Social marketing – what not to do
I manage the twitter account related to a group blog. That account was set up to alert the blog’s Twitter-using fans of new posts and it is attracting a fair amount of followers. Unfortunately, many of these followers are clearly only on Twitter to market their products. For example, one of these follower accounts was established to support the account owner’s security camera sales business.
Now I have zero interest in security cameras. A Twitter account devoted entirely to offering to sell me security cameras has even less than zero interest for me; that is to say, I am actually repelled by this Twitter feed. If I found myself in the market to buy security cameras, I would intentionally avoid this user’s store. So our salesman is dead in the water in trying to get my attention.
But for the sake of argument, let’s say that I had a secret passion for security cameras. There is still absolutely nothing useful for me in his posts. Remember, social media is about relationships. Security-camera-guy did nothing but offer to sell me cameras. He did not providing me any useful or even remotely interesting content. Not only that, he only made posts from late April until mid-May. That alone tells you a lot about his motives. He was not trying to engage people to form relationships that could result in long-term, mutual benefits. He was trying to get me to follow his feed so I could see his offers and maybe bite on one. He wanted me to buy his cameras and had no interest in anything else. What do you bet that if I had bought some cameras I would then be dead to him?
Security camera guy made a number of mistakes in his social marketing strategy.
1. He did not understand his market. Now I’m no security camera expert, but even I know that security cameras are not a consumer market item. Business and government entities are where the sales are. Twitter is not the place to make contacts for those markets. His time was wasted in trying to sell in the consumer niche – the smallest market for his product.
2. He did not understand social networks. This error went beyond Twitter and applies to all social networks. Security-camera-guy did not re-tweet or reply to anyone. All of his posts were one-way, “let-me-sell-you-something” dispatches. Security-camera-guy did not understand that social networks are about building relationships, not sales. People do not want to follow someone who is only going to spam them with sales offers. Relationships in social networks are built by sharing useful content. Useful can mean entertaining, educational, or even news worthy. Trying to convince me that you have something to sell me is not useful.
The sad part is, security-camera-guy does have useful content to share. Because I’m critiquing his social marketing strategy, I thought I should check out his web site. Of course it is dominated by more offers to sell me security cameras but I did find a section that gave security tips. These tips could be great content. Security-camera-guy would have been better served if he shared his expertise in security instead of just putting out his desire to sell cameras. A reputation as someone who understands security would be much more credible than someone who shows he only wants to sell me cameras.
3. He was not in it for the long-term. His short time of posting confirms his motive. Twitter hype says it is supposed to be the hot, new marketing tool. He probably hoped he would jump on Twitter and start raking in the sales. It seems obvious that his 15 tweets over 3 weeks did not gain him much business so he stopped and is likely looking for the next easy marketing ploy.
If you want to use social networking tools to market, know why you are using them. Is your target market on those networks? How are you going to form relationships with those people? It takes time to form relationships; are you in it for the long-term?
Security-camera-guy reminds me of the guy who hands out his business card at networking meetings but does not bother to learn anything about the other attendees. He is only interested in how other people can benefit him, not in building a mutually-beneficial relationship. Don’t be that guy in your social marketing strategy.