Nothing frustrates me more than poorly executed or\u00a0disingenuous\u00a0marketing and PR efforts. That\u2019s one of the reasons I\u2019m motivated to blog: I\u2019m\u00a0irrationally committed\u00a0to seeing brands implement quality, useful marketing programs.<\/p>\n
But what is especially irksome is social media marketing software and service providers who don\u2019t take the time to give their own marketing efforts the proper love. They\u00a0really\u00a0<\/em>should\u00a0know better.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s go through (yet\u00a0another) recent example I stumbled-upon.<\/p>\n From what I hear, Spredfast social software is actually pretty good. And in fact I\u2019m their target market, as I work with a global digital team (and many clients) who could implement such a solution. However, when I see their website I don\u2019t actually think these people understand social. So I\u2019m immediately turned off from starting a conversation with them.<\/p>\n Case in point \u2013 at the bottom of\u00a0their website\u00a0they are pulling in a Twitter-feed of their CMO (who looks a bit like\u00a0Bill Maher):<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s a cool idea, except horribly executed when the Tweet shown is one\u00a0from\u00a0last year<\/em>\u00a0in December (yet, they state, inaccurately, it is the \u201clatest Tweet\u201d). They\u2019re trying to make their website \u201csocial\u201d except for the fact that this isn\u2019t social or even useful.<\/p>\n Further their CMO hasn\u2019t updated Twitter since September (2 months ago):<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I actually don\u2019t have a problem with executives not being social. But if a brand is going to portray themselves in such a way that implies their team members are in fact social it is somewhat deceitful to implement the above.<\/p>\n Aside from their CMO, this team as a whole has published a total of 18 blog posts this year, pretty dismal considering socially-savvy competitors in the space who have structured their marketing properly for the web publish 18 posts per\u00a0month<\/em>. Aside from that, they have ATD fails all over their own social efforts. For one glaring example (there are many more) check out their blog title tag (or lack\u00a0thereof):<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yup, I look at this stuff when determining if software providers actually understand the web. In this case, does the above brand? Maybe \u2026but they don\u2019t show it in their own online marketing. That\u2019s important because I certainly care to work with savvy software providers who are willing to go the extra mile and understand why these items (and more) are important.\u00a0If they aren\u2019t paying attention to their own efforts, would they with me as a customer?<\/p>\n The lesson is don\u2019t be\u00a0disingenuous\u00a0and put in a half-hearted effort with your own marketing: whether you\u2019re targeting the marketing category or otherwise. Your customers are smart and will see right through this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nothing frustrates me more than poorly executed or\u00a0disingenuous\u00a0marketing and PR efforts. That\u2019s one of the reasons I\u2019m motivated to blog: … <\/p>\n