Even with the huge emphasis placed on permission marketing lately, so many marketers still fail to understand that consumers don’t like to be yelled at.

The paradigm of interruption marketing went out the window long ago and, if you’re not careful, you’ll be going out the window with it.

It doesn’t matter if you’re selling cars, advertising a laundromat, or trying to bring readers to your blog — if your social media strategy is to push, push, yell, and push, you’re not going anywhere.

There are five unfortunately popular examples below describing the annoying pushing and yelling that still plagues social media. Are you using any of these tactics?

#1. Automated Direct Messages on Twitter

When someone follows you on Twitter, there isn’t an implicit agreement saying it’s okay to send them a direct message. Twitter isn’t an email list, it’s a conversation. It’s a conversation centered around the concept of giving before receiving. So, that automated DM requesting a LIKE on your Facebook page when you’ve done literally nothing valuable for that new follower is a bit greedy to say the least.

Sending an automated DM to every new person who follows you is bad Twitter etiquette and it’s plainly hypocritical when your Twitter bio brags about how your mantra for social media success is “engagement.”

There’s nothing genuinely engaging about an automated DM you send to every new follower. Don’t kid yourself: It’s beyond easy to spot them too — automated DMs read like an advertisement, have generic messages, and usually aren’t personalized. People catch on with ease. That’s no way to start a relationship with a new follower.

#2. Sending Posts Directly to People on Google+

I’m not sure why every feature on a new social network needs to be abused. As they say, “marketers ruin everything.” That’s a pretty dismal notion, but as a fellow marketer, I have to say we need to be very careful how we use the tools placed in front of us.

Simply because we have an opportunity to push our message to a wider audience doesn’t necessarily mean we always should.

Since Google+ has been growing in popularity, I’ve seen an increase in the number of people using the feature that allows you to share posts directly with people — this sends both a Google+ notification and an email to the receiver.

It’s not a big problem to use this feature occasionally, especially if you’re very selective with who you’re sending the post, but it has the potential to quickly spiral out of control. If you just had a major breakthrough and got published on Forbes or another big name blog, that’s awesome and you should let people know. On the flip side, you don’t need to directly notify people about every new post you publish. This will quickly get your account flagged as spam from a lot of people.

#3. Inviting Everyone and Their Mothers to Contribute to Your Pinterest Group Board

I haven’t seen too many complaints about this yet, but it’s a growing problem. I’ve been getting a lot of invites on Pinterest from random people asking me to contribute to their group Pinterest boards and let me say this:

No, I don’t really want to pin on your Pinterest board. I’ve never met you or had any interaction with you anywhere in the social media sphere.

Group Pinterest boards were definitely meant for collaboration, there’s no doubt about that. However, I doubt the creators of Pinterest envisioned users spamming invites to people who have shared no interactions in the past. If you have relationships with a group of people, collaborating on a group Pinterest board can be a great social media tactic.

The key is the relationship should already exist. If you want to collaborate on a Pinterest board with someone, at least introduce yourself first via a tweet, blog comment, or some other means. Yes, it slows down the process and spamming is easier, but you’re likely to get more people to collaborate if you don’t spam and you’re just being annoying otherwise.

#4. Using Hashtags on Facebook

This isn’t so much an issue of permission-based marketing as it is simply looking like you don’t know what you’re doing.

If you’re a social media marketer at any level and you’re using hashtags on Facebook, there’s a big problem. Of course, most people who do this will say they have their Twitter and Facebook accounts linked.

While I’m not a big fan of connecting accounts, I realize it have benefits in some cases. However, you should be very careful when cross-posting on multiple networks, because using hashtags on Facebook is a shot to your credibility as a social media marketer.

Apart from that, it’s annoying! Hashtags have absolutely no functional value on Facebook as they do on Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest and it really does irk some people when they see hashtags on Facebook. Perception is reality in marketing, so it’s in your best interests to protect your perception.

#5 Sending Mass Google+ Community Invites

This one is unfortunate, because I like to join new Google+ Communities and test the waters. I don’t mind being invited to Communities in principle. What’s annoying is being invited to Communities about pottery, parasailing, breeding rabbits, or climbing trees while holding a baseball bat between your teeth. Okay, those last two didn’t actually happen, but you get the point.

I decided to turn off community invites entirely about two weeks ago, because it just got out of control.

If you insist on inviting people to your Google+ Community, please take the time to target your invites to people who show at least some slight interest in the topic of your Community. For one, it’s simply good manners. For two, it keeps your account from getting marked as spam and subsequently suspended or banned.

What We Need Here is a Little Empathy

I understand we’re all trying to get our messages out there. We want people to see what we’re doing and we want them to love us. That’s a basic human desire and it can definitely be hard to tame.

Let’s pause for a second, though. As humans, we have the ability to step outside our own minds to a degree. We’re able to place ourselves in the shoes of others and feel what they’re feeling — that is the very essence of empathy and at the core of making ethical decisions.

Try this little exercise: The next time you’re sending an automated DM, community invite, email, making a Facebook update, or carrying out any other digital marketing effort, genuinely try to put yourself in the shoes of the person who will be on the receiving end of your message. If you were on the receiving end:

• Would you be annoyed by the message?
• Would you hit the delete button before even giving a second thought to the message?
• Would you want to continue building a relationship with the person who sent the message?

