Startup rivals tap social media to push negative posts

Negative marketing on social media through paid posts is on the rise as many small- and mid-sized startups seek to put down rivals, industry experts said.

Such marketing can be of various types, although campaigns orchestrated through paid social media posts are most common, several marketing executives told Mint. This includes highlighting a rival’s drawbacks by bringing out its weak points.

Premkumar Iyer, chief operating officer of online reputation agency Hawk (Gozoop Group), said online slander has grown since brands rarely take the troublesome legal route to bring the perpetrators to justice. These campaigns are random, disorganized and mostly done on an ad hoc basis, mostly to manage crises, he added.

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An influencer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, claimed to have been approached by a social media agency to post online about the poor quality of a consumer company’s products. “This happened some months ago. I refused to collaborate because the intention was poor,” the influencer said, adding the contents of the post seemed to suggest it could be from a rival.

ASCI norms

Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) guidelines, which cover social media influencers, forbid unfair attack or discrediting of rival brands directly or by implication.

“Paid publicity is unfortunately on the rise, not just during IPOs (initial public offerings), but also in reputation and crisis management situations. It will rise further with more startups going public,” said Aditya Gurwara, co-founder of influencer marketing agency Qoruz. These campaigns amount to manipulation of the public and are scary as the guidelines to mark paid content as ‘sponsored’ are not widely followed, he added.

Established companies and reputed marketing agencies usually don’t get their hands dirty by directly reaching out to creators to push negative narratives but delegate this to agents, Iyer said. In most cases, it is not one person but diffuse networks that are used to skip the regulator’s watchful eye.

“You’ll find a vast network of lesser-known agencies involved in these campaigns, generally from tier-II and tier-III cities,” Iyer said, adding that “in such cases, these agencies create IDs and use them to attack through posts on social media. And it can be hard to trace the source.” However, the return on investment of such campaigns is not quantifiable, he added.

Professionals instead of influencers

Brands are also reaching out to industry professionals and thought leaders as they are more affordable and authentic than influencers, Iyer said. This is mostly because the definition of ‘influencer’ is constantly changing. “In 2020, the benchmark for an influencer was anyone who had a certain number of followers and a verified profile. But today, anybody with field expertise and a legitimate account with fewer followers also make for an influencer,” according to Iyer.

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Moreover, working with high-profile influencers has become a costly affair, with many of them charging lakhs of rupees for a single post. Thought leaders or professionals with fewer followers, on the other hand, tend to be cheaper resources, Iyer noted.

“Legal remedies exist for companies targeted through negative influencers, but victims frequently decline to pursue them, even in cases of considerable financial harm such as undersubscribed IPOs,” said senior advocate Sajan Poovayya. He further added that the law in this area is still developing, and he expects forthcoming litigation to provide further clarity.

Litigation alert

“One strong litigation is that direct and indirect defamation are both punishable. This encompasses false information disseminated through third parties, resulting in damaging publicity—regardless of intermediaries, the defamatory nature remains,” said Poovayya.

A typical paid campaign will involve multiple creators, generally with a specific hashtag or similarly worded posts, according to Hawk’s Iyer. Posts from the creators will also be just a few hours apart, ensuring that the campaign stays on top of the audience’s minds.

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Without these obvious clues, it can be difficult to spot a paid negative campaign, as marketing managers are growing increasingly smart about methods to conceal the intention, Iyer noted. Moreover, companies are also increasingly becoming cautious about the creators they tap, often opting for those that are easier to work with.