I was recently hired to do some social media work for an author who is already set up on Facebook and Twitter. Before agreeing to take on the project I took a look at her profiles and saw almost 2,000 Twitter followers and 400 Facebook fans (sounds better than “likers”). My job would be to maintain and grow the fan base as well as engage the already established community.
However, once I logged onto her homepage I was bombarded with spam, which was when I realized whoever she had originally hired to take care of her marketing had completely screwed her over.
How is following spam useful AT ALL? Really. Answer me! I honestly don’t understand.
First of all, the author was following 2,000 people, all of whom promise their followers they’d “get rich quick,” “lose
Ugh. *Shudder*
20lbs overnight!” or “meet a special lady tonight.” Honestly, people.
Apparently, the other company she had hired were late jumping on the social media bandwagon. They assumed the most important thing was numbers, completely disregarding that those numbers would never buy her book because they’re too busy shouting over one another. Didn’t matter that those numbers consisted of spammers and porn. Add to that the fact that many authors don’t know the first thing about Twitter, this asshole company banked on her never knowing about their little spam attack. Unfortunately for them, I took over. Muahahahahahaaa!
Seriously though, I know there are sites out there that can get you thousands of followers for a “modest sum”, but I didn’t know that legit marketing companies use these services and then charge their clients an arm and a leg.
It’s more than just annoying though. What if someone checked out this author’s followers only to find porn? Not only does that not help her marketing plan but could actually ruin her reputation. It’s disgusting and I’m angry and going to write a very angry letter to this company on behalf of (now) my author.
Then there are my issues with auto-following…
As long as I’ve been on Twitter I’ve been under the impression that it’s just good manners to follow anyone who follows you back. But that’s how spam gets in your feed and spam is (obviously – see above) one of my biggest pet peeves.
Guy Kawasaki has this to say about it: “Ignore people who tell you that it’s the quality of your followers not the quantity.” In another article he writes this charming piece of logic:
“Follow everyone who follows you. When I first started on Twitter, Robert Scoble told me to follow everyone who followed me. “But why, Robert, would I follow everyone like that?” The answer is that it’s courteous to do so and because when you do, some people will respond to you and everyone who follows them will see this—which is more exposure for you.”
Sorry Pumpkin, but I disrespectfully disagree. Mostly because your tweets are crap. You tweet way too often and I honestly can’t be bothered to weed through your crap when I’m trying to find out what significantly more interesting (and yes, seriously “less important”) people are saying.
That being said, when I taught my mom how to use the ol’ Twitter, she whined for ages saying, “What!? I have to see what other people have to say every day? Can’t I just skip over the home page?”
As rockin’ as my mommy is, she had a slow time of learning the social part of social media. I get it though; she’s a busy lady and isn’t used to this newfangled promoting-yourself-by-connecting-with-people thing…
I’m really curious what you guys think though. Does my author deserve to get her money back? Should companies that use these methods be called out on their complete and utter lack of social media know-how? What about auto-following?
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