Relationships are built on trust and selflessness, not a constant ring of, “Give me, give me, give me.” Every detail matters in marketing, so I challenge you to take this exercise seriously the next time you’re preparing to send a message to others via social media.



































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Despite facing plenty of controversy over its proposed Terms of Service changes, Instagram remains a hot site for both users and the marketers who want to capitalize on its popularity. If you've never used it before, Instagram is one part Flickr and one part Twitter: essentially a community in which users take and share photos with one another.

From a marketing perspective, the community's enthusiastic fan base and built-in social aspects make it an ideal place to connect with potential customers and build brand recognition. Here's how your business can take advantage of Instagram's potential:


Plan your content strategy.

Before you post your first image to Instagram, plan out a content strategy for the types of images you'll share and how these graphics communicate your brand's message. Although plenty of people use Instagram for personal purposes -- posting everything from pictures of their lunches to their pets -- businesses must be more strategic.

To start, identify potential followers by seeing who's following your competitors on the site. Then, take a look at the images they're liking and sharing and consider their preferences when defining your own content strategy. That way, you should ensure that any image you post to the site will appeal to your new followers.

As you go through this process, continually ask yourself the following questions to help guide the content curation process:

• What types of content do my potential followers seem to prefer?
• What types of content will most likely encourage these Instagram users to engage with my brand?
• How can I share content that will get people talking about my brand?

The TweetDeck app is dead -- at least it will be soon.

The service, which Twitter bought in 2011, announced on its blog on Monday that it will discontinue its mobile and desktop versions, including the apps TweetDeck AIR, TweetDeck for Android, and TweetDeck for iPhone.


According to the TweetDeck blog, the apps will be removed from their respective stores in early May and will stop working shortly after that. The company also said it will discontinue support for its Facebook integration.

“To continue to offer a great product that addresses your unique needs, we’re going to focus our development efforts on our modern, web-based versions of TweetDeck,” the company said on its blog.

TweetDeck emerged as one of the more popular and useful tools for monitoring and tracking conversations on Twitter. It was free, and it was useful. Recently, however, it’s become less popular with social media managers. TweetDeck was stuck in a middle ground -- the average Twitter user doesn’t need a management tool, and brand managers tend to gravitate toward the more sophisticated tools.

However, if TweetDeck’s demise leaves you scrambling for a new social media management tool, here are a few of the top alternatives -- they’re not free, but they do offer a host of services that go beyond most free monitoring tools:

Better for social media publishing: 

HootSuite. One of the most popular Twitter management tools, HootSuite enables you to manage multiple accounts across multiple social platforms. Last September, HootSuite acquired another top TweetDeck alternative, Seesmic.

Sprout Social. Here’s another popular management tool in which you can schedule posts and get snapshot metrics. It’s not free, nor as cheap as HootSuite, but it’s customizable in ways that HootSuite isn’t.

SpredFast. This tool markets itself to large brands and caters to them, while Sprout and HootSuite could be just as effective if you were using it for personal account management.

Better for social listening/monitoring: 

Radian6 (now called Salesforce Marketing Cloud). Clients are often comfortable when their agencies use Radian6. It’s relatively easy to use, and empowers companies to clearly understand their place in social.

Crimson Hexagon. Looking for in-depth sentiment metrics to help you determine your overall social strategy? This is absolutely your tool. The depth of information you can mine from Crimson Hexagon is truly awesome.

Sysomos. Although Sysomos is less sophisticated than Radian6 or Crimson Hexagon, it is easy to use for quick monitoring around your brand. It’s better as an everyday tool than the others.




































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Peter, a friend of mine and I decided to look for some holiday work to top up our meager income. He had some contacts in a local steel plant that was offering some holiday shift work that paid well.

The only challenge was that it was a 12 hour night shift.

On taking the job I was given the task to sit on the other side of a machine that chopped large pieces of metal into smaller pieces of metal. Task two was stacking those small pieces of metal into piles on a pallet.

This was brain numbing. By the end of the first night I was thinking, there had to be a better way.

I also had an insight about my future career path and it was “not” going to be in a steel fabrication factory!

Twitter can be tedious

When I started with Twitter it was great to see people start to retweet my content.  On a social web it is not just  about you, so you need to share other people’s content that adds value to your followers and friends. This can be done a few ways. I can follow their Twitter feed and retweet their content when they tweet it. Another way is to check their blog for new content.

The problem is that this can take a lot of time and it is tedious. I thought, there has to be a better way.

So I had to find an answer to the question. How can I share fellow bloggers content that I trust without sitting at my computer all day?

The Twitter tool that saves time

In my quest I stumbled upon Twitterfeed.com that allowed me to share great content from other bloggers on automatic pilot. It meant that every time they published a new post it was tweeted into my Twitter stream.

It serves three purposes.

1. It shows up in my Twitter feed and alerts me to new content from bloggers who know their stuff. They publish and I learn.
2. It also places valuable information into the Twitter accounts of my followers. They discover.  
3. It makes sure that I don’t miss sharing their new content every time it is published. The tool handles it and doesn’t forget.

So how do you use it?

