’TREPONOMICS
ETHICS | PRO | ESQUIRE GUY | MARKETING
How dreadful!
Our Emily Post has a few words on marketing etiquette
By Ann Handley
M
Subscribing a new contact to your company
e-mail list: A handshake is not an opt-in.
Have you ever met someone at a networking event and exchanged business cards,
only to find that you’ve been subscribed
to their business newsletter? Or do you
regularly do the same on behalf of your
own company? It’s common practice in
many circles—but it shouldn’t be.
Proper etiquette: Follow up with a
new contact via a personal e-mail that
contains information about your services
or products (if appropriate) or an invitation to join your e-mail list, along with
a specific reason why your new friend
would find it useful. Something like this:
After our conversation about organic
farming, I thought you might enjoy our
weekly newsletter about raising backyard chickens. I can add you to the list,
or you can subscribe here.
In other words, let new contacts
opt in to receive your newsletter. Don’t
automatically assume they’d love to be
subscribed—even if your new friend is
the most passionate chicken whisperer
you’ve ever met.
Automated social media updates: Robo
messages are not a proxy for interaction.
I can’t say it never makes sense to automate updates to your company Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+ page,
because it can be efficient in some cases.
For example, automation tools can help
you share new blog posts in a few places
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ENTREPRENEUR AUGUST 2014
Proper etiquette: If you join a LinkedIn group to connect with others in your
industry, contribute to the group with
discussion and input. If you connect with
a potential business contact on Facebook,
restrain from posting your affiliate links
on their wall. General guidelines: Be useful. Be helpful. Be known as a source of
solid information.
Oversharing: Think personable, not
personal. Social platforms do present
at once, and many platforms offer a
handy central dashboard for monitoring a
brand’s social presence. That’s good stuff.
The problem comes when companies
abuse automation by taking a “set it and
forget it” mindset. For example, when
companies don’t respond to customer inquiries (or even just a simple shout-out)
on Twitter or Facebook, or when their
automated tweets continue to cluelessly
post during a crisis.
Proper etiquette: Use automation to
enhance your social efforts, not supplant
it. Have a real human being at your social
media helm, someone with actual blood
pumping through actual veins who can
participate in real conversations with
customers, as well as monitor and tweak
your social presences.
And for the love of Pete, please disable
robo direct messages on Twitter—those
automated messages some folks set to
greet any new follower on that platform.
They reek of insincerity. What’s more,
they run counter to the spirit of social
media and the opportunity for one-to-one
interaction it affords.
Social spam: Give more than you take.
The opportunities presented by social
media to connect directly with the people
you want to reach are immense. Don’t
squander that by ignoring context or by
overstepping boundaries. Don’t be known
as the social spammer—the one who simply shills his or her business or products.
At best, you’ll appear to be clueless; at
worst, it’s a social pitch-slap.
an opportunity to reveal more of the
people and personalities behind a company. But there is a fine line between
sharing a little of yourself and sharing too
much of yourself.
Proper etiquette: Think of personalizing your brand, not getting personal. Be
sure you aren’t sharing details that are
too intimate or too specific to you to have
relevance for the larger community you
are trying to build.
Irresponsible content: Publishing is a
privilege, not a right. Many companies
have assumed the “we’re all publishers
now” mantra—without a clear understanding of the ground rules. No matter
what kind of content you might be creating as part of your marketing efforts, you
can learn much from journalists.
Proper etiquette: Thinking like a publisher is not enough; you need to act like
one. In fact, those creating content on behalf of brands should adhere more strictly
to standards than mainstream journalists
do, because readers are naturally skeptical
of material produced by a brand.
What does that mean? It means
posting trustworthy content. It means
citing original sources in anything you
produce (not the blog post that references
a research summary). It means sharing
news that’s actually news outside of
your boardroom. It means not deleting
or ignoring any negative feedback your
brand receives. And it means publishing
what’s actually useful to your customers,
instead of what’s useful only to you.
Treat publishing as a privilege—not a
right. And treat marketing, more broadly,
as an opportunity to help—not to hinder.
ANN HANDLEY’S LATEST BOOK, EVERYBODY
WRITES: YOUR GO-TO GUIDE FOR CREATING
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PHOTO © GETTY IMAGES/PAUL BRADBURY
y friend Eileen had a gray striped
cat named Nimbus whose greatest
joy was to hunt in the backyard
woods and drop his offerings at her back
door. Eileen never knew what she’d find
when she opened the door—a chipmunk,
vole, mole or bird.
Nimbus was easily forgiven—he was
a cat, operating solely on instinct. Far
more accountable are those who manage
their business the way Nimbus operated
his—by plopping the unwanted and often
distasteful straight into our unsuspecting
laps under the guise of “marketing.”
Here are my top picks for business
marketing efforts that are as distasteful
as dead critters on the doorstep. Keep in
mind that I’m not talking about illegal
practices such as e-mail spam. Rather,
these are strategies that fall under gray
areas of marketing etiquette.
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