To Marketers who want to use Social Media

Apr 4

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Social Media Marketing Madness Cartoon by HubSpot
Image by HubSpot via Flickr

This got triggered by Dina‘s tweet today, to which I replied.

So here’s a longer thought for all Marketers who are looking at ways to “use” Social Media:

Please don’t try to “use” social media.

For folks like us, it’s a community – where we hang around and collect and have conversations. Some of those conversations could be about the stuff that you want to sell.

If you want to join us and participate as a member of the community – you’re welcome.

However, if all you want to do is only say “Here’s my product, buy it!” like you do in TV commercials – sorry, you’ll turn us off!

Think of social media in an analogy – in the physical world there are parties we go to. Do you go there as someone who likes to party, or as someone with a ‘marketer hat on’ and looking for “prospects”?

If you go as the latter, I am sure you’re not very successful.

We’ve all seen the sorry looking folks at parties who’s looking to buttonhole you with his visiting cards and sales spiel – with a conversation that’s more about “I” and having very few “you”s.

I’m sure you don’t want to be like that person in the party.

So welcome to social media. Join the conversations on Twitter, Facebook or Blogs. But if all you’re going to do is talk about yourself you’re going to bore us out of our skulls.

Update: I read the party analogy somewhere, but don’t remember where. If you blogged about it…do leave a comment!

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About Gautam

Gautam is a HR professional interested in how emerging technologies are impacting work, careers and organizations.

Posted on April 4, 2009, in DesiPundit, online, social media and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.

  1. Abhishek | April 13, 2009 at 3:19 pm

    I do understand that it gets on to people’s nerves when you try to sell your product at social networking sites. But from te marketer’s standpoint, this is the latest tactic available with him.
    I still have mixed feelings about this.

  2. Palin Ningthoujam | April 7, 2009 at 6:01 pm

    I will send this url to every client I have. Or maybe a collection of such articles.

    But again, ‘marketing’ is about business, customers, and no free lunches. So when you think from a social media participant’s pov, this is what it is, But when you are int he marketer’s shoes, the vision is different. I might need to ponder again.

  3. Kevin W. Grossman | April 5, 2009 at 11:14 pm

    Completely agree. However, when we go to parties we DO like to talk about ourselves – our families, our hobbies, our work, books we’re reading, movies we’ve watched, topical news we caught…

    The difference being it’s natural to talk about oneself while being reciprocal with the others in the “party” conversation, not forced like interruption marketing you’re referring to.

    I’m too boring anyway.

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