Is DIM the new enlightened?
I’ve hooked up with inbound marketing experts Forth Metrics to write a series of blogs exploring best practice in modern PR and online marketing. Forth Metrics has developed a fantastic new blogger discovery tool, InkyBee (currently in beta), which aims to cut out the pain of finding relevant bloggers for an outreach campaign.
My first post reflects on the range of new tools designed to measure a person’s online influence, and asks if it’s really a worthwhile approach? Taster below…
As the year ebbs away
I know writers are supposed to be highly original, but I’m going to indulge myself with the usual December cliche and take a moment to say “where the hell did the time go?”
As is always the case, my blogging, tweeting etc came to a quick halt the minute work became very busy. Do other freelancers note a pattern of not having time to promote yourself when you have things to promote? It’s very frustrating but I should really make the time.
So, suffice to say it’s been a busy couple of months and 2012 looks set to be a storming year.
Cynical social media: dislike
I just want to take a moment to express my disgust at a recent competition/social media campaign run by a UK retail giant I will not name for fear they sue me.
Retail Giant challenged a selection of UK fashion bloggers to post an outfit each day for a week showcasing items from their new collection. One of my favourite bloggers was among them. (Again, I don’t want to name names as I’d prefer to respect their privacy, so will call them Fab Fashion Blogger.) The blogger who got the most votes on Facebook won a trip to Paris. Sounds simple, right?
Wrong. Every day for six days, Fab Fashion Blogger won the style challenge by a massive margin. On day seven, she lost.
The following morning, Retail Giant put up a post congratulating Fab Fashion Blogger and declaring her the winner. A post they promptly removed an hour later, sheepishly admitting they didn’t quite understand their own rules. In fact, the winning blogger was the one who attracted the most votes on any one single outfit. Something that was not made clear at all in the rules.
Here’s what I think this shows. Retail Giant was more interested in getting a truckload of ‘likes’ on Facebook than it was in showing its own products in the best possible light. When will companies learn that it’s better to have 10 genuine fans than 100 flakey followers?
To my mind, it backfired, as complaints came flooding in. This is the kind of cynical engagement with social media that sets companies back a mile in their customers’ eyes. It’s at best a waste of their marketing money and at worst a damaging insight into their corporate greed.
Top image from here
