Saturday, July 31, 2010

Rolling out the Public Relations Machine

On Saturday morning a couple of new blogs had appeared under Ergun Caner's name. Why had they appeared if Ergun Caner already had an official website to publish what he wanted? Some time later someone in a private conversation with me noted that were some more.

The "Ergun Caner" blogs
I have no intention of linking to every blog but a summary so far is:

http://ergunmcaner.over-blog.com/
http://ergunmcaner.wordpress.com/
http://www.soulcast.com/ergunmcaner/
http://www.blogster.com/ergunmcaner/
http://ergunmcaner.livejournal.com/
http://ergunmcaner.busythumbs.com/
http://ergunmcaner.tumblr.com/
http://www.blogster.com/ergunmcaner
http://my.inube.com/profile/ergunmcaner/
http://ergunmcaner.blog.com/
http://www.thoughts.com/ergunmcaner/blog/ergun-caner-thetheologist-617317/
http://bignews.biz/?id=899891&keys=Ergun-Caner-God-Theology
http://www.articlesbase.com/spirituality-articles/ergun-caner-the-theologist-2931092.html

The Content of the Blogs
1) The text is poorly written with spaces often omitted after punctuation and no capital letters.

"Even in this 21st century,there are many diversified thoughts about the great "GOD".All the people around the world has some hectic questions like,is god everywhere?or is god within ourself?or there is no god?The way of answering those questions and discussing,reasoning about the above questions is called as Theology. It is the Science of things Divine.

Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument such as philosophical, ethnographic, historical, spiritual and others to make all of us understand, explain, test, critique, defend or promote any of myriad religious topics. Ergun Caner is one among the renowned theologians and is the President and Dean of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary."

2) Headings and text are blended together:-

"Ergun Caner-A doctorate:
He has a Masters degree from The Criswell College, a Master of Divinity and a Master of Theology from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Theology from the University of South Africa."

3) Looking at the text some strange claims are made. Ergun Caner has not been President and Dean for a month, so I wonder if this was prepared more than a month ago. It is strange to blog out of date information.

"At present positioned as a President and Dean,Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and Graduate School.

4) In a poorly constructed sentence we are also told of Ergun's wonderful knowledge:

"Caner embrace as a Teacher and Theologian, being challenged and make each person to think and open their minds through his wonderful knowledge."

5) The error that got me chortling was the one where Ergun has apparently written about Christian Nazis:

"Some of the important chapters and articles published in the above books are, ...
Christian Identity Aryanism [sic] ..."

The originator
You may be wondering why it has been worth mentioning the aesthetics of the textual presentations on the blogs. Apparently someone has hired Udentiti Online Reputation Services to create these blogs.

The articleblast Ergun Caner blog post identifies the source as Udentiti. Udentiti whose service is not exactly cheap market themselves as

"Your Reputation Is Safe With Us
When Your Reputation Is Important To You

We have become one of the most respected Online Reputation Management and Reputation Repair companies in the industry today because we deliver results and provide personalized service to our clients throughout the world. We do not focus on gimmicks or "reputation scores". You know what your reputation results are on the search engines and we are here to make them an asset and not a liability.

We Service Two Types Of Clients

"We will activate your online profile and communicate clearly to your audience
If your online reputation has been damaged, we will repair it
We make it easy for you to take action. If your reputation is important to you, then all you need to decide is what specialized service you want us to perform and we will take immediate action."

I. Online Profile Activation $495

We create and activate your online profile for you based on information you provide us through our profile submission form. We then submit your profile through 50 social networking sites and back link with search engine optimization.

II. Moderate Profile Protection Service $795

We created your online profile and perform our standardized optimization. In addition we do monthly customized blogging, online article submissions, RSS feeds and extensive back linking."
It appears that the second option is the one in use by whoever is paying for this.

A good name
Isn't it strange that someone in support of a Christian whose testimony has been largely sullied by their own words has hired a company to flood the blogosphere with better public relations? The best PR is to be truthful. A good name should be built on truth.

Pro 22:1 A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.


UPDATE Aug 4, 2010
This blog http://ergunmcaner.over-blog.com/article-51083567.html shows the spam blogs were created back on Wednesday 26 May 2010.

"This automated message is the first article of your blog. It will help you get started with OverBlog. You can edit or delete it by going to the "Publish" section of your administration page. "

6 comments:

  1. Whoever did this is actually hurting Caner, rather than helping him. Very bizarre.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is just... Odd. I agree with Carla, this is so amateurish and silly that it is causing more damage to Caner's already tarnished reputation. Since this seems to be the (really poor) work of a paid service, someone, either Caner or one of his defenders, is acting out of desperation, it would seem.

    Squirrel

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well I have to say the linked article here really sounds like someone who does not speak english as a first language. It made me think it may be Hussein Wario--lol!

    ReplyDelete
  4. It also could be someone who hates Caner and wouldn't mind sticking his own knife a little deeper in. There are enough out there willing to I'm sure.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous, at $800? That's a little steep for what would amount to kicking Caner while he's down, don't you think?

    Squirrel

    ReplyDelete