Social Networking Spam – 5 Rules for Marketers
Posted on 20. Mar, 2012 by Josh Mackey in Blog, email, facebook, Guest Posts, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media measurement, social networks, spam, Twitter
Josh Mackey is General Manager at PeekAnalytics, a Social Audience Measurement Platform. (More importantly, a family man and sport loving Aussie who loves life).
There has been a lot of talk recently about social networking spam – inactive and bogus accounts on social platforms. While I agree inactive and spam accounts can raise unwanted questions for platforms, these claims should not discourage marketers away from the platforms themselves. Instead of admitting that this “social thing” is not as easy as all that, some are pointing fingers at the platforms, saying SPAM! SPAM! Bad ROI…Spam! Bad CTR…Spam!
The rhetoric above might make for a great headline, but for me it’s lazy sensationalism. Anyone who claims that Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn or Facebook do not have robust ecosystems, full of amazing insights and opportunities for brands as well as individuals alike, is simply delusional. That said, marketers who face pushback on social networking spam issues need to be prepared to respond head on.
The advice below comes from insights that I have gleaned from being neck deep in social audience measurement product development for the past year and a half.
Rule #1 – Don’t mix the water with the wine.
Instead of focusing on the spam or inactive accounts, marketers should just accept there is some “spam” mixed in with the “bacon” on every platform, channel or network. It’s about finding tools, best in class techniques and smart marketers that will allow you to get to the bacon, “smell” the bacon, get to know the bacon, and in the end, get the bacon to buy your product and then tell their friends to also buy your product. Mmm bacon!
Don’t skew your analysis with incomplete data. You are better off dealing with a quality subset of audience data to analyze rather than a much larger mess of incomplete and questionable data. Set yourself up with a “minimum cutoff” point that excludes accounts out that don’t have a certain amount of information you require to form a complete analysis. A Twitter account with nothing more than an @name, sharing dating site links every hour on the hour, provides little usable data and obviously stinks of spam. Analyze your audience with a tool that allows you to filter out incomplete and junk accounts.
Rule #2 – Seek out real people.
Social Networking Spam – You Are What You Tweet
Go out of your way to engage with people who are transparent about their identity (I personally think Google+ has this right). Someone who unites their online and offline identity is much more likely to not only engage with people they have met offline (e.g. building stronger relationships), but will also generate a more trusted and larger network online than people using only fake identities and/or usernames. In very few cases do I trust a person or content when that is hiding behind a fake name with no digital footprint or identity. Unfortunately, many marketers have been duped and lured into buying followers from sketchy sites. Trust me: this is not the way to social media success and will only create a false economy by skewing your ROI metrics to unattainable levels.
Rule #3 – Engage with others as you would like to be engaged with.
Remember that a quality audience will always trump quantity. There are many theories that all you need on social media is “100 true fans” to get a message started. The definition of a true fan can be debated, but in reality, for the viral effect to happen, all you need is good content and a few raving fans who have trusted networks of their own for a message to go far and wide. Therefore, focus on building a community of people who will support you as you support them.
Rule #4 – Be humble and honest with yourself!
Take a realistic view of your audience. If you have 10,000 followers, don’t use 10,000 in your click through percentage calculations. Understand that some accounts are inactive, some are social networking spam, very few people sit on Twitter all day waiting for you to tweet. Use tools that try and measure the true size of your audience at any one time and tweet during hours that your audience is potentially awake, engaged, etc
Rule #5 – Remember and respect the meek! For the meek shall…also buy your products.
Every fan matters! 40% of active users don’t tweet! Find a tool that can measure your entire social audience and don’t just focus on the active (talking) audience. You have customers who have chosen to follow you (which may be the only action you see from them on Twitter) but they still have the ability to purchase your products after they read about a sale at the local store from your tweets!
Conclusion
Who doesn’t remember naysayers who claimed: “spam will kill email,” “IM is killing email,” “Social will kill email,” etc? Guess what: Just like the humble text message, email is fine; the value that it delivers for users and marketers remains because it is a powerful and imminently affordable communication platform. Twitter, Facebook, Google+ all have spam issues, no different than every other valuable communication platform that ever existed. Each platform is currently taking unique and aggressive steps to ensure the average user experience is not marred by spam. Social networking spam filters are still in the relatively early days, but big progress is being made.
The value is there; you just need to know where to look and how to create value and a reason for consumers to care about your brand. Get over the “spam” siren call and focus on finding the bacon! If you can’t or refuse to, please feel free to build a platform that is user friendly, has millions of users and is spam free…we will all come join your platform and make you super rich! It will be awesome. Really.
