Reddit reviews Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

Depends if it's the kind of thing that (1) you are looking to find people or (2) where you want people to find you.

1. For example, you created a product that solves a problem: Talk to bloggers and journalists and try to get them to write about you. Comment on blogs. Post on reddit. Ryan Holiday's book Trust Me, I'm Lying is great for this.
   
   
2. For example, you run a mold removal business and need people looking for your service to find you. I've found Search Engine Optimization to be the best technique for this. People are looking on Google. You want to show up on Google results. The easy way: pay for Adwords. The hard way: build links and optimize your site. Nick's Traffic Tips is full of good info on this.
   
   Good luck with your business!

http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/159184553X

How do you respond to the negative reviews for your book on amazon, which claim that the real reviews are made up? I'm a bit confused.

http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/product-reviews/159184553X/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_one?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addOneStar

you're spot on. people actually do this sort of thing for a living. Reddit's been manipulated like this in sometimes positive ways. But a lot of the time, it's pretty nefarious.

Check out Trust Me, I'm Lying by Ryan Holiday. This guy did similar campaigns for other people/business entities. One was for the movie I hope they serve beer in hell. He was able to manipulate the blogworld (which includes these "news" outlets like The Atlantic and the LA Times) into getting women's rights groups to actually stage protests. He faked profiles. None of the editors for these outlets ever checked. Or cared. The whole incentive system set up for these blogs is this: more views = more cash. and with the need to deliver news 24/7 in order to stay competitive, sources just need to be provocative instead of reliable.

In the end, Ryan Holiday gave a lot of heated exposure to that movie. it flopped, but it got nationwide exposure (and is now a DVD cult classic).

he eventually gave up on manipulating the internet, and now works as an exec for marketing for American Apparel. it's a shocking read

Yeah, I don't trust 538 outright but I trust them a lot more than a paper that is basically dedicated to 20-somethings clickbait.

"political slant of Washington Post," third result:

>In spite of its owner's political leanings, The Washington Post is generally considered a center-left publication.

Link 1 was Wikipedia. and link 2 was The Post itself. The Washington Post is a Liberal paper.

>and polls from major media organizations aren't really in the business of editorializing via their polling data

Yes they are. Washington Post's business model is to post sensational headlines for clicks. Trust Me, I'm Lying is a great book about it. News websites have very little incentive to care about their reputation.