Since 26th May, any UK company breaking the EU’s Directive on Unfair Business-to-Consumer Commercial Practices faces prosecution, fines or even jail terms for staff.

The kinds of activities this includes are:

• Using websites to create a false impression of grass-roots support or to inspire viral marketing
• Posting entries under different aliases to make something look more popular than it is
• Posting favourable evaluations or ratings to make something look more popular than it is

Companies caught out previously include L’Oreal, Sony, Wal-Mart and numerous politicians together with the Indian Prime Minister. So it is attractive but the consequences are now much greater.

Any blogger will admit it is tempting to add a few fake comments to get conversations going and to make a blog look more active but they will also agree conversations with a lasting impact are natural ones with real readers.

So work on content instead:

• Be controversial
• Be open-ended
• Invite comments
• Interact with comments
• Make it easy to comment (i.e. no log-in)
• Break news to encourage readers to link to you and come back for more
• Write about lasting issues that will still be popular in the future
• Be useful (educate and share information)

Remember: blogs should have integrity. The regular bloggers you are most trying to influence and get to pass on the good word about your company or product are influenced by the post not the number of comments.

Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/debaird/