Thursday, February 25, 2010

Down With Social Automation

UnMarketing has talked about it.

Shelly Kramer is constantly speaking out about it.

Twitter-Fail has a whole separate CATEGORY about it.

Remarkablogger talks about it.

Dozens of websites talk about it, both in favor and against it. Generally the ones in favor of it are the ones providing or selling automation services.

Now, since you won't listen to anyone above me...maybe you'll listen to me. I can dream, can't I?

Stop it already with the automated Twitter messages. We know. You cannot disguise them. You've tried personalization. We figured it out. You tried automating public messages. We fell for it for about five minutes, then we looked at your stream and saw the same message sent out to many, many people. You're NOT fooling everyone...let alone anyone.

There's a reason it's called SOCIAL media...its about socialization. If I wanted to talk to a robot, I'd fire up IRC or some other old chat client. I'm not the first to admit it, but anyone who sends me an auto DM with an ad or a blog link in it before even saying hello or anything is immediately blocked. Surprisingly, there are several big names I don't follow because of this, and I'm no worse off for it.

If you want followers...just talk to people. Do what honest, social people do. Follow some heavy hitters in your industry, and mine their follower lists. See who they talk to, and so on. Before you know it, you've got a good list of legitimate follows and followers, and you're engaging with them happily, all without having to automate anything, and without pissing everyone off. It's really not that hard. Just try it, I promise we won't bite....unless you auto DM us.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Choose My Adventure

Alright, I'm going to try something I've never done on The Marketing Mark before. I have a bunch of ideas for entries, and I'm having a hard time deciding what order I should do them in. So, I look to you, dear reader, to help me out.

I'm going to spend a while writing about what YOU want, not what I want. Leave a comment below, or send me a tweet HERE and I will write a few articles from the list of appropriate topics that I get.

Sound cool? OK, go!!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Google Buzz = Windows 7

and Google Wave = Windows Vista.

But the final word is still to be said, since Buzz is still being released. However, the comparison can be made. Both Vista and Wave were great ideas in theory, huge upgrades from what was currently available. But they were both bloated overcoded messes with more problems than benefits for most of its users.

But they were both reletively quickly followed up by a much cleaner, much less overcoded version. Google went quicker, more along the lines of a Windows Milenium reaction speed, but the less we can speak of that mess, the better.

Google Buzz has potential to be a easy way to keep your contacts up on what you're doing all at once, but it's hardly your only option, even within Google itself. The advantage it has over Google Reader, is that you can share from a multitude of formats, not just rss. You can share Twitter, Picasa, and a bunch of other sites, those are just the most likely suspects at this point. There are even some enterprising ciders out there that have already created "buzz this" buttons, so be on the lookout for those to begin popping up.

Google Buzz has potential, I just hope it doesn't end up just another bothersome link on the left side menu of gmail.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Scarlet Begonias

No, I haven't lost my mind and changed this to a blog about flowers. Scarlet Beginias is a song by the Grateful Dead. This post is named what it is for a line in the song:

Once in awhile you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.

Holy crap is that an amazing line. It's saying that you can find inspiration anywhere you look as long as you're looking for it.

That's right, inspiration isn't always sitting around going "HEY!! OVER HERE!!!! INSPIRATION UP FOR GRABS!!"

That would be pretty cool, but that's not how it works. Most of the time you have to find it on your own. Sometimes it's right there and you can grab it. Sometimes it's under your pillow, or behind a tree, or in your desk drawer at the office. You just have to look. It can be almost anywhere. Really, I swear.

Where was the most interesting place you were able to find inspiration? For that matter, how about the most obvious? Please share...thanks.