Once again, The Oatmeal offers some pithy advice for e-marketers. I’m annoyed by the shameless parade of self-promotion that usually accompanies business’ attempts to build their facebook fans and twitter followers. I’ve pretty much tuned it out and only reward genuinely entertaining or educational content. The virtual world is a lot like the real world; if someone has to ask for praise, then they probably don’t deserve it. The Oatmeal demonstrates this maxim quite well:
Like I’ve said before, the customer experience is paramount. Happy customers take to social media to spread news of their satisfaction to the four corners of the virtual world. That’s not the kind of advertising you can buy. It has to be earned.
Everything worth doing is worth doing right. Like most things in life, in order to do it right, you have to continually work at it. That means remaining authentic in a marketplace that sometimes rewards dishonesty and gimmicks. It means consistently creating new content that offers value to your customers. It means going where those customers are with a custom message tailored to them at the time when they’re ready to hear it.
If you think you’re just going to beg everyone you know to “like” you on facebook and build an engaged audience, then you’re setting yourself up for a big disappointment.
Pingback: Use social media to talk with, not at, your customers
Pingback: When it comes to SEO, you’re probably doing it wrong | Chad Chandler