The Facebook Fake Friend Fallout
Posted on 24. Mar, 2010 by Michel Fortin in Blog, customer, facebook, fan, follower, friend, helpdesk, Opinions, philosophy, profile, relationship, service, Seth Godin, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, spam, spammer, tweet, Twitter
He was so incensed, he wrote me a personal message accusing me of being rude and insulting. He even remarked that I’m arrogant, and snarkily added that some of his “friends” seem to feel the same way.
Now, before I give you the reason, I’d like to share with you my philosophy on Facebook friendships in general.
To me, and I think it’s simply common sense, a friend is a friend. It’s someone you know, someone you have a relationship with, someone you want to stay connected with, and someone you consider a real friend — not a fan, follower, or worse yet, a spammer.
And the latter of the three is the one I can’t stand.
But there’s a difference between a “profile” and “page.” Between a “friend” and a “fan.” Those differences are not mine. They are Facebook’s. Their policies are pretty clear.
Personal profiles are not to be used for commercial purposes.
I know. It’s not only listed in their terms, but Facebook have also told me personally.
Befriending someone on Facebook can be just as problematic as following someone on Twitter. Just
“It is unlikely that anyone can actually read tweets from thousands of accounts which makes this activity disingenuous.”
Even Seth Godin calls mass-friending as “fake networking.” This applies to Facebook as much as it does to Twitter — or to any other social media application, for that matter.
I wanted to keep my friends list clean. I could have, like some marketers out there, dumped my profile entirely, or deleted my entire friends list, and started from scratch.
But I didn’t want to do that. Starting from scratch can seem just as disingenuous.
So in order to whittle my list down to the people I really do want to stay friends with, including family members, old school friends, and several marketers I have an actual relationship with, I’ve decided to remove friends based on the following five criteria.
If the people are not known to me (i.e., people I don’t really know, have never met, or haven’t some kind of personal relationship with), I remove the following:
Above all, I’m not on Facebook to provide customer support or free advice, or to do any networking. (Sure, I do network. But it’s not my primary focus.) So I also remove friends who send me a direct message in some obvious attempt to extract free advice from me.
Yes, I’m very selective with who I hang around with. But I don’t spend endless hours scouring my friend list searching for anyone who meets any of the above criteria. I only apply it to friends who happen to spam me and to those who try to add me as a friend.
Incidentally, when adding friends I prefer and particularly approve those who add a small message with their friend request. They’re making an effort in introducing themselves to me, and in sharing some commonality or reason why we should be friends.
Bottom line, I’m very protective of my time, my reputation, and my integrity.
Back to the “friend” who rebuked me for unfriending him. He added me as a friend, and spammed me with a request of some kind literally the next day. Now, spamming me is one thing. But spamming me within hours of adding me as a friend is another.
When people do this, it makes their friend request suspect.
Not only do I de-friend people who spam me, but I hesitate even less when the request comes in shortly after adding me as a friend. Facebook is filled with people who add “friends” for the sole purpose of pushing their offers, businesses, or opportunities.
(Sorry, but I’m not interested in your “opportunity.”)
I replied to this fellow and expressed that he should have given me a chance to explain before jumping the gun. His reply was just as perplexing when he counter-accused me of jumping to conclusions by unfriending him so quickly. (Uh, merry-go-round, anyone?)
With this situation, Seth Godin’s “permission marketing” comes to mind. Specifically, don’t ask me to marry you when we’re still on the first date. Get to know me first.
Nevertheless, I don’t have time to vet each friend request, much less every friend on my list. So following this “whittling” process seems to work for me.
It’s the lesser of two evils — removing undesirables one by one is a lot less daunting than deleting my entire friends list and starting over from scratch. Plus, in the end by cleaning out my friends list allows me to stay in touch with only the people I want.
If not adding everyone who asks as a friend, if being selective when choosing my friends, and if unfriending undesirables make me arrogant, then I guess I am.
Come to think of it, this argument is very reminiscent of the whole “auto-follow fiasco” on Twitter
Not following you back (or in this case, not befriending you) doesn’t make me rude, arrogant, or discourteous. This is a blatant myth propagated by some social media gurus who are using peer pressure to justify their attempt to grow their own lists.
Ditto with people befriending others in an attempt to usurp free advice or support. I do offer support. I have staff and a helpdesk for that purpose. And I do try to help whenever I can. But there’s a difference between customer service and customer support.
So if you want to become my friend, I only ask three simple things.
Ultimately, ask yourself, and be honest: would you treat a Facebook friend the same way you’d treat a real friend in the real world? If so, and if you want friends only to promote yourself, then your Facebook profile is not the place. There are better places for that.
They’re called tradeshows.
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