Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Chris Heuer — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:37:56 -0000

Lets also talk about the amount of money some people force companies to waste in defence of trying to do the right thing. Do you have any idea of how many people I dont know who tweet at me to get my attention? I am not even well known really, and I have people attacking me for no reason (they are blocked but show up in Summize which is what I rely on).

I know Khris fairly well and can vouch for the fact that he is one the nicest, most sincere people I have ever met in the technology field. He is pro open standards and against spam. The wild thing that I noticed in reading this thread is that no one pointed out that Khris was not trying to sell anything, he was trying to give away something - he is trying to help you and you got upset. Yes he is promoting his service, of course. What about all of the Firefox advocates who tell users of other browsers they need to switch, are they spamming?

I don't think it is aggressive at all, but rather smart. It is also the matter of human beings talking to other human beings, not bots responding automatically. The humans in the company responded in a human way to acknowledge Scott's request... the company did not spam him again - it publicly commented to the person talking about them publicly.

These are the opportunities we have to figure out where the line is and help educate more people about what is generally acceptable and what is not. That said, what is welcome by one person is not welcome by another, and that is ok, and that is how it should be. So Scott, you are entitled to your opinion, it just seems that most other people disagree...

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

John H — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:48:18 -0000

Scott, with all due respect, you're embarrassing yourself. Look, even if you consider yourself a tragic victim, get over it. There are far worse things in life than your apparently traumatic experience, rest assured. As marketers, JS-Kit comes across as aggressive, but as a person, you come across as uptight, pompous, self-obsessed, you get the point.

Big deal, the "spam" took a few minutes out of your precious life. You've spent much more time than that complaining about it. And your intentionally harmful campaign against JS-Kit, which is so ironic and hypocritical that it is seriously funny, will waste even more time.

For your own sake, get over yourself. And I hereby formally, officially, and legally grant you permission to respond to me, but I promise I won't respond back. I have already made my point (as you made yours long ago) and frankly have more important things to do than to bicker over it (as you continue to do with yours).

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Susan C — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:38:17 -0000

Gotta love the irony!

The guy who initiated this b/c of a tweet he thought spam has decided to do same multiplied by x on twitter! Watch out twitterland!

Disqus must be hating this drama renegade.

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Scott Kaiser — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:36:06 -0000

I don't know Nancy. I always thought that "stop" in fact meant stop, and good companies would know enough to honor a person's request to stop contacting them. Instead you felt (for some inexplicable reason) that I would actually welcome another tweet from your company after asking you not to send me anymore. Strange reasoning that I don't understand. Must be this "marketing" everyone is talking about.

Drama? Yep. The reason? You've been exposed. Worse yet, someone is determined to do something about it. Drama also includes lies- something you did when you said you don't follow Disqus on Twitter. You may not "follow" them per se, but you obviously search twitter for them. My tweet to Daniel Ha that Khris came across did not include the words "comments" or "commenting" so he couldn't have found it searching for those.

I personally like the way that this will now show up in Google search results when your company is searched for. It will give people a better idea of your business practices and let them make a more informed choice about your company. I know a lot of comments here have been supportive of your "aggressive marketing" technique, but I know in the real world that won't fly. How many people *like* receiving telemarketing phone calls even when it's a product they might otherwise be interested in? Why would the Do Not Call list even exist if nearly everybody liked telemarketing calls? What you are doing is roughly equivalent to that. Sure, it might get you a few sales here and there, but in the long run I think it will give your company more of a black eye than help it. That's something any *good* marketer would know.

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Nancy Cole — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:55:45 -0000

Scott, you mean this tweet?

nancycole: @SVKinAZ actually, neither @khrisloux nor I follow daniel or his co. but do look for improvements in commenting services. be well.

Seems innocuous enough, or so I thought.

Your request to Khris was that he not send you unsolicited spam. My reply was an FYI to you/correction of info (we don't "follow" Daniel or his company, but rather search for areas where people are looking for help).

Anyway, thanks for the compliment and attention. This is all seeming rather dramatic for one little tweet offering help.

As a twitter acquaintance of mine likes to put it... "keep it classy"! :)

Out.
N

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Scott Kaiser — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:31:41 -0000

Oh Nancy-

What a good little PR hack you are!

