Twitter for Business, contests not recommended
When I saw that Twitter had released a Twitter 101 for Business today, I had to look at it, even as I dreaded what I might see. Lately, in the local Columbus Twitterverse, some companies are getting big kudos for running those “follow us and retweet this message to win” contests, and marketing folks are all abuzz with how “connected” the company is because they are giving away things to their customers.
Now, I don’t have to tell you how much those things make me want to vomit. I’ve done that before. Though the latest buzz does make me question whether some of these self-proclaimed marketing/PR/social media gurus really care about how the company appears to people, or want to encourage them to continue to give them free stuff for talking about them even if it’s not effective.
But I digress. Much to my delight, in looking over Twitter’s own recommendations for how businesses could use the service to connect with their customers, there is nary a mention of using “retweet to win” contests. Maybe Twitter’s founders get that there are some of us who really hate that? Here’s hoping.