Step One: Create a new feed

Go to the top of the Twitterfeed dashboard and click on the create new feed . In a few simple steps you will improve your social media effectiveness.



Step Two:  Create a name for the feed

In this example I am entering Jay Baer whose blog “Convince and Convert” is one of the top marketing resources on the web, especially in the area of content marketing.



Step Three: Advanced settings

I would recommend that you tweak your Twitterfeed so that you also let the blogger know you are sharing their content.  So at the bottom of the “Step 1″ page click on advanced settings.



Then enter the Twitter name for the blogger whose posts you will be sharing with the @ before their Twitter name.



This will ensure that the blogger knows you are sharing their blog posts on Twitter. This could create awareness about you and could even lead to them sharing your content.

That only has to be a good thing!

Step Four: Select and authenticate your Twitter account

The last step is to enter your twitter account  and then authenticate it.



You are now done!

This will free you up to write more blog posts. Engage with your followers and spend valuable time on creative tasks.



































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In case you hadn’t noticed, Pinterest has been in the news a lot recently.
In November last year, Pinterest started courting the business community with the creation of its business-specific accounts  and a dedicated business support page.

Then earlier this month, Pinterest quietly raised a cool $200 million at an astonishing $2.5 billion valuation – not bad for a company that has yet to make a profit!

Most intriguing of all though was a study published last week by research center Pew. It suggested that Pinterest has grown so quickly, it’s now on course to catch Twitter in the battle for second place behind Facebook in the US social networking market.

These events indicate that Pinterest is quickly evolving from being last year’s hot new upstart to a legitimate social network that should be part of your marketing mix.

How can you maximize your time on Pinterest?

But how can you maximize your Pinterest activities without spending a ton of time on it? Well, along with scheduling your pins, one of the most effective but underutilized strategies to get more exposure from Pinterest is by using group boards.

Now, if you’re new to Pinterest, you may only know of regular boards that only you can pin to. You may have never have heard of group boards. Or maybe you have but you don’t know how to use them or don’t think they apply to you.

I’ve been dabbling with group boards over the past few months and have seen a dramatic increase in followers since I strategically introduced them to my Pinterest marketing.

So in this post I am going to demystify group boards, explain the advantages of using them and outline a few ways you can get started straightaway with this strategy.

What Are Pinterest’s Group Boards?

A group board works like a regular Pinterest board. The only difference is that along with the board creator, other people are also allowed to pin.

Group boards go under many different names – shared boards, contributor boards, community boards and collaborative boards. Regardless the term, they are all exactly the same thing.

There is currently no directory of Pinterest group boards. In order to distinguish a group board from a regular one you need to look out for the group icon at the top of a board when you are browsing someone’s page.

This snapshot of Jeff’s Pinterest page clearly shows that the board on the left, “For The Home”, is one of Jeff’s own, whilst the two other boards have contributors.



Key Benefits of Using Group Boards

Group boards are not only a great way to organize ideas and bring people together, but they can also have real tangible benefits for your brand and business.

#1. Dramatically boost your followers

If you join a group board with hundreds or thousands of followers they will automatically become your followers too. More followers means greater exposure.

#2. Exponentially increase the number of repins

The more followers you have the more likely they (and their followers) are to see your content, repin your pins and click through to your website. This means more traffic to your site and potentially more subscribers, customers and clients.

#3. Put your pinning virtually on autopilot

Implement this strategy correctly and you could get other people creating content for.

Certainly at the start, Pinterest can be time-consuming but managed well, you could soon have a team of people perpetuating your content for you across their networks.

#4. Increase engagement and create brand ambassadors

Your customers may already be liking, commenting and sharing your content with their followers on Pinterest. But inviting them to pin to your brand’s group board will get them more engaged and involved in your online conversation.

It will also elevate them to the role of brand ambassadors, who their followers are more likely to take note of.

Let’s take a look now at some ways you can harness the power of group boards in your business.

How Can Businesses Use Group Boards?

• Collaboration – are you working with other people, employees or co-workers on a specific project? Use group boards to share industry-specific tips, training materials and resources. Make the board “secret” if you want to keep the information under wraps.

• Planning – are you a wedding planner, interior designer or in charge of an event that requires input from others? Invite the stakeholders to join you on a group board where you can collect and share design ideas, compare menus, color schemes, flower arrangements, room layouts, fabric samples and so on.

• Promotion– thinking of running a contest, raising funding for your big idea or promoting a worthy cause? Group boards are perfect for engaging your audience, getting customers to interact with your brand as well as sharing data, statistics, success stories etc to raise awareness about your brand or a particular issue.

• Networking – why not invite other pinners to pin about a common topic and expand your network at the same time? Bloggers especially can benefit from group boards by using them to connect with other bloggers and actively repinning each other’s content as part of a blogging network.

• Authority – are you knowledgeable about a particular subject area? Create a themed group board and contribute regularly to build credibility and establish yourself as a thought leader to the board’s followers.

How To Create A Contributor Board

Go to the Pinterest home page and click on the Add + tab at the top of the page.



Then select the option to Create a Board.



Next choose a name for your new board, select a category and whether you want to make it a private (secret) board or a public one.

The final step is to decide who you want to add as a contributor.



