Social Networking is just too Easy!

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Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should, a thought made more apparent after receiving two group invitations that made me react as follows:

Oh look! my friend “cool guy or girl” sent me a cool group to join, it must be cool!
What? This is about your company
Why would I want to help you win an office competition to get as many fans to your company’s facebook page?
Huh? Because you want to win $100 from your company?
“Cool guy or girl” and company, you’re not that cool anymore.

Pardon the over simplified narrative above, but such marketing attempts baffle me. Now, I understand why certain people would send messages or invites like this, they get asked by their company and are given a shot at a cool prize, so what the heck.

What I don’t understand is why companies think this is a good idea. Sure it get a few more fans on it’s page, but so what. These SPAM “Fans” are only their for the purpose of helping their friends win a competition. They have no desire to follow the company it’s self. I would bet money that the majority of those fans will leave if the company starts messaging them. At best they just won’t pay attention.

Just because you can and just because it’s cheap (free) isn’t a good reason to market like this. In fact it’s the exact reason why you shouldn’t do so.

In today’s online world their is no shortage of sites, things to watch, people to listen to etc. What is short is attention. A company that runs a campaign like the one noted above undermines it’s ability to create an authentic group of fans who like their product and want to talk about it.

Even if that group is only 10 true fans strong, they will be way more powerful than 100 SPAM “fans”.

Why cut corners? Instead, focus on adding authentic value to the online conversation and give people away to interact with you and other consumers. If your product is great and service is great, you’ll get fans, don’t you think?

If I’m way off, let me know. Do you think this type of promotion is actually effective?

jtor

I agree; totally pointless way of promotion for a company. They think having a facebook group among all the other millions is a genious plot to get attention?.. Yeah right. If I have no connection to the group I'm being invited to I immediately ignore it. It kind of takes away from the whole point of facebook - to simplify being connected to friends and family - but that's another topic. Even if people do join groups that doesn't mean that they read the content or tell their friends how great the company/whatever the group may be about is. That's the whole point of marketing is to get people to learn and love to talk about what you have to offer so they become marketers themselves. Online - sometimes it (info about companies etc.) may come in the form of an invite to a group but having something that draws peoples attention other than just a page with their name on it is what will make the difference.

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