Last week I “liked” a network news Facebook page. Very soon afterward, I received what seemed to be an auto generated email via Facebook from “Joey”. He was pleasant, engaging and fully transparent that he was working with a weatherman at this network. He asked that since I had recently liked the network page, if I could “like” weather man’s page. I thought this is fantastic, someone that “gets it”. 
So I went for it. Why not, this was a great way to get fans to engage with the weatherman – I was already a fan of the network, so why not?
I was happy.
At about 5am that morning (less than 12 hours after I had first “liked” the page I was sent a solicitous message via Facebook. My initial feeling of delight expeditiously dissipated in this full court press of an email. Joey, after only “knowing me” for a few hours was now asking me to take action on his behalf. He was asking me to send on the weather man’s page to friends and family.
UGH.
Here are my issues with this type of marketing:
- It goes against EVERYTHING that social media stands for
- I don’t know this for certain, however I would assume that this person is being compensated based on the number of Fans he can generate for the weather man.
- A Facebook fan is worth NOTHING
- An engaged Facebook fan is worth EVERYTHING
- A pissed off former Facebook fan is your WORST ENEMY
Consider me in the “annoyed” stage. I’m not pissed off, I’m just bummed because I was so excited with Joey’s initial execution, and so let down when he went down in a blaze of glory. Bummer
If you’re managing someone’s personal brand online, please don’t let this happen. Here are a few tips
- Engage with the community – then ask for action…gently.
- Treat people the way you want to be treated
- Don’t trust a social media consultant who guarantees fans – it’s almost always bogus
- Have fun, and let the community grow organically – the second you force things – a pain in the ass like me is going to write a blog post about it.
Over and out.