How To Add Contributors

There are two ways to make someone a contributor:

You can type their email address into the Who can pin? field. Pinterest will email them an invitation and prompt them to join Pinterest if they haven’t done so already.The easier way is to simply add the username of a pinner you would like to invite. The only condition is that you must be following them first.

As you start typing their name, Pinterest will automatically bring up all the potential matches i.e. people with those initial letters in their username.



Just select the names you want to add as contributors, click invite and then save your settings using the Create Board button.

Pinterest will send an invitation from you, the board creator, to the invitees to join your board. When they accept, they can pin on the same board with you and the group board will appear on every contributor’s page.

You can of course make any of your current boards into a group board. Just follow the steps above from How To Add Contributors.

A word of caution.

Pinterest will send you a notification each time a contributor pins to a group board. I recommend you turn off these notifications to avoid bombarding your inbox with unnecessary emails.

Just select the group board in question, click the Edit Board button and turn off the notifications tab.

Keep An Eye On Your Contributors And Group Boards

Remember that you don’t have to (and shouldn’t) accept every invitation you get to join a group board. Be selective.

Check to make sure that the board is on-brand for your business and a good fit for your audience before agreeing to join. The number of followers on a group board is another metric to take note of; the more followers a group board has, the greater the exposure you can expect for your business.

When you follow a group board, you will be able to see all of the content that is currently on that board. Any new pins that get added to this group board will also appear on your Pinterest feed, regardless of the person who is pinning the images.

There is currently no way to filter which pins you can see.

This means that you might see pins from people you are not directly following which could include inappropriate content and spam.

Make a point of regularly monitoring your feed and respond quickly if you spot something undesirable by taking one of the following actions:

How To Remove Someone From A Group Board

If you would like to remove someone you have added to a particular group board just select the group board, and click on the Remove tab next to their name.

You can also delete the board entirely if you created it by hitting the Delete Board on the far right.



How To Leave A Group Board

In the example below, you can see Jeff was added to someone else’s Marketing Infographics board and that he can leave any time.



Pinterest will prompt you by asking if you are sure you want to leave the group board, just click Leave again and you will be permanently removed from that board.

Final Words

It’s important not to go overboard with this strategy and send out blanket invitations to all your followers. Not everyone welcomes group board invitations especially persistent ones so be careful not to annoy people!

In fact, the Pinterest blog recommends that you should only send invitations to Pinterest users who have expressed an interest in your pins and to avoid sending out repeat requests.

One way of encouraging people to join your group boards is to add a line in the board description. You could state that you welcome contributors and that anyone interested in joining the board should add a comment against a pin.

So there you have it, a whirlwind tour of Pinterest’s group boards.

What do you think? Is this a strategy you’ll be trying out? Or have you already set up a few group boards? Please comment below and share how they are working out for you.






































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Pinterest has been on our social media consciousness radar for about 18 months when it started to gain traction.

According to a recent study, Pinterest is now used by 15% of USA web users. To put this in perspective, Twitter usage is only 1% higher at 16 percent.

Pinterest launched pages for business, which include the new terms of service, allowing you to use Pinterest commercially. If you haven’t yet converted your business profile into a business page, you can do so by visiting this page and clicking the red button “Convert your existing account” and then following the steps on the page.

Now that the business pages are out, I am going to share four tips on how to promote your business with Pinterest below…

1. Promote your products and services directly

Now that you have agreed to the new terms of service, you can directly promote your products and services on Pinterest without a worry. You can pin images of your products and have a call to action in the description, urging them to visit your site and buy your products. You can also add the price of the product along with the dollar sign ($), as this will get the price of the product to appear on the left corner of the pin. You get a similar effect when you use the pound sign (£), too. This way, people will know whether they can afford the product even before they visit your website.



An example is the board “Top Sellers” on Topman’s (a chain of clothing stores located throughout the United Kingdom) Pinterest brand page. On this board, they share images of some of the best selling products on their website. This is a great way to market their products.

2. Share a lot of content

Now that you’re allowed to use Pinterest commercially – it doesn’t mean that you should stop sharing content. Social media and content together form a powerful marketing tool. Content is one of the best ways to engage your audience and drive traffic to your site through social media. This applies to Pinterest, too – sharing a lot of beautiful images and pictures that lead to quality content can be a great way to engage your audience on Pinterest. Don’t just share the content you create, but what others create too, if you want this method to be effective.



A great example is Hershey’s Pinterest brand page, where they share a lot of images on their various boards that lead to recipes. Many of these recipes contain chocolate. This is a great way for Hershey’s to attract chocolate lovers who might be interested in buying their products—after all, they sell chocolate.

3. Optimize your site for Pinterest

It’s not just enough if you keep pinning, repinning, liking, and commenting on images on Pinterest. You need to also optimize your site for Pinterest to encourage others to actively share your content with their followers. This will help you attract a lot of website traffic.

A couple of things you could do are:

a) Add the “Pin it” button

A study shows that web pages with share buttons are up to seven times more likely to be shared. Therefore, if you add the “Pin it” button to your site, people will be more likely to share the images on your web pages, too. A couple of great places to add this button are your blog posts and the landing pages to your products.



b) Add the follow button

Adding the follow button can be another great way to optimize your website, as people who visit it will be able to easily find you on Pinterest. From there they can check out your page and your pins and follow you if they like it. This can be a great way to get lots of followers.



