Were You a Forum Spammer? Looking to Redeem Yourself and Get Back on the Right Side? Start Here

Posted by Patrick on August 31st, 2009 in How Should I Participate?

In July, I discussed the Sports Legends Challenge saga a bit and I posted an investigative piece on my personal blog outlining the unethical tactics they used. Suffice to say, it’s spam, spam and more spam. Not just spam, but devious, misleading spam. And tons of it.

But, I got to thinking… let’s say that someone who did this turned to me or even to you and said “please help us clean this up.” What would you do? Where would you start?

I pulled together a panel of friends to help me analyze the situation. They are Brandon Eley, Interactive Director at Kelsey Advertising & Design, founder of online shoe retailer 2BigFeet.com and co-author of “Online Marketing Inside Out”; Jeremy Wright, CEO at digital strategy agency netmobs, co-founder of b5media and author of “Blog Marketing”; Jason Falls, principal at Social Media Explorer and Martin Reed of community management blog Community Spark and the administrator of the JustChat.co.uk, Female Forum and Soap Forum communities.

The result is an article on my personal site that I hope lays out a strong blueprint that would allow such a company or individual to make an attempt at restoring their brand.

I’d like to know your thoughts, too. What else can or should they do? What would you do different? Please let me know in the comments.

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