Micro-Blogging at its WORST

It is interesting how Twitter has now made a deep cut into the mainstream of society.  Its no surprise that mainstream marketing firms and individuals who consult in traditional marketing are not too far behind.  Oh, there have been Marketing/PR people by the thousands out here for a long time all beating their drum delivering some message they feel needs to be delivered, but it is the way they suggest to others they need to deliver their message to the market that begs for the question…

Why?

As a consumer more than a marketer I see these efforts to promote something or someone as more than blatant advertisements, I see them as the equivalent of the Gigantic billboards flashing information of absolute no value.  There are methods of marketing on the internet that provide little results to businesses and do nothing but get in the way of what people on the internet today are out here on the internet are here to do.   Again, if I am not seeing any value of information these businesses are shouting then WHO is?

I agree that Twitter can be used in many ways and within any given moment there are a large number of people who are using at least one of them.  However, the one that is getting totally out of hand is the marketing methods more and more PEOPLE feel they HAVE to use (Sorry, I use the all caps to illustrate one of the methods marketers feel works best on Twitter) and that is what I call the Indirect Fire method of marketing.

The Indirect Fire method of Tweeting is where someone signs up for Twitter, uploads a logo or in some cases a person swinging a golf club, and does NOTHING but post Headlines and a URL link to some worthless article they more than likely wrote.  They post these one after another.  In some cases posting dozens at the same time. They do this blindly and without remorse to what they are doing or who they are doing it to.  There motive is the same as the military where the term Indirect Fire comes from..where they lay down suppressive fire from a long distance away so no retaliatory return fire to stop the Indirect Fire can be made. They use scouts to call in the coordinates of where to fire and rely on the scouts feedback to tell them if they hit the target or not.  This is very effective in war, but in business…the effort is wasted.

Since I pulled down the spray of tweets from the main feed of Twitter to viewing only my followers and those who I follow I use to not see much of this Indirect Fire take place.  But since the crash of the economy a few months ago more and more marketing people are flooding into the golf arena to use this method of marketing.

But again, Why do these people use this method of marketing and why do market firms feel this an effective method of selling something?

Recently, during an offline networking opportunity I caught up with one of these people who hides beyond the horizon and uses the Indirect Fire method of marketing on Twitter.  What I found was someone who handed over a butt load of money to a PR firm to set him up online and power him with tools to home in on lucrative markets.  He was quiet open with me and gloating on how much the method of marketing has raised his Google Rating.  But when I asked if he was making any sales I got what I hear a lot from these fools say…

“Ahhh, No, not yet, but (fill in the name of many Marketing/PR Firm Here) tells me that this is normal and it takes patients to start gaining sales in this economy”

He went on to say that even though his product is not really centered in the golf arena (fill in many PR Firm’s Name Here) tells him that golfers right now are the best demographic to market to since they have deeper pockets than the rest of the market.

I asked how he went about marketing to them and this is where I was educated to how he, and more than likely the rest of these misguided business people, is being told to use Twitter to market using this indirect fire method.

Naturally, I was curious so I took an enthusiastic attitude towards asking him more questions to find out what he knows and why he was thinking that the Indirect Fire method of marketing on Twitter was the way to go. To boil my questions and his answers down here is his answers to my questions ..

• I was told to not bother with worrying why I am doing what I am doing since making sales is all I should be concerned with.
• Relationship Building is good only with customers who bring me large amounts of Profit.
• Since my business depends on large volumes of sales I don’t have the time to build relationships with prospects that may not produce a sale TODAY.
• I paid a large amount of my start-up funds to (fill in many marketing/PR Firm) to get set up with all of these tools which includes my many Twitter accounts I use under different names.
• They tell me where the markets are and provide me with the information to post and how to post the volumes of information needed to get recognized on Twitter.
• (Fill in any Marketing/PR Firm) tells me I should not give a rat’s ass about who I send it to..if they are not buying I don’t really care.

There were a few more remarks he made that did nothing but further prove that he is probably like many others who buy into this method of marketing that really never worked before but sound good when they are backed up with a slick promotion brochure or web-site of the Marketing/PR firm.

What I found also interesting was this individual (who I purposeful leave unidentified) gleefully spilled all of this inside information out to me before he got around to ask what I did for business.

Yes, this is where the fun part of that evening networking group began and when I turned my remarks to becoming Direct Fire statements.  (Direct Fire is also a military artillery term that describes how large artillery fire is made when the target is in sight and immediate results of that barrage can be seen.)

I’ll leave until some other time to tell you the unpleasantries of me verbally dismembering him with explaining to him that I am one of the thousands effected by his indirect marketing efforts he uses on twitter.  I will suffice it to say that he was not very comfortable and defended his actions with what probably was more misguided instruction from his marketing company on how to handle this confrontation.

I am sure that if he kept my business card longer than it took him to hit the door after the receiving additional tongue lashing from those standing around us during his boastful misguided oratory, I am sure he now is Unfollowing me from Twitter..One can only hope.

Where do these marketing strategists come up with thinking that providing a barrage of worthless, unrelated posts on Twitter with links off to articles and news reports that are further unrelated to anything makes for GOOD marketing?  I was not surprised to hear this individual go through his gleeful strategies on making a buck.  I have heard it many times before behind closed doors in the corporate planning meetings I sat in with the marketing executives of yesteryear. Its unfortunate that there are still those people around who are trying to keep their influence in the business world with perpetuating this utter nonsense.

This method of taking a complete hands off approach to selling a product or service, or branding a person is not only not going to work in today’s business world but is and will work against anyone who is using it.  The results…well, blocking the person or company from the Twitter community is the ultimate solution for Tweets who have had enough of this nonsense.  With enough BLOCKS it will result in Twitter stopping their account.  But probably more devastating to these misguided individuals who use Indirect Fire marketing is it leaves a long lasting negative impression by many who will remember their business, brand or logo as being in their way of using Twitter for what it is best set up for and that is relationship building.

So, beware of how you look or how others see you when you are told that keeping a distance from the Twitter community is the thing to do. If you really care about succeeding out here in La-La-Land you need to find solid advice on how to use these tools and more importantly taking someone’s lead on what the end result of what you do out here will be.  There are a lot of people out here who are out to deceive you and that is real unfortunate.

Let me know how I can help.