4. Optimize your brand page

Having a great brand page is the key to getting more followers and developing your very own Pinterest brand. So make an effort to improving your profile.

You can do this by:

Displaying a good profile image

The best thing to do is to display your logo or an image with your company name. It needs to be something your audience can easily identify you by.

Setting board covers and rearranging them

Board covers can make your boards appear attractive. So pick the most attractive pins on your boards and set them as your board covers. Also rearrange your boards so that your most important boards are conspicuous.

Adding categories to your boards

Adding categories to your boards will improve your pins’ visibility, as your pins will be displayed in the categories section of Pinterest and someone browsing through these categories can come across your pins even if they are not following you.

Have a relevant user name

The username appears in the URL of your Pinterest profile; therefore, if you use something similar to your business name, it will be easy to locate your profile when someone performs an online search.

Add keywords to the “About” section

Adding keywords to the ‘About’ section can be a great way to improve your profile’s visibility, as the next time someone performs an online search with those keywords, your profile could be one of the top results – this can aid you in getting more followers.

Hubspot’s Pinterest brand page is a great example of a well optimized page. If you observe it closely, you will notice that their profile image is their logo which makes it easy for their fans to identify the page.



In case they don’t notice it, their name ‘Hubspot’ is their page’s name and user name too. The name also appears in the ‘About’ section which not only makes it easy to recognize the page, but to also locate it through search engines. They have also added other important keywords to their about section.

These are just a few ways to build and promote your brand on Pinterest. Because Pinterest is image based, it gives you the opportunity to create innovative ways to promote your business. So don’t be afraid to try out new marketing methods.
































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Social media marketing is the beckoning and shiny new toy.

It started as clever but simple to use online technology where you could share multi-media content with friends, family and school colleagues. It was fun, engaging and it has touched the social human global psyche.

It happened because the intersection of technologies such as cheap high speed internet, low cost hard disk storage and software that made using social network platforms as easy as writing a Microsoft “Word”  document became aligned at the same time.
Even the older generation found they could use Facebook!

CEO’s, business owners and management initially saw it as a distraction from serious business and traditional marketing. How could you take Facebook seriously when it it was the social network that the son or daughter used it to share their party photos from Saturday night.

What was the point of a a 140 character tweet?

Then the penny dropped.

Large brands realized that the marketing leverage and amplification that the “many to many” crowd sourced global conversations could bring to their marketing strategy was sizable and significant.

Coca Cola changed its marketing strategy from creative excellence to content excellence. They had realized that social media was able to spread their content and ideas with velocity and the crowd could create and share more stories on social networks than they could ever hope to buy.

Small to medium business were provided free marketing tools that they could use themselves to promote their business.

The democratization of marketing was now evident.

Along with this realization many myths abvout social media marketing have been spread that have caused confusion and disillusionment when the return on investment didn’t materialize or wasn’t apparent.

Myth #1. It’s Simple

There are many myths about social media marketing but the biggest one by far is that it is easy and can be done by an intern at lunch time.

For small, medium to large enterprises is it is far from simple because social media marketing does not scale very easily and it requires many resources, skills and processes that until recently were at an adolescent stage of development.

With social media marketing you need to:

• Write, film and snap the images and capture the content
• Edit the content into a creative format that entertains, educates and inspires
• Create it for the different types of media such as video, text (for blog posts), Twitter tweets, Facebook updates, Pinterest images and other major social media networks
• Establish processes that control the publishing and monitoring of the content that is spread globally by many individuals within one organisation that keeps the brand police happy
• Publish it on multiple networks,
• Optimise it for a variety of multimedia formats
• Develop and optimize it for many types of screens including laptops, iPad, iPhone, Android smart phones and tablets so that it renders properly and is easily viewed and consumed
• Optimise the content and platforms for search engines
• Monitor and measure the data you receive to see what works and what doesn’t

It is becoming a deluge of data on many social networks.

So far organisations in the main are using disparate and multiple tools such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and Klout that add a layer of complexity and are silos of data and processes that do not lend themselves to the era of big social data.

Help is at hand.

Tools and processes are emerging to make it possible to do social at scale.

Vendors such as Sprinklr, Exact Target, Adobe, Brightcove and Viral Heat are amongst many companies that are developing enterprise class tools that are offering the promise of one stop social solutions platforms that will enable organisations to provide “social at scale”

The Altimeter Group and Jeremiah Owyang have surveyed over 3 dozen vendors that offer the promise of providing the holy grail of “social at scale”. These are revealed in this presentation on Slideshare.

To properly create , publish and manage this social data explosion we are seeing the emerging need in marketing agencies (and major brand marketing teams) for not just “creative” talents but people who understand technology intimately.

It could be that the “Geeks will inherit the earth” in a knowledge and technology driven economy and culture.

Maybe we are seeing the rise of the “Ninja Nerd” who understands technology and the creative process on an increasingly social web.

I look forward to seeing this emerging evolution of social media marketing as it moves from adolescent promise to mature and robust business class platforms and processes.

