What marketing strategies do you consider unethical, and which ones do you consider brilliant?
During today’s standup meeting, an idea came up about improving our presence on Reddit (for LLM search visibility and similar reasons).
One of the suggestions was to look for high-karma accounts and possibly buy them to appear more credible when posting and mentioning the product within the posts/comments. It’s a tactic, sure, but to me it already feels like it crosses an ethical line. I sometimes worry they can seriously damage a company’s reputation.
There are also other practices, such as:
– Fake purchase counters on websites
– Buying followers and likes
– Exploiting a brand’s reputation
– Spreading misinformation
– Clicking on competitors’ Google ads to drain their budget
And the list could go on.
What do you consider dishonest marketing practices? Have you ever had personal experience with them?
On the other hand, have you ever seen a marketing tactic and thought: “That’s genius!”
Replies
I’d honestly stay away from things like buying high karma accounts. It might work for a bit, but it feels risky and people usually catch on, especially on Reddit.
For me, dishonest marketing is anything that tries to fake trust instead of actually building it. Fake social proof, misleading info, messing with competitors, all of that might bring short term results but can hurt way more later.
The best tactics I’ve seen are pretty simple. People sharing real value, being transparent, and joining conversations where their product genuinely fits. That kind of approach lasts.
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@giorgi_daraselia I am also for that honest approach. It takes longer, but it in unbeatable :)
buying reddit accounts is a trap. mods catch it fast, posts get nuked, and ur domain can take a search hit. ive seen this play out w clients at my agency more than once and it always ends the same....
scummy: click fraud on competitor ads, fake "47 viewing" counters, paid reviews, employees astroturfing as customers w/o disclosure.
brilliant: founders posting real numbers publicly, product-as-distribution (dropbox referrals, notion for students), showing up in forums w real expertise for months before ever pitching, writing the one data/teardown post ur whole industry has to link to.
fake proof decays. real proof compounds.
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@saad_el_gueddari Interesting view, but happy that someone in my circles is experienced like this :)
Do brands actually recover trust once people realize engagement or reviews were artificially inflated?
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@graham_lewis hardly to recover.
My wife is an artist and she was telling me about promoters on Instagram - you're paying them some money and they're posting stories in their account mentioning you, then people are visiting your account, which can potentially lead to increasing the number of followers (if the content on your page is good, of course). This sounds like a reasonable practice to me (even though it's robbery sometimes - this kind of service can easily cost around $150-200). I'd say it's a good approach that can be probably used as well for promoting products (not on Instagram, of course :)) ).
On the other hand, clicking competitors' ads is evil! (my thought though: "That's genius!" :D )
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@sk_uxpin But shouldn't those accounts be related? :D to your industry or so? :D
@busmark_w_nika they are indeed - it's not like a software development account is posting stories about art in Berlin :D
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@sk_uxpin okay, if it is related, it makes much more sense :D
@busmark_w_nika it still looks a bit weird to me though, to be honest - as a person who is occasionally watching some videos on Youtube, I never understood the promotion part. The content makers are promoting stuff that is kinda related to the topics in the videos, but which I'd probably never buy for a couple of reasons: it's usually quite expensive, AND I'm not in the US, so getting it delivered into my country would be quite expensive :)
I have seen that reddit users are remarkably good at detecting inauthentic behaviour and the backlash when it surfaces is usually worse than having no presence at all.
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@varun_dhamija1 Do you know about some productivity, digital detox subreddits that are okay with links?
@busmark_w_nika honestly most subreddits that allow links still flag anything that feels promotional, the rule is usually less about the link itself and more about whether you've been a genuine participant before you post one.
r/productivity is relatively link-friendly if the content is genuinely useful. r/digitalminimalism is more community-focused but tolerates relevant resources. r/nosurf occasionally allows it.
The safer play anywhere is to comment without a link first, build some history, and then when you do post something with a link, it doesn't read as a drive-by.
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@varun_dhamija1 I will try the post without links then, thank you :)
Buying Reddit accounts is like wearing a fake mustache to a first date it might work for five minutes, but the truth always comes out eventually. Those shady "growth hacks" usually just end up poisoning your brand's soul for a few clicks that never actually convert. I think real genius marketing is just being so transparently helpful that people feel like they're part of your team. Authentic vibes always win the long game over bot-farmed ghosts!
Have you ever seen a brand actually recover after people caught them using those "fake purchase" popups?
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@shyunbill Thanks god, I do not have any personal experience with those popups :D
@busmark_w_nika Dodging those popups is a massive win for your brand's karma! Real growth comes from deep market discovery instead of chasing fake ghosts. An agentic approach helps find that perfect niche without any cheesy hacks. Authentic signals always win the long game anyway! What’s the most "honest" growth strategy you’ve seen work lately?
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@shyunbill I think it is building community – most authentic and honest .)
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@lakshya_singh These feel so basic that I totally forgot them. 😅
These tactics degrade what marketing truly stands for. Businesses chase them as "shortcuts" or "hacks" to build a brand, but they're illusions.
Worse, ad platforms themselves perpetuate the scam: plastering your ads on fake or irrelevant sites, inflating clicks as conversions, and painting a rosy picture that burns through budgets, delivering zero real business.
A team that shows up consistently with quality content even once a month, is genius. Discipline is rare and hard-won, but it's what truly sets you apart.
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@shikha_pakhide yeah, but have a look at Meta, that platform was okay to charge for ads that promoted scams :D
@busmark_w_nika Yes, and google is not far behind as well. And in all this we are stuck..
I get why some of these tactics are tempting, especially early on.
But personally, I’d rather build something authentic — even if it’s slower and doesn’t monetize right away.
Things like buying accounts, fake counters, or misleading users might give short-term results, but they damage trust long-term. And once trust is gone, it’s very hard to rebuild.
What I find genuinely “brilliant” is much simpler:
• content that actually helps people
• being transparent about what you’re building
• a product that people want to share
Maybe it’s not the fastest path, but it’s one I can stand behind.
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@raquel_alves1 people want to have fast results and I totally get your point (which is what I am standing for too)... but lately noticed that after building my personal brand for more than several years, my account can be taken within seconds, it is not encouraging.
For me, the line is crossed when marketing tries to fake trust instead of earning it. Buying high-karma accounts, fake counters, fake reviews, fake followers — they may create short-term social proof, but they destroy long-term credibility if exposed.
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@alpertayfurr Unfortunatelly, thisis how today's world works.