Outsourcing the Condemned
In this day and age, it’s hard to ignore social media. It’s on television, on the radio, in magazines, in books… If I’m not mistaken, I believe I even saw it promoted on a grocery receipt. So when I see marketers employ a strategy that doesn’t exploit its advantages, I have to wonder: under which rock are they marketing?? — Especially when these people market online.
Online, social media is inescapable. It’s in software, in newsletters, on websites, in email… It’s on my computer and I’m sure it’s on yours too. So there’s no excuse for what I continuously see marketers do on a daily basis: outsource strategies that are no longer effective (or even allowed in some cases). Here’s an example.
Outsourcing the Condemned
Google recently announced its decision to reduce search engine spam. Although what constitutes spam can be widely interpretive, we all have a general clue of what search engine spam looks like and smells like. It’s the grey areas that aren’t so clear. Through social media (i.e. Twitter), however, that grey area is diffusing towards well-defined shades of black and white.
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Update: Techcrunch reports that Blekko is now (or about to) block the top 20 sites its users have marked as a source of web spam. The list includes prominent content producers eHow.com and answerbag.com. Source: WebProNews |
You wouldn’t know that, however, if you gauged acceptable marketing behavior on requests for web scrapers, landing pages, article spinners, and other grey-hat SEO techniques. Despite Google condemning these practices in recent news, some marketers continue to outsource them.
What a waste of hundreds or even thousands of dollars!
Follow, Like, and Connect to Savings
Imagine the savings these marketers would have made if they only followed the right people on Twitter, “liked” the right Facebook pages, and/or made the right “connections” on LinkedIn. Every significant marketing company and their posse of followers, fans, and connections spread the news of Google’s announcement like wildfire.
Interestingly, albeit, foolishly, that doesn’t seem to matter to a few marketers who insist on outsourcing projects doomed to failure. If you’re not following, liking, or connecting through social media, you can and will make the same costly mistakes.
Who or What to Follow
Have no idea as to who or what to follow? Here’s a list of social companies/people we follow on Twitter for starters. At the very least, use this list to flesh out your own money-saving source of news. Your budget could depend on it!
