We’re passing on a message from our buddies over at Church of the Customer Blog:

An organized customer evangelist program, whether run by a company or agency, should operate in the open. Any expectations, benefits or rewards should be clearly defined for everyone to read. Making it easy for fans to sign up should be easy to find and as simple to navigate as a shopping cart. That’s the new reality of online customer advocacy. Anything less is viewed as cluelessness, obfuscation or at worst, attempted fraud.

And more words of wisdom to AEG:

The preponderance of technology-oriented community sites like ShackNews, where opinions about products from companies like Nvidia are shared quickly and passionately, underscores the importance of a transparent evangelism program… Not to pick on AEG, which finds itself suddenly caught in a word-of-mouth whirlwind, but they would do well to openly talk about all of this on their blog. After all, if they’re doing superlative (and ethical) work, these new in-bound links should be a windfall.

Related

• Did Nvidia Hire Online Actors to Promote Their Products?
• Nvidia’s Derek Perez Responds
• Nvidia’s Perez: “They act as our ‘voice'”
• Nvidia ‘Focus Group’ Member Details Hidden Program

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