Why didn't you mention to everyone that *you* were the employee that sent me another tweet AFTER I asked Khris not to?

Why didn't you further mention that you DENIED following Disqus or Daniel Ha on Twitter, yet that is the ONLY way Khris could have found that original tweet of mine to Daniel Ha (you weren't following me and neither was Khris).

What bothers me is not so much that Khris did it in the first place, but that you contacted me via Twitter after I made it clear I didn't want to be contacted by your company AND that you then denied what you admit to in your comment above. Should I resort to saying "liar, liar, pants of fire"?

If you can follow discussions on Twitter to send people unsolicited tweets about your company, I suppose I can do the same. I have just set up a new Twitter ID with the sole purpose of watching you, Khris, and your company. Anyone you contact I will also contact and tell them what a bad experience I've had with your company and advise them to stay away. After all, if all you and Khris are doing is "aggressive marketing" according other commentors, then I'm just aggressively marketing against you, right?

All is fair in love and marketing I guess.

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Nancy Cole — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:18:22 -0000

Hi all,

What a great conversation and an important issue.

To be clear, what we try to do at JS-Kit, is to reach out to folks on twitter who are selecting a commenting/rating/polling system, or wishing for features that we already have. Then,we will jump in and ask them to check us out -- esp if they are debating between a couple of systems but haven't mentioned us. Typically, we don't tweet people who are already customers of a competitor and market the same product to them.

Recently there have been a lot of tweets from people who are looking to import comments from other systems, which we do, so we will respond and let them know that. We like to point out features that are different from others like full SEO support, portable visitor profile, etc. If, in this case, Khris was overzealous and responded to an existing customer of a competitor, then we were working too fast and got a little excited. We will make an effort to communicate with people during a decision-making process (similar to what the competition does if you read their tweets too -- to be crediting others for their savvy marketing tactics :)) and who are looking for features that we have that others don't.

Thanks again for all of the discourse and interest. Always happy to hear from you.
Nancy
@nancycole
nancy@js-kit.com

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Matt — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:09:39 -0000

"...web-based system of junk mail..."

Bloggers have already turned Twitter into this with the use of automated scripts that quadruple tweet each time they write a blog post... so we can't blame Orbitz and Expedia for just following suit.

It's not as idealistic as all that... you use a free service where your profile is public (though you have been given ample opportunity by the service provider to rectify that if you so desired)... you issue public messages that are open to reply. That's the way it is... sometimes those replies might be motivated by... gasp.. commercial interest... holy fucking shit... when did the web turn into a place to try and make money??

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Matt — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:59:52 -0000

Disqus is neat.

JS-Kit has an ugly website.

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Snowboardjohn — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:33:16 -0000

Didn't some guy write a book about this kind of thing... a guy named Seth... something about a word starting with "P"...

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Snowboardjohn — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:27:31 -0000

It's a good example of right place, right time, wrong message.

If the guy had approached Scott attempting to HELP him without selling him anything, he would have built some trust, likeability, rapport, and so on.

If Scott appreciated the advice and the interaction, he would have clicked on the guys profile, seen the link to his website and investigated the situation further.

Social Media Marketing is about relationships, and understanding that to get a date, you need to ask for a phone numbers first, and to ask for a phone number, you need to get a name, and to get a name, you need to say something interesting, relevant, personal.... get it?

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

StefTampa — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:13:33 -0000

I think it is just smart marekting too.

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

StevenHodson — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:43:57 -0000

sorry but any company that pulls this kind of crap regardless of how *brilliant* you might think it is would end up on my blocked list

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Scott Kaiser — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:07:36 -0000

I can understand where a lot of people think that this was just marketing, but let me make two last points:

-I was upset because I didn't feel that I was necessarily broadcasting my tweet. Obviously I should have used the "d" direct message and not the "@" reply. I learned a lesson about how to use Twitter in that regard.

-THE LARGER QUESTION IS: If "aggressive marketing" like this on Twitter is permitted and even encouraged, where will it end? At what point will it make Twitter unusable.

