Comments on: The Ugly Side of Social Media: Entitlement

By: People Are Bored of Mass Communication and Expect Personalised Communications That Mean Something to Them « New Media Marketing Conns' Blog

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:46:50 +0000

[...] Shannon Paul, http://veryofficialblog.com/2010/01/05/the-ugly-side-of-social-media-entitlement/, [...]

By: Loren Rochelle

Loren Rochelle — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:40:27 +0000

“To me, this is what it means to be a part of social business communication, not simply applying a new dogma with a new set of rules that must be adhered to as rigidly as the old ones.”

Shannon, I really enjoyed reading this, and I couldn’t agree more. I feel so often in this social space everyone knows better than the next person about “the rules” and are so quick to scrutinize the actions of others (pitch practices or anything else for that matter) when the beauty of social media is that it is so fluid. There are no strict guidelines. You do what is best and works for you, your company, your service etc. within reason

and generally speaking few people have the time or energy to send out 100 personalized emails (except for you apparently: re: Danny Brown comment ;)
so why bash someone for being human? Seems a little contradictory if you ask me.
At the end of the day many need to put away those egos.

By: Danny Brown

Danny Brown — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:02:24 +0000

PS – While I see what you’re saying, bad/impersonal/mass/whatever you wish to label will remain that unless we highlight bad (perceived or otherwise) pitches along with the good. I’m not too keen on that, myself.

Cheers!

By: Danny Brown

Danny Brown — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:00:34 +0000

Then you haven’t sent me a pitch – I always make a point to reply and thank every personalized one :)

By: Internet Strategy, Marketing & Technology Links – Jan 7, 2010 | Sazbean

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:34:51 +0000

[...] The Ugly Side of Social Media: Entitlement (Shannon Paul) [...]

By: Anna Barcelos

Anna Barcelos — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:47:26 +0000

Edit: I liked your reference to the typical “you don’t know me well, but I see you on __insert social network here____and sent you information on my product/services/pitch” I think as marketers ourselves we are ultra-sensitive to these types of communications because we know “the man behind the curtain routine” before even getting these communications.

By: Anna Barcelos

Anna Barcelos — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:45:35 +0000

I think as humans we are so tricky. I have days when even if it’s an email I subscribed to I still feel like these people just don’t get me. The obviousness of it being a mass email urks me, and I’m a marketer who does email marketing for companies. Go figure. Other days, I will get a spam email that I find interesting. A lot of it has to do with timing as well. I liked your reference to the typical “you don’t know me well, but I see you on and sent you information on my product/services/pitch” I think as marketers ourselves we are ultra-sensitive to these types of communications because we know “the man behind the curtain routine” before even getting these communications.

By: Nikki Stephan

Nikki Stephan — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 04:23:50 +0000

Thanks for this post, Shannon! I agree with Melissa’s comment. It’s very ironic that the journalists/bloggers who spend the time outing some PR pro who (according to their standards) didn’t properly “pitch” them are also complaining that they don’t have time to read through all these irrelevant e-mails.

You can argue that the result of all this public ousting of PR pros who are being lazy and not sending relevant and personalized e-mails to media/bloggers has forced many to always make sure they’re bringing out their A-game. On the flip side, it’s not necessary to get on a soap box and preach about how “another dumb PR pro” sent out a mass e-mail.

I wish everyone were as open as you are to receiving a “hey, not sure if this is exactly something you would write about, but wanted to run it past you anyway” type of e-mail. That’s being human right, but sometimes that’s viewed as not doing your homework. There are many PR pros who do a darn good job of researching a reporter/blogger before doing outreach, but sometimes it’s still unclear if a particular news item will interest that person.

I know people in the PR industry who are terrified of sending e-mails in fear of being one of those who gets trashed on a blog. And that’s sad. A simple “no thanks, not interested” is much more respectful, thank you!

I’ll cut my rambling off there, but thanks for giving a voice to this topic.

By: Shannon Paul

Shannon Paul — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:25:16 +0000

I just had a funny thought. Maybe I should start taking pictures of all the direct mail pieces I’m forced to physically throw away and blog about them. ;-)

By: Shannon Paul

Shannon Paul — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:24:13 +0000

Melissa,
Good point – I don’t have time to delete, but I have time (and energy) to get upset and flame you all over the Interwebs :-)