Myth #2.  It’s Free

Planning , creating content, optimizing for search, publishing to multiple platforms takes time. Time is money.
The professionals with the skills and experience to make social media marketing successful are increasingly in demand and they need to be paid. In a lot of cases the free tools to manage and monitor the data explosion are not adequate to provide the insights needed to manage, sift and sort the data.

Enterprise class tools are not free. Participating on Facebook may cost nothing and tweeting is free but the content and eco-sytem to support a sustained social media marketing effort requires budget and commitment. Professional videos still cost money to produce and edit.

Free tools doesn’t mean that social media marketing is free.

Myth #3. It’s Just Facebook

Many organisations think that because Facebook dominates the social media numbers game with nearly one billion users, that it is the only social media network to consider in a social media marketing strategy.

Facebook only allows less than 15% of your updates to appear in your Facebook followers timelines through its “Edge Rank” algorithms.

If you are a B2B organisation then LinkedIn could be a social network you want to embrace firmly. LinkedIn is also one of the fastest growing social networks.

Twitter can be used to create a targeted group of followers that is expensive and slow to build on Facebook.
The rise of an increasingly visual web has made social media such as Instagram and Pinterest networks increasingly attractive as part of your social media marketing strategy. Some case studies are revealing that Pinterest is more effective than Facebook in driving social commerce. The online boutique store Boticca’s data is evidence of that.

The basics of marketing must not be forgotten in the frenzy of social media mayhem.

Myth #4. Social Media is the “Silver Bullet”

Social media is not your marketing saviour.

You need to have contagious content on your websites and blog that people will want to share on social networks. You need to  relentlessly build followers, tribes and subscribers. This takes commitment and persistence. Don’t forget the role of traditional media such as email marketing.

Remember to continue to optimize  your online properties for search engines. Being found on Google is still a “must do”. If you aren’t doing this then you need to reconsider some of your marketing budget priorities.

Social media marketing advertising is still only $5 billion and search engine marketing spend is 10 times larger at $50 billion plus. Why?…because it works.

Facebook maybe sexy and funky but Google is still king of online and its Google+ network is close to reaching a tipping point in social media consciousness.

What About You?

What has been your experience with social media? Has it been effective? Are you struggling to perform “social at scale”.

What has been your return on investment? Have you been able to measure it?

What other marketing works for you? Has email marketing been important to your tactics?

Are you paying enough attention to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) so people looking for you online can find your in search engines results pages?

Look forward to hearing your stories and successes.



































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Every person reaches a comfort zone. From salesmen satisfied with reaching their monthly quotas (and nothing more), to students who are content with just getting B’s, individuals in their comfort zones work at an anxiety-neutral state and operate without a sense of risk.



If you’re in social media, your comfort zone state will usually creep in the moment you’ve reached a respectable number of likers and followers. Also known as being on a plateau, this is a stage where you’ve already settled into your social media routine and your initial networking efforts have started to pay off.

Reaching your plateau isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s a steady state that’s usually free from stress, and it’s a good stage to be at when you’re celebrating your accomplishments. However, staying too long on it and being too comfortable can lead to complacency and ignorance.

While it’s perfectly acceptable to bask in your success (after all, you deserve it), always be on the lookout for new social media heights that can you can achieve. Remember that there are a lot more readers, fans, and followers out there that you haven’t reached yet, and there are still a lot of things that you can do to take your social campaigns to a whole new level.

Not sure where to start? Check out the following ideas that are sure to stir up your current social media state:

1. Utilize the power of video

Need a boost in your fan engagement? Then consider getting in front of the camera. Demonstrate your expertise using a how-to video or gain insights from others by interviewing them on camera. Want to interact with your fans? Do a webinar or conduct a Google+ hangout so can you can get first hand comments and suggestions.

2. Stop playing it safe when it comes to content

Take a good look at the content that you’ve published. Are you being too safe or too much of a crowd pleaser? If so, then you may want to spice up your content strategy by producing posts that will open up discussions or debates. Take a stand on a current issue or trending topic, and voice out constructive criticisms and concerns. Invite your fans to do the same. Doing so will encourage conversation, and will guarantee that your social media strategy won’t be boring.

3. Connect with other businesses

Social media isn’t solely about reaching customers. It’s also about networking with potential partners or colleagues so that you can help each other succeed. Fellow entrepreneurs or companies can be sources for referrals and recommendations, so be sure to make friends with other businesses as well. Find other companies or entrepreneurs (preferably those that complement your products and services) and connect with them online. Tag them on Facebook, strike up a conversation on their wall, and find engagement opportunities. If you’re on Twitter, send a couple of mentions their way, and be generous when it comes to Retweets.

4. Run contests or promotions

Giveaways aren’t just for those who want to gain more likers or followers; they also work great if you want to increase engagement and interactions within your current fan base. If you have a lot of inactive fans, consider waking them up with a promotion. This will not only stir up the activity on your page, but the excitement and contests bring can effectively get your out of your safe comfort zone.

In addition to boosting interaction levels, a promotion also can also act as a funnel for users. For example, if you want your fans to check out your blog or sign up for your newsletter instead of simply hanging out on Facebook or Twitter, then conduct a promotion involving your blog or newsletter and use that as a funnel to direct users to where you want them to go.




































