Pushing marketing is starting to show up in some of our social media news feeds. Businesses are trying to find ways of advertising to you by throwing something out at you. Sponsored ads have been around on Twitter for a while. Now Facebook is displaying sponsored adds in our news feeds as well. Are they effective or are they annoying? 

Just when you thought your social media was going to be free of ads. I asked a few people about what they thought of them. Everyone I communicated with did not want to see them at all. Facebook will argue that this is the price for enjoying a free social media application. After all, they own it and they can do what ever they want.

I suspect that we will have to deal with the sponsored ads in our news feeds. After some time, you will blank them out and you will forget they even exist. That’s what you are currently doing with the ads on the right side of Facebook. Yes, you are blanking them out for the most part. Let me ask you to recall what the last ad you remember? I bet you cannot remember any ads at all. I don’t look in the right section with the ads at all. I could not even begin to tell you what the last ad I saw was.

Some businesses are going well beyond this, and even breaking the terms of service of the social media applications. This is where it gets real annoying. Have you ever had a business spam you right in your news feed. How can this happen?

  • Well on Facebook, businesses can set up illegal Facebook profiles for business. They then aggressively pursue  “Friends” so that they can push their ads to their news feeds. This is totally against the Facebook Terms of Service.
  • Businesses also can try to find places on Facebook, acting as a Business Facebook Page, to dump their ads and thus spam other Pages. They think that as long as they push their message out, it’s “All Good”. Well it’s not. As far as business etiquette goes, this is not a good way to do business.
  • On other social networks, many businesses are just pushing their ads out over and over. There is no value for the readers in this case. These businesses will just get ignored or blocked.

So what’s a business to do if it realizes that pushing ads out is not working? A business has to rely on “Pull”. They have to create content or ads that the customer will pull in and share with others. Businesses need to gear their social media for the customer in mind. Customers will respond to businesses in a favorable way and often will share they offerings. But shoving things down a customer’s throat definitely will not work anymore. We are in a new environment where customers have changed.

Unfortunately, some businesses think it’s business as usual. They will do what ever they feel they need to do, whether it is ethical or not. These businesses will have a hard time marketing in the days ahead. Customers are not going to take it anymore. All they have to do is hit the delete or block button and it’s all over.

A smart business will work with its customers and include them in their marketing efforts. Yes you heard me right. In the “Pull” economy of today, customers can help your business do better. It’s called digital word of mouth, and it works. There is still marketing to be done. Every business out their needs to sell something. It’s how the selling is done.

Doing business well is about creating visibility, creating like and creating trust. Customers use the Internet to find what they need. Then they connect and attempt to do business. If the business transaction goes well, the customer might like the business and start to tell others. Once the customer feels safe with the business, then more referrals and sharing can occur. People want to help their friends find safe places to do business. No one wants to refer a friend and have them ripped off.

So is “Push” rearing it’s ugly head into social media? Sponsored ads are appearing more and more. I don’t mind them to much. But what does bother me and many others is a businesses’ attempt to drive their marketing down our throats by spamming us or forcing their marketing in places where it does not belong. This unethical practice won’t get a business too far. It might even hurt them in the end.

The better business path is “Pull”. Work with your customer and train them to share your marketing. Make it share able and customers will share it. Make your customers feel good about doing business with you and they will love it. Win their hearts with good customer service and they will tell others. That’s how to win in this business economy; especially if it’s online. The only question now is this…”Are you PUSH or are you PULL?”