Spamming is NEVER a Good Strategy

This will likely be a quick post (every time I say that it ends up turning into one of my longer posts), but experienced something today that I wanted to share.  I was cleaning out the spam comments that the spam filter didn’t automatically delete and I stumbled across someone who spammed this blog about 10 times in 20 minutes.  Now, one spam comment I’ll let slide, but excessive spamming like that really gets to me.  The spammer left his name and Twitter handle in each of his comments so I reached out to the guy via Twitter and tweeted this out to him:

Simple, but to the point.  What happened next is what really blew my mind (in a negative way). Immediately after I posted the tweet, I received this reply from another Twitter user:

I JUST complained about being spammed so you immediately send me a spam tweet? Her profile baffled me even further:

This person says they are a “communications expert” who inspires others to “effectively communicate their message.”, but they send out automated tweets to spam people (look at her Twitter stream..it’s all spam)? I don’t think I ever experienced more Twitter irony (Twirony, I’m coining the phrase right now) in my life.

I normally don’t like revealing people’s Twitter or Facebook accounts if I am using them for example purposes, but given the circumstances I felt no need to conceal their identity.

Here’s the point. Promoting your business is a full time job especially given the rise in Social Media channels.  However, if you use automated devices to spam blogs or Twitter you will never succeed.  If you want to comment on a blog and leave a link to your business actually READ through the blog, make an INSIGHTFUL comment, and leave your website link in the “website” data field.  Automated spam comments will just piss people off and nobody will ever buy your product. Twitter is a communication vehicle which means you need to interact with other individuals to see the value in using it.  Using an  automated tweeting service implies that you think other users don’t have the intelligence to decipher between an automated message and actual communication.

Think of it this way, ROI = Return on Investment but “investment” doesn’t always have to mean money especially in the age of Social Media.  If you invest no time in your Social Media campaign you won’t see any return.  Sure there are tools that expedite some of the grunt work (which I definitely recommend using), but the real benefit of using these tools is to allocate that extra time you save towards bettering your Social Media campaign.

Communication, listening, and putting forth time / energy is the real key to Social Media success.  It amazes me that so many people still don’t know this.