My twitter feeds exploded with discussion and comments and retweets about the explosions in Boston this afternoon. One of my friends even commented, “It’s days like today when you can tell who is scheduling tweets.”
If you are scheduling tweets it’s really important to have someone around to monitor local, national or international events and stop those tweets before your brand looks insensitive.
I’ve been seeing more and more social network spam recently, mostly on twitter. In some ways it’s even more annoying than email spam. Here I am, happily having a conversation with a friend and then some spammer sticks their nose in and tweets “myproduct will solve your problem!”
It’s happened twice in the last week.
In most recent example, I was asking my twitter network for some advice on pasta making. I’ve made pasta a few times, but it’s never been exactly right. Not having an Italian grandmother to ask, I was looking for someone with experience in pasta making to answer a few questions. I was having an ongoing conversation with a friend who was helping me troubleshoot my problems. He gave me his recipe to try to see if that would work better. I thanked him profusely and replied that I would give it a try but probably not tomorrow because it was accounting day and those tend to run late. Someone replied to that tweet suggesting I try some random accounting software to make my accounting easier.
Just… No.
Interjecting product ads in a conversation may be the “acceptable” and “best practice” way to market through social networking. But, I can promise that you’re no better the guy who interrupts conversations at parties so he can hand out business cards for his affiliate program selling herbal male enhancement drugs.
Don’t be That Guy.
Update: Today’s twitter spam was from one of the email accreditation services attempting to sell me their email delivery services.
Adobe has a good post up about consumer reaction and interaction with brands in social media like Twitter and Facebook.
Read MoreYes, I finally succumbed to peer pressure and started twittering as wise_laura. Stop on by and introduce yourselves.
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