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Ever heard the name Guy Adams before this weekend? How about Gary Zenkel? No, me neither. Not until Twitter suspended the former, a British journalist based in LA, for tweeting the corporate e-mail address of the latter, the president of NBC Olympics — and created a tempest in a tea cup.

Not only was Twitter’s reaction completely disproportionate, there’s one major problem with it: he didn’t actually violate Twitter’s terms of service.

Adams, like a lot of us here on the West Coast, was upset that NBC had delayed broadcasting the London Olympics’ opening ceremony Friday night — so much so that the Pacific time zone was seeing it six hours after it actually happened (and three hours after our friends on the East Coast started tweeting like crazy about it.)

Plenty of critics vented their outrage at NBC’s policy (which included not putting the opening ceremony online, presumably to make more money from ads broadcast during prime time). Adams probably went a little further than most, calling the action “money grabbing” and decrying the network as “utter bastards.”

Then he wrote this fateful tweet: “The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven’t started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think! Email: Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com.”

The network complained, and Adams’ entire Twitter account was suspended Monday. The reason, he was told by a Twitter representative, was that he had violated Twitter’s terms of service by posting a private email address. NBC confirmed this in a statement to Mashable: “A user tweeted the personal information of one of our executives. According to Twitter, this is a violation of their privacy policy. Twitter alone levies discipline.”

Was that the case, though? Leave aside the question of whether a corporate email address counts as private. Let’s just assume that it does. Here’s what Twitter has to say about posting private information:
Posting another person’s private and confidential information is a violation of the Twitter Rules.

Some examples of private and confidential information are: credit card information, social security or other national identity numbers, addresses or locations that are considered and treated as private, non-public, personal phone numbers, non-public, personal email addresses.

Keep in mind that although you may consider certain information to be private, not all postings of such information may be a violation of this policy. If information was previously posted or displayed elsewhere on the Internet prior to being put on Twitter, it is not a violation of this policy. [Emphasis mine]

So if Zenkel’s email address was posted anywhere on the Internet prior to Friday, Adams is off the hook and his account should be restored. Right?

I’ll admit, the search is a wee bit harder than it should be. Currently, the first 8 pages of results for Zenkel’s email address on Google is clogged up with stories about Adams. (This is my point about creating a tempest in a tea cup; as a direct result of the suspension, Zenkel’s email has become one of the most public on the planet.)

But way down on page 9, we find what would have been the previous top result for Zenkel’s email address: this blog post from June 20, 2011, criticizing NBC Sports for removing the words “under God” from the pledge of allegiance during the U.S. Open.

Whatever you make of that post and the controversy it refers to, you can’t deny that it contain’s Zenkel’s email address, along with those of a long list of NBC Sports executives.

So Zenkel’s email address was “previously posted or displayed elsewhere on the Internet prior to being put on Twitter,” and Adam’s posting of it “is not a violation of this policy.” Game over, checkmate, or as Adams might say: howzat?

I’m not saying that this blog post is how Adams got the address; it has been noticeably absent from his defense. All his recent article in the Independent says is that anyone could construct that address from a basic knowledge of how NBC handles its accounts.

But you don’t even need to go that far. You don’t need to point out that the address is corporate, rather than personal. You need only point to Twitter’s own definition of its rules.

We’ve asked Twitter for comment, and will let you know what we hear back. But don’t be surprised to see Adams’ account reinstated — the company has a history of acting precipitously when it comes to account deletions, then reversing its decision later.











































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Global revenues from social media are projected to hit $16.9 billion in 2012, a 43.1% jump over the previous year, according to Gartner.

The bulk of that will come from advertising, which will contribute $8.8 billion. Social gaming revenue is next at $6.2 billion and subscriptions account for another $278 million. The researcher predicts “moderate growth” for the segment in coming years, though Gartner declined to share specific figures.

The advertising figure appears to be in line with a similar projection by eMarketer, which predicts $7.7 billion in social media ad revenues for 2012 and $11.9 billion by 2014. The U.S.’s share of such revenues will stay at around 53% over the next couple of years, according to eMarketer, which does not have an aggregate figure for social media revenues.



To put the figure in perspective, the Interactive Advertising Bureau estimates that global ad revenues for Internet advertising were $31 billion in 2011. Display ads accounted for $11.8 billion. The IAB didn’t break out figures for social media advertising.














































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Social media and inbound marketing techniques have been a boon for marketers. Not only do leads generated through social and content marketing cost half as much as traditional outbound-generated leads (see below), they also close at higher rate (again, see below).




And social media isn’t just about lead generation of course. While prospective buyers are using search and social to research products and services before making purchase decisions, marketers and PR professionals can use those same tools to research buyer wants and needs. And their competition. And…even social media itself.

Which brings us to this post. Wondering which social network is most effective at generating b2b leads? What marketing technique generates leads with the highest close ratio? What the best day of the week is for Facebook posting? Which U.S. city produces the largest share of “pins”on Pinterest?

Find the answers to those questions and many, many more in this collection of 72 fascinating social media marketing facts and stats for 2012.

