If you are online in your marketplace building relationships and being involved in your community, then you know what I am talking about with I say someone is using Coattail Marketing.

There is a lot…I mean A LOT..thousands if not millions of people starting online businesses or offline businesses that need a strong online presences.  Needless to say, but I will, this is making the competition in the online markets very crowded. 

Yes, you could say there is a lot of pushing and shoving amongst the many who are trying to get a toe hold on some part of the consumer or business market.  In the niche markets like Golf the noise is getting deafening.  The sad thing is many of the people shouting and doing the equivalent of chest thumping how good their product is are not GOLFERS.

To get recognized or heard in the crowd many are getting desperate and taking desperate actions to compete.

The new tactic being dreamed up my the many new consultants for social media to suggest to people the use is to ride the Coattails of a competitor.  This is a method of following one of your competitors around the internet and commenting on everything he/she comments on with a purposeful contradiction to what is being discussed or attempting to start the old ‘One Upmanship’ game.  This is done in hopes it places a brighter light on them and shrouds of doubt on their competitors.

Yes, this is part of the old Black Hat method of marketing still around and is done my business people who have no idea how to use Social Media on their own.  Plus, the insecurity in their quality of their service or product drives them to cut down the competition instead of building their value towards what they have to offer the market.

I have a few Coattailers that some of my loyal fans may have seen.  It is unfortunate these people do not have the creativity to do something different and there really not much one can do to deter their tactics without drawing attention to them..which obviously is what they want. Even this blog is drawing attention to the task which I take a risk will cause even more coattailing.

I felt it important to address this issue since it seems to be growing with more of the unemployed being forced out here to feed on what is left of the online economy and market.  I will be studying solutions but If you have a suggestions I am interested.  Let me know how I can help.