. There will still be clients that will hire him just because of how much this spread. The client most likely feels burned for sure. The article is "gone" now though.

Reddit doesn't care, more upvotes for them, more comments, more activity. It's all good. That's how they started their website with fake comments talking to themselves on sockpuppets. It would be simple for them to bust all these upvote rings if they were interested in it with decoy buys and account tracking.

The most important thing you brought up

You have to be incredibly subtle in the politics subreddit. So it's worth it to branch our material out into other subreddits with emotional appeals.

An example would be a local news report of a violent gang rape or something similar. These make local news but they do not go national thanks to ((media)). If we sparked a local crime in a local subreddit the mods would probably not remove it. The spark we cause could send the page to the front.

One of the impressive tactics they have that would make the service worth more than $400 is the 20k email blast they did to reporters. I could personally do this myself for free using sendgrid. But a lot of clients couldn't. The email list they use is impressive but easily scraped. If we followed a similar procedure and propagandized a violent local news story nationally. With viral traction pushing it. Most companies we would contact would see it as a good story to cover because of it's popularity.

Having now seen the campaign and considered the points you raise I consider the article to be playing up just how much of a fast one they pulled. The campaign concept is good, something any sizable agency would charge a considerable sum for and as you point out it delivered probably above the expected amount of traffic, which is all, that likely mattered to the client. They are in politics, results matter not blog articles by media fags bragging to each other. A 20k-targeted mailing list is as you point out not “free” just because the agency already had it built.

I still think that this article is in poor taste, perhaps the buzz it will create is enough to justify it in the sleazy world of marketing/ advertising.

You can buy a proxy list for $20 or so or even use publicly available proxy lists.

Create a bot to create fake accounts.

Then use the bot to login with a new proxy ip, upvote a specific URL and logout, repeating the proces with your user/pwd list.

These things are easily written in less then a day or so.

Hacker News thread has 182 comments

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14740423

This isn't anything new. As always the internet is based on the perceived popularity of things. You trick people into thinking something is popular then they make it popular based on that perception. But it is fascinating.

You are very right on this analysis, user. Anything done will have to be veiled for this exact reason.

This.

not bad, reminds me of the ron paul user memes " politicians suits like nascar suits " kinda thing

They don't mention one of the most important aspects of their campaign: They chose a memetic vehicle that was quirky and humorous. Humor transmits rapidly, which is why most memes are humorous or have a certain element of amusement to them.

Look at this similar story about 'Dumb Ways to Die' and how it got similar success: web.archive.org/web/20170712010113/http://adage.com/article/special-report-the-awards-report/dumb-ways-die-dissected/245195/

I studied this briefly in a marketing class. Basically this company was hired to make a PSA about people not doing stupid things near trains that got them killed, and they wanted it to be successfully adopted by the public. Notice some of the highlights:
Link to video Sorry no webm: youtube.com /watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw

Very interesting stuff, and describes a fair amount of how memes transfer too. If morbid shit like getting killed by a train can transfer so well, then Holla Forums ideas presented in a manner that transmits well can too. I can't guarantee dancing bean Hitlers would work for the wide market, but it might get a chuckle from Holla Forums at least.


This is a great idea to push real local stories into national spotlight. One tough thing is that negative things like that have high initial impact but are rarely shared, which makes it tougher to spread. Cute silly shit spreads like wildfire but in turn isn't taken terribly seriously by itself it seems.

You are entirely correct, but having a hard, concrete evidence in the form of an admission with step-by-step description of how it was done helps us defeat shills in the future.


I sometimes think that bragsters are the single worst part of any movement or organization, they either take credit for something they didn't do, do things just to get "street cred" or when they are infact competent, they screw things up by spilling their guts. HackPR belong to the latter: they know what they do, but couldn't resist the temptation to tell the whole world exactly how good they are. What idiots will hire them now, knowing they might tell everyone only cybershills backed your campaign? Webm related, it's advice all advertisers should follow.

webm related came out a while ago too.

Damn, good idea user. Care to make a thread?

I get your point, I just wanted to point out how cucks like those who made this video subtpy cripple entire generations with bullshit like that.

Oh I'm not saying its subject is correct about this or that, just that it was an idea packaged and promoted in a manner that is useful for study. Doing one's own handiwork can be highly beneficial if you know what you are doing.

what did you use to pull that webm?

Probably youtube-dl. I've had that webm for a few months.

Here's the collection of snapshots someone made of the page on archive.is

archive.is/http://www.hack-pr.com/library/how-we-hacked-reddit-to-generate-5-million-media-impressions-in-3-days

archive.org has a nasty habit of deleting evidence upon request.