Say no to spamming: Engage with others as you would like to be engaged with #socialmedia #spam

Photo credit: Ben Brown

Who amongst us has not been a victim of unsolicited mail, telephone calls, emails or posts showing on our social media timelines?

While there may be few lucky people out there who are oblivious to spamming, many more have  either experienced or practiced one or more form of spamming.

Bulk messaging

When was the last that as a communication professional or social media strategist you sent out messages with the same or similar content? When was the last time you cross-posted or received the same message from different networks?

Sharing undesired or excessive content

When was the last time you received unsolicited content? And when was the last time you pushed out unsolicited content to your network(s)?

Clickbaiting 

When was the last time you clicked on a link because the headline caught your attention to then be totally disappointed by the content of the article? When was the last time you created the coolest headline to entice your readers to click on the embedded link which did not quite match your headline?

We’ve all been victims of spamming and in our digital journey, may have also practiced spamming.

As social media strategists, to maximize the reach of our content, we may have:

• pushed out similar type of content over multiple channels for a more or less prolonged period of time
• created pre-canned tweets, Facebook and Instagram posts asking our networks to share these with their respective audience
• reported live from events inundating cyberspace with podium images and content which is the contrary to soundbites
• repeatedly promoted dull content

After practicing the above sins, we’ve sulked as our intentional or unintentional spamming resulted in a sharp fall in:

• engagement - hardly any of our followers, let alone our influencer(s) engaged with the content
• audience - many of our followers unfollowed or unfriended us and as a result
• reach - if our average likes or retweets were in the hundreds, our spam content yielded no more than 10 likes or retweets

The digital space is not different than real life…… As such the saying “Do to others as you would have them do to you”….. holds true here as well……

Remember, “Engage with others as you would like to be engaged with”. 

• Quality over quantity
• Create compelling content, as this travels miles and miles and at speed of light
• Nurture your solid and trusted followers/networks

So instead of spinning your wheels in creating content for the sake of creating content and pushing it out indiscriminately, invest in your network(s). 

To expand your digital foot print, create content that allows you to reach out to new unconverted groups and communities.

Remember at the end of the day, it is PEOPLE who make your content go viral. FOCUS on PEOPLE and less on process.

Next time someone spams you, remind them that for their content to go viral, it needs to resonate with the audience - you being one of them. Work with them and make their spam content salient and relevant. And once you’ve done so, celebrate putting another nail in the spam coffin!

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I am writing a series of guest blogs for @unsocial500 on how to boost engagement on social media. The purpose of the series is to share best practices and tips. The above blogpost first appeared on UN Social 500 site. If there is a specific topic you want more information and guidance on, please let me know so that I can put it in the pipeline :)