An Open Letter to @BizJournals

         

Dear @BizJournals,

Can we speak candidly?  Great!  The fact that we can speak candidly means we are friends, though you may not like me after this. 

Here’s the thing, you are running #SocialMadness – a month long campaign that does exactly what consumers hate.

“Like Me!” “Friend Me!” “Follow Me!”

Me, Me, Me, Me! 

So here is what you have set up. Small, medium, and large companies all competiting to gauge “social influence” not sure how you are calculating it, but to be honest IT DOESN’T MATTER!  Why?  Because all the companies are just saying:

“Like Me!” “Friend Me!” “Follow Me!”

You are encouraging the wrong behavior.  You are asking people to bother me - so they can market to me – thanks for that, I really appreciate what you are doing for the brands – trying to get them more engaged on social media.  The intention is there – AWESOME.  But you have executed incorrectly.

The value of any social media isn’t media isn’t the numbers, it isn’t the likes, and it isn’t the people who click like just because you tell them to.  The REAL value cannot be measured the same way, and to be honest isn’t measurable very easily, ENGAGEMENT. 

If you REALLY want to help these brands (AND YOURSELF) teach them to use social media the right way.  Its funny that the brands that actually use it effectively aren’t competing in the game you are playing – because the game is stupid and we know better than that.  We don’t need to know how many likes everyone has or how many followers.  All that DOESN’T matter because none of them are paying attention anyways since many of these brands (and you) are just pumping out stuff that is selfish and not about THE CONSUMER.

1 Million likes means nothing if no one is reading what you are posting.  I would rather have 100 people who I have REAL RELATIONSHIPS with and who I engage with as a company and as an individual and scale the depth of my relationship not the number of my connections.

Here is a perfect example, @SouthwestAir answer Paul - address his concern:

I challenge you to run a new campaign.  Develop a model to teach brands how to truly engage with clients, how to LISTEN to their followers, how to challenge what everyone else thinks social media is and harness the true power of being in the PEOPLE BUSINESS.

For all these brands doing this competition, many of you I shop with and its not because of your pushing, for the ones I stay with it is because of your customer service and because you care about me as a person when I talk to you.  Treat social media the same way – do what you do naturally – stop bothering us just because it is part of a competition and it gets you a momentary blip.

@BizJournals – I say this not just to call you out – I want you to get better, I want you to do better – start investing in people and teaching others to do the same – don’t just drive traffic - build relationships - endear yourselves to people BECAUSE YOU TRULY CARE ABOUT THEM NOT BECAUSE YOU WANT THEM TO CARE ABOUT YOU.

Love,

Dustin

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