I have so many things that have been on my mind lately but most have stayed there and it’s getting pretty cluttered up there in such a limited space. So lucky you! I have decided to rant a little and just see if I clean out some of these toys in the attic.
Twitter is turning into a cesspool – There is a lot of really good stuff happening on Twitter. But along side of it and actually threatening to overtake it is the sheer amount of junk in it. We gripe about Google and content farms? How many twitter accounts can have thousand of followers and never tweeted once? Whenever I hear of Twitter bragging about growth or number of accounts I immediately discount their number by 50%. I have tried to grow my following organically without the use of any automated tools. It’s been a long, slow process but I like it better. It’s frustrating to see Twitter allow these crap accounts to linger. Build a freakin’ filter and clean up your shop, Twitter!
Bad thinking – Just read a post that said if Charlie Sheen can use Twitter effectively so can your business. You’re kidding right? How many Main Street USA businesses have TV show celeb status and then bat shit crazy behavior to leverage social media? None. Also, acting crazy to get social media ‘air time’ is not a long term play. Hate to state the obvious but ……..
SXSW dud – There is virtually no real news coming out of SXSW. Sure there are the obligatory self-important check-ins etc and bragging about who someone one is standing next to but who really cares? The biggest news is how Google’s social network Circles isn’t really anything at all. When the big news is that something isn’t real then you gotta think that something is missing from event. I suspect it’s logic and reason.
Salesmanship trumps service – I wrote about this one over at Marketing Pilgrim today. The true genius of Groupon seems to be aggressive sales closers. Just like any other good Internet sales organization, once the deal is closed the sales team moves on to the next sucker kill deal. What about the deal being delivered as sold (notice I didn’t say promised because they are two VERY different things)? The sales side says “Who cares?” and the operations side said “Who told them this?” and the customer asked “What the heck just happened?”. Nice model for billion dollar valuations, huh?
Hollow trumps everything – Because we are trying to do too much too fast we now pass around empty ‘news’ tidbits that are the equivalent of nutrition’s empty calories. We get filled up on junk, say we did our job of staying informed but never did anything to nourish ourselves. We see what this kind of ‘eating’ has done to our country (overweight kids) and soon we will see what this does to our minds. Garbage in, garbage out.
SMB’s are well intentioned but ……. – If you are small business owner and you are looking for free information, please go read an e- book. Enough said.
There’s more but for now I feel a little better. Maybe you do too but I’ll never know unless you say something in the comments, follow me on Twitter or comment over at Marketing Pilgrim. Come one, come all!
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The last one is priceless but so true. Twitter has been a cesspool for a while now, where have you been? Groupon is great for businesses if you work it right and make sure what you’re “giving away” doesn’t cost you much. It’s good for customer retention and gaining new customers. I bought a Groupon to NewBalance recently and if not I probably would have gone to the Nike store for my running shoes. Most everything I read is “hollow”, Google should just stop spidering. SXSW is just a big party with not enough prime hotels. I see people use all kinds of methods and BS to try and sell social media to small businesses, why not use Charlie Sheen. I jumped around a bit there.