One of the things I like about social media is that it is getting businesses and people to communicate with each other. Twitter is a great example. On Twitter, I can have a conversation with someone or several people. It is not a normal conversation where there is an immediate feedback on what you have tweeted, but it is a long-term conversation. Sometimes there is immediate feedback with the RT's and DM's, but for the most part, it is a long-term building process.
Old media is nothing like this. Businesses who use old media advertise at us instead of communicating with us. They interrupt us. Commercials, ads in newspapers, billboards, radio ads, etc. all interrupt what we were doing. We were constantly being interrupted when watching a program on TV, reading something in a paper or listening to the radio.
Unfortunately, some people have not realized that social media is NOT old media. It is not something that should interrupt my day. This morning when I opened up TweetDeck to join in on some conversations I was being interrupted by old media types. Reading things like "3 steps to Make More Money - $125 in 24 hrs Guarantee" or "Who's interested in working part time to earn a few thousand to several thousand dollars a month working from home?" and "I just become a member of this AWESOME site that gets you TONS of followers." I felt like I was reading my junk e-mail inbox!
To those of you doing this: please stop! Stop using social media to promote yourself this way. All it makes me do is un-follow you. I want to be in a conversation with you, not be a target for advertising. Trust me when I say I am not the only one. Brett Duncan at Marketing In Progress has also talked about this in his post "Stop Shouting on Twitter." Johnathan Thomas of Presentation Advisors also posted about it and did a great job of tying it to giving a presentation (which I didn't realize until he added his comments - thanks John!).
Our advice is simple: start communicating and then we'll listen to what you have to say.
Travis
To be honest, Twitter has become a horrible place for this. It's gotten to the point that even if a person who follows me posts great content, if they don't communicate with me, I don't follow. If social media were about advertising, I wouldn't be a part of it. It's all about what I can offer you, and what you can offer me in a community setting.
The only exception is a business like Woot.com or Amazon posting links to their deals online. Social media, in this sense, makes a great aggregation tool.
Posted by: Justin DiRose | Monday, July 13, 2009 at 03:03 PM
Thanks for your thoughts Justin. You are absolutely right when you say it is about what you can offer in a community setting and that there are exceptions. But even then, wouldn't it be better if whoever was running Amazon's post treated it more like a community instead of another advertising means. I think it would be more effective that way.
Posted by: Travis Dahle | Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at 08:19 AM
Travis - thanks for the link (I've been a bit absent from the blogosphere lately - sorry for the delayed response).
Too many people focus on the "media" side of "social media" and not enough on the "social" side of it. The simplest test I can think of is to look at Twitter, for example, as a networking, party-ish atmosphere, where the goal is not to close the deal, or even make the pitch, but to simply connect.
I'm wondering if we shouldn't just un-follow anyone who sends out the old-media-style tweet like you've used in your example.
Posted by: Brett Duncan, MarketingInProgress.com | Friday, July 24, 2009 at 03:08 PM
Bravo Travis. I completely agree. I'm getting progressively more aggravated with people who use Social Media as a new way to spread old, unwanted marketing techniques. I will automatically unfollow anyone who promises more followers or more income.
I actually wrote a similar post on my blog when I joined twitter back in April - http://bit.ly/HdkkR
Posted by: Jon Thomas, Presentation Advisors | Sunday, August 02, 2009 at 07:27 PM