Ok, first of all, the hyperbole of the post title is designed for attention. Perhaps my next post will be “This is Why People Hate Bloggers Who Write Hyperbolic Post Titles.” Moving on…
I will try to sidestep the – undoubtedly – hundreds of bloggers and other writers jumping on Randi Zuckerberg for using Veteran’s Day to hawk her book, with no clear connection to veterans in the book whatsoever. PR people and marketers like myself talk ourselves blue in the face about “newsjacking” gone wrong on a weekly basis.
I could also just jump in and attack “social media book authors,” when, in fact, I am impressed – indeed, at time envious – of those who can commit to getting something produced, even if it sits unread on their friends’ dusty bookshelves (I read every book I get, eventually….probably).
I will simply settle in on the sin of “overreach;” people assume that everyone is so excited about what they are doing, that they blast through the boundaries of appropriateness and logic to apply their own pride, their baby, their precious words – to something that makes no sense.
If people understand that what they are doing isn’t always the most important thing in the universe, they will make ore friends- even, to swipe a phrase, influence people.
So, no “PR Lessons from Randi Zuckerberg’s Horrifying Veteran’s Day Hijack:” no “Stop Signing Copies of Your Book in Random Bookstores as if it’s a Golden Ticket:” not even a “Stop Jumping on Everything People do Wrong in Social Media as if You are The Smartest Person on the Twitter.”
Just, think. Think about who actually cares and focus on those people. And move on.
Photo credit: “Horrified” by mirsasha, on Flickr
It’s an extension of the endemic problem of marketing in general. Some people are stuck in “talk about me as loudly and as often as I can” mode. It seems to have escaped them that that method has been rapidly losing effectiveness since before some of us were even born. The time may come again where people want fantasy-world company-focused marketing again as the new methodology gets stale.
But we’re in the infancy stages – people rarely think of their products, services or business in terms of what the best market is and what it needs, and how to deliver what they’re selling into that conversation stream. It’s confounding to me, still, that individuals and companies are so afraid to do what’s effective because of what they have accepted by default to be “normal” or “the way these things are done.”
[…] This is Why People Hate “Social Media Authors” – smart post here from my buddy Doug Haslam on how authors of “social media” books often forget the rules of the platforms they are pimping expertise on. […]