Stop Pissing In The Social Media Pool
Imagine my surprise this morning when I found this shocking headline in my feed reader, “Traffic Bait Doesn’t Bring Ad Clicks.” Apparently, after extensive study, researchers found that “advertising is more effective when it is paired with news content that is relevant to the product, especially when the subject of the news is something in which readers have a personal interest.”
Sorry for the tone, but that just seems ridiculously obvious to me.
So I read the article, then posted a tweet with as much sarcasm as I could fit into 140 characters, and headed to the gym. Since I’ve been trying to give Foursquare another shot (blame Brian Copeland), I dutifully checked in to my LA Fitness and noticed that there were three tips for that venue. I had never bothered to check them out before.
Imagine how thrilled I was to see the second tip from a local loan officer. “Almost 50% of the Santa Clarita Valley is upside down on their mortgage. Go to www.blahblahblah.com for more information.” Apparently he thought the name of the place was LA Financial Fitness.
Things that are “ridiculously obvious” to me seem to elude some people. Clearly this well-intentioned guy thinks dropping his ads all over Foursquare is a perfectly good way to use social media. Or perhaps he realized it was silly and tried to cover it up by posting the incredibly helpful, “Guys, rack your weights when you’re done.” Thanks. Good tip.
My reaction to this is the same one I’d have to someone pissing in my pool: You picked the wrong place and the wrong time. And now you’ve ruined the water for everyone.
I showed this to a friend a bit later, someone who is not a Foursquare user, and they had a similar reaction. Their immediate comment was something to the effect of, “That would turn me off to the whole service.” I think that’s a fair reaction.
Context. Context. Context.
Had this tip been on a bank, or his office, or a house with a foreclosure sign in the front yard, then I might have had a different reaction. The context would have been more appropriate. Heck, I might have actually clicked on his link. Context matters. Always has. Always will.
Jeff, this is a plague that I keep thinking is going to work itself out…but it seems like the Social Media snake oil salesman are out in full force telling these jack asses that this is the right way to leverage social media.
And, of course – it’s catching on. The next great marketing strategy seems to be – go to the party, drink too much, puke all over everyone and everything.
I think it should be a requirement to read Cluetrain Manifesto before anyone tries to use social applications or platforms to “advertise”.
Thanks for being vocal on this…this really pisses me off.
C’mon people, be more social and less media!I just don’t understand why some people feel that spamming everything is effective to their business. Is 3 visits to your site from angry gym members that are just trying to find your address to come kick your butt worth it?
On Monday I was having a chat with some REALTORS about foursquare, and one said, “OMG, we could tell people about our open houses when they check in nearby.” I boo’ed him. Too much?
It’s different than an unrelated tip, but probably in the same category. The problem is, it has almost no chance of being effective. It’s random and unrelated.
Now, if they were checking into another open house nearby…
Dare I say that doing social media is what is pissing in the pool all over social sites. I’m beyond exhausted with the amount of teaching going on with “how to use social media”. Be real. Be you. Is this not obvious?
I loathe the idea that one should be thinking about how to “brand, sell, market, or whatever… for their business” every time they log in to a social site. Loathe.
STOP with the doing social media and just be social already.
Clearly you don’t get out enough. It’s NOT obvious. Clearly.
So does it get worse before it gets better or do these ecosystems churn and burn? As to getting out. It’s different when you’re face to face with someone. They’re either wearing a mask or they’re not. Online social begets a place for folks to hide even further behind a false persona.
BTW – SFAR Membership day is this Friday. Too bad you’re not coming up. I’m jones’n for some Nanking.
I don’t know about worse, but I do think there will be a fallout if people don’t understand that the beauty of this is the social. I’ve spent a lot of time lately trying to explain how to humanize the web. For whatever reason, the media portion of this social media thing keeps getting in people’s way.
And I could use a bit of Nanking myself, buddy.
> I’ve spent a lot of time lately trying to explain how to humanize the web. For whatever reason, the media portion of this social media thing keeps getting in people’s way.
And you do a GREAT job of it. This post is evidence of your message. I see good people do bad things with social media, I think… because it’s what they feel is appropriate. Not only Real Estate, but many, many business minded people are espousing the benefits of using the social web to sell. You can find great big yellow pools of pee all over the web. I’ve all but left Twitter out of pure exhaustion with noise. It may or may not be true that I could re-build, filter, or whatever a genuinely valuable network there again, but for now I’m bitter. Boo hoo
Facebook has become much more sacred of a place, I’m sorry to say that I’ve un-friended a mass of people that I should have never let into my social space. It’s a much happier and sane place for me to connect being more private.
What I’ve learned, I guess for me is that the only filter I need is that one that takes requests to my email inbox, right into the trash. Friend requests from business logos as avatars or peeks at Facebook walls with nothing but disingenuous “networking” are in my rear-view.
More public facing sites like Foursquare and Yelp have their work cut out for them. I often wonder what everyday people think after looking at some of these networks. What I come up with is … like you said: “That would turn me off to the whole service.”
Which is unfortunate since we all know how powerful social “media” can be.
Lately I’ve been longing for the days of the Social Media ool, but now that it’s a Pool w/ a captial P, I’ve found that it’s becoming harder to break through that wall to find and connect w/ new people. I used to think that filters were going to be the answer, but there’s not so much anymore. I’m not giving up, just realizing that it’s going to take a change in tactics to be able to interact in the new, slightly more yellow social media Pool.
I’m thankful that I was lucky enough to get in early and create relationships with some really smart & personable people in the past few years by being authentic and I’ve found that even though the platforms, tools & channels have changed, the connections are still there and those relationships are still growing.
I’ve found the same thing, Andy. And I think I share most of your sentiment. Filters only work so well. They help more on the listening front than on the engagement front. And that is where the most effort is required to succeed. But that part has been true all along.