Social Media

Jimmy, head of marketing for a medium-sized consumer products business, recently took the advice to “just do it” and plunged into social media head-first.

First stop: Twitter.

It wasn’t long before Jimmy learned that most people “tweet” about the things that interest them the most. And those things include foods, movies, TV shows, and occasionally, certain products.

Jimmy had also learned recently that people who love certain products will tell each other about them.

He was also aware that when people see their favorite celebrities using a certain product, they are more likely to use it themselves. Or so it seems.

On Jimmy’s desk sits a picture of himself standing next to a well-known television star. And, in the television star’s hand is the product he markets.

Feeling clever, Jimmy does a search for the celebrity’s name on Twitter, which yields a long list of tweets containing the celebrity’s name. Then, Jimmy goes through each one individually until he finds someone with an abundance of followers who is also a fan of the celebrity in the photo on his desk. By now he’s feeling pretty darn smart.

Then, with confidence, Jimmy sends a twit pic of his product, the celebrity and himself referring to @SaidFan/TwitterUser thinking, “There’s nothing to this social media stuff. I’ve just reached one person in a relevant way who can pass my message on to others. Piece of cake.”

Within minutes, Jimmy, along with every single follower of @SaidFan/TwitterUser received the following tweet: @Jimmy Don’t advertise to me!

Jimmy was on the right track right up to the point where he looked at Twitter as just another communication channel. It’s not a place to advertise. It’s a place where it’s possible to make friends, find others with common interests, share those interests and share information about things that might be interesting to others. Period.

It’s not a place to target people with messages, even though it might seem that way at first. It is, however, a place where ideas worth sharing are shared with little to no influence from the source of the original idea.

If your business or product isn’t worth sharing, perhaps it’s time to shift to one that is.

Posted via email from kleerstreem's posterous