Contrary to popular belief, social media is not naturally more resistant to marketing tricks. It can be gamed. On Twitter, services exist to boost your follower count and give the impression that you’ve got a vast high-quality network. Bloggers can write articles rich with links that draw the attention of others who would hopefully link back the the article. You can run behind-the-scenes campaigns to get people to provide positive reviews for your products or services as if they were just some happy customer rather than a hired hand. Or you can hire a small army of part time college students to Digg your content. Social media is just another social system and any such system, real world or online, can be gamed.