Is Marketing Ruining Social Media?

These days, when I log into my Facebook account, I encounter a barrage of ads for which I was “targeted.” I think it has something to do with how it says the word “Music” in my profile, and now I’m hit with everything that has “Music” in it, whether its advertising for every concert coming near me, every music store in the world having a sale on the new Jonas Brothers CD, or every website supposedly offering a new, innovative way to download music. Is this what Facebook was originally designed for?

Customer 1 company 0.

People are pissed. They’ve have been getting their dinners interrupted by telemarketers, sifting through piles of menus and catalogs in their mail, and having their senses overloaded by flashing banner ads across the Internet for years. Social media has finally put the power back in the customers’ hands. If you are a shameless spammer, people can now spread the word about how much they hate you and how terrible you are. Trust me, word will spread…fast. Even if you change your ways and really improve your processes, the damage has been done. You’ve been blacklisted.

Social media is perhaps the biggest change to marketing mentality. Previously, you could put up as many ads as you wanted, wherever you wanted, and if they were bad, maybe you wouldn’t see a lot of sales. Now, if you’re taking these same ads, and blasting people’s Twitters and Facebooks, not only will they not buy from you, but they can influence others not to buy from you. Check out this case study, courtesy of Bnet, of Nestle and how their misuse of social media had enormous effects.

Moral of the story, if you’re going to get involved in social media as a marketer, you really have to step your game up. Social media is an enormous opportunity to use your brand or message to engage a huge audience right at your fingertips, however it’s the riskiest if you’re bad at it. You can ruin your brand’s image with one click of the mouse. If you’re not putting in the time to target your audience and create personal engagements, you may be better off sticking to placing billboard ads off I-65 in the middle of nowhere like this one.