CONSIDER THIS EXAMPLE: I tweet to my friends that my plane just arrived back into Phoenix and am home now. Suddenly I get tweets from Jet Blue, United, US Airways, Orbitz, Expedia, Airport Parking, & a host of others looking for keywords on Twitter like "plane" "airport" or "jet" Consider if they set-up a bot that looks for those keywords and ends up sending you multiple tweets. It would instantly reduce Twitter to nothing more than a web-based system of junk mail.

That is the impetus for me being upset at JS-Kit's marketing. Sure it might seem permittable by some, but what will it lead to?

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Scott Kaiser — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:57:54 -0000

Andrea-

Yes, irate is a bit of a strong word. I was annoyed, and I used the word appalled in my e-mail, but in the end the problem was reasonably easily solved by me hitting the "block" button on Twitter.

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Crunchy — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:31:17 -0000

If products sold themselves people wouldn't have to spam; unfortunately, unless your name is Apple that is far from the case. So spammers have to do what they have to do. BTW if you're in need of a good laugh visit Digitalfuntown.com

http://www.digitalfuntown.com/

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Jeffry Houser — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:24:34 -0000

A lot of people do this sort of thing. They probably have a "Track" set up on certain terms and send follow up 'marketing' responses based on those tracks.

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Eric — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:56:54 -0000

If this is not spam then it is some other kind of junk mail... uh twitter. What they are doing is sending unsolicited messages to a competator's customers, that is spam when it is email, and spam on twitter.

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Jason Lancaster — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:10:53 -0000

Twitter is all about "noise." That's what you do when you make something public there... you expect to hear about things related to the thing you made public. If you expect it to be some sort of private opt-in conversation only, you're in the wrong place.

Since Scott's request to not be contacted was made in a public place, JS-Kit had every right to make their response and position (even if it isn't right) known to the world and right back at Scott.

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Andrea Yager — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 10:49:37 -0000

I think I read most of the story and follow up comments, and have to say Scott is lucky to be making money today!

Every medium, free, and often paid for, is a venue for others to promote themselves. Unsolicited! Most businesses cant exist in a vacuum. Many of us post on this blog for recognition, and the occasional click back to my site (you know you want to click on my name - go for it!) :)

Someone is overreacting here. Either Mashable for calling you irate, or you for being irate. I can see where you would be 'annoyed' or 'disinterested' in pursuing a biz relationship, but irate is a serious word for something so benign and frankly common.

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

James Holden — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 10:43:48 -0000

You cannot accuse someone of being a spammer if you put your contact details out in the public domain. This is very clever marketing!

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

Guest — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:55:54 -0000

Disqus drama queen: If you want us to ignore you, tweet privately.

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

akaraff — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:24:00 -0000

This is pretty humorous. Scott is placing information into the public domain and for some reason he thinks he has the right to some kind privacy. If you want privacy stay out of the public domain. If you want to receive information about a certain topic or product then tweet about it. I would hate to see this post and others like it hurt the ability for companies and/or people to send me information that I am interested in. In this world of information overload, it is nice to have other folks searching or recommending things for me. The reality is that if I get this type of communication sent to me and I don't like it I just block them. If I get this type of communication sent to me and I like it then I follow them. I have received far more good information than bad.

Here's a thought. Maybe you should write McAfee and ask them to build a twitter spam plugin. I wouldn't recommend using twitter to send the message or you may receive some good suggestions from folks looking to help solve your problem.

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

RY — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:04:35 -0000

This has been happening on forums for ages. Salespeople checking forums and privately contacting those who seem to need their services.

This is what Google also does, check your keywords and show you ads. Except that here a human seems to be involved in the contact process.

Re: Is it Spamming or Savvy Marketing?

MichelleBB — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:56:45 -0000

Savvy marketing is about connecting with your customer (or potential customer, in this case) at the right time with the right offer and through the right channel. It's obvious from Scott's response that JS-Kit did not adhere to his preferences nor take the time to figure out how to best market to him. It's therefore a poorly executed campaign.

That said, I wouldn't go so far as to call this spam either; the Twitter conversations were out in the open, even the second follow-up Tweet.

I believe you must judge the success of a marketing effort by the end result - in this case, JS-Kit turned off a potential buyer, and even worse, turned him into a detractor.

JS-Kit, what are you going to do to address Scott's concerns? Will you adjust your methods?