Get Permission and Keep It

When someone becomes a fan of your Facebook page or "likes" your page as it is now said, they are giving you permission to talk to them. Permission to interrupt their day.

In Seth Godin's book Permission Marketinghe defines permission as:

"Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them."

So when a fan joins your Facebook page or follows you on Twitter, they have certain expectations about how you will communicate with them.

• They expect that you will not post 50 times within 30 minutes.
• They expect you will not spam them with offers for other products.
• They expect you will respect their time and patience.
• They expect you will reciprocate with good information, offers, or ideas.

Take this permission seriously. It is fickle and can be lost.

The Great Land Grab

Seems like over night social media has exploded into a new and vast marketing medium. New jobs are being created to keep up. Interactive marketers are charged with communicating with customers and creating an open discussion about their products and companies.

With over 500 million users Facebook has become one of the largest social media platforms. Every company, organization and entrepreneur is creating their own page or group to help promote their own interests. There seems to be a big land grab going on with every organization trying to get their own fans. With so many companies vying for our attention the gold rush has come and companies should try to get as many fans as possible before people become overwhelmed and stop becoming a fan of every page that asks them to. Now is the time to get as many fans as possible.

Stop stalling and jump in the game. Now is the time to hire a real professional to communicate with your customers. Now is the time to pick your platform and to start getting your members to join you.

It isn't to late, go West and find your Gold!

Social Media SPAM

When a lot of companies start using facebook they seem to have a "fake it till you make it" type attitude towards communicating in this new medium. They create fake accounts and post explicit advertisments on other company and individual pages. They post comments with links to their own products, that have nothing to do with the original post and like there own posts. You may think this will help show that you have fans and get you more followers. You may say to yourself, what harm could it have to fake a few interactions until we get more fans? People wont notice. But the truth is people know when something is off. We have all been well trained to smell SPAM from miles away. People will start to equate your company with the smell of SPAM and will stay away. In the end all your really doing is hurting your online reputation, which will have a bigger impact on your social media marketing then one link have.

If your about to post a link on someone elses fan page just to get a link to your own fan page, stop and ask yourself if you would be willing to post that same thing on a friends facebook page. If the answer is no. STOP, don't post it.