Social Media / Social Networking

1. The average midsize or large company (1000 employees or more) has 178 “social media assets” (Twitter handles, employee blogs, etc.)–yet only 25% of companies offer social business training to their employees. (Marketingeasy)

2. B2b marketers believe social media is critical to organic search success. Marketers rate social media as the second-most imporant factor (64%) in search, behind only strong content (82%). (BtoB Magazine)

3. Although Facebook is the most important social media lead generation tool for b2c marketers (with 77% saying they had had acquired a customer through Facebook, compared to 60% for a company blog), among B2B companies, LinkedIn was the most effective, with 65% having acquired a customer through the professional network, followed by company blogs (60%), Facebook (43%), and Twitter (40%). (Marketing Charts)

4. The best way to “go viral” is to engage millions of users, each of whom share through small networks. “Online sharing, even at viral scale, takes place through many small groups, not via the single status post or tweet of a few influencers…Content goes viral when it spreads beyond a particular sphere of influence and spreads across the social web via ordinarily people sharing with their friends…the median ratio of Facebook views to shares (is) merely 9-to-1. This means that for every Facebook share, only nine people visited the story. Even the largest stories on Facebook are the product of lots of intimate sharing—not one person sharing and hundreds of thousands of people clicking.” (Ad Age)

5. LinkedIn generates more leads for b2b companies than Facebook, Twitter or blogs. Yet only 47% of b2b marketers say they are actively using LinkedIn vs. 90% on Facebook. (Social Media B2B)

6. One-third of global b2b buyers use social media to engage with their vendors, and 75% expect to use social media in future purchases processes. (Social Media B2B)

7. “Best in class” b2b companies are significantly more likely than average firms to integrate their social media efforts with their email marketing (65% vs. 51%), SEO (61% vs. 49%) and webinars (47% vs. 31%). (MarketingProfs)

8. As for “best in class” practices, 51% of best-in-Class companies use website social sharing tools, compared to 36% of average firms while 49% use keyword-based social media monitoring, compared with 39% of their more average peers. (MarketingProfs)

9. Top executives need to be involved in social media. 77% of buyers say they are more likely to buy from a company whose CEO uses social media. 94% said C-suite social media participation enhances a brand image. And 82% of employees say they trust a company more when the CEO and leadership team communicate via social media. (eMarketer)

User Experience

Want more registrations on your website? Consider offering a social login (i.e., the ability for visitors to register at and log in to your site using one of their existing social network profiles rather than creating a new login):

10. 86% of people say they are bothered by the need to create new accounts at websites. (MarketingSherpa)

11. 77% responded that social login is “a good solution that should be offered.” (MarketingSherpa)

12. 21% of “best in class” companies use social sign-in, compared to 8% of average-performing firms. (MarketingProfs)

Lead Nurturing

13. Only 27% of B2B leads are sales-ready when first generated. This makes lead nurturing essential for capitalizing on the other 73%. But 65% of B2B marketers have not established lead nurturing campaigns. (MarketingSherpa)

14. SEO-driven leads have the highest lead-to-close rate (15%) among common lead generation sources. Paid search leads average a 7% rate, while outbound marketing leads (e.g., direct mail, telemarketing) close at a 2% rate. (Econsultancy)

Facebook

15. B2C Facebook interaction is 30% higher than average on Sundays. (Mindjumpers)

16. Though nearly every large charity and university in America has a Facebook presence, less than 60% of the Fortune 500 do. (Mindjumpers)

17. 95% of Facebook wall posts are not answered by brands. (Mindjumpers)

18. Though Facebook continues to add users, U.S. members are becoming less active there. Between mid-2009 and late 2011, “messaging friends declined 12%, searching for new contacts fell 17% and joining a group of Facebook users dropped 19% in the U.S.” (MediaPost)

19. 70% of local businesses use Facebook.The U.S. has the largest number of Facebook users. The country with the second-largest Facebook population: Indonesia.  (Jeff Bullas)

20. Facebook is the leading source of referred social media traffic to websites, at 26%. Twitter is second at 3.6%. (Pooky Shares)

21. Facebook marketing is a specialized skill. For those looking to outsource this function to a professional consultant, expect to pay $500-$1,500 for initial page setup and anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 per month for ongoing content management and curation. (Mack Collier)

22. 52% of consumers say they have stopped following a brand on Facebook because the information it posted had become “too repetitive and boring.” (SMI)

Twitter

23. There are now roughly 100 million active Twitter users (those who log in at least once per day). (Mindjumpers)

24. 34% of marketers have generated leads using Twitter, and 20% have closed deals. (Mindjumpers)

25. 40% of Twitter users rarely post anything but primarily consume content there. 55% access Twitter via a mobile device. (Mindjumpers)

26. 92% of retweets are based on “interesting content.” Only 26% are due to inclusion of “please RT!” in the tweet. (Mindjumpers)

27. Twitter now has 200 million users, including 8% of the U.S. population. About one-quarter of all users are considered “extremely active,” checking in several times per day. (Jeff Bullas)

28. 55% of all Twitter users use the service to share links to news stories, and 53% retweet others. (Jeff Bullas)

29. 77 of the world’s 100 largest companies maintain a corporate Twitter account. But media outlets are the most active users. (Jeff Bullas)

30. Most professional consultants charge $500-$1,000 to set up a Twitter account (optimized bio, custom background etc.) and $500-$1,500 per month for ongoing management (dependent on level of activity and amount of content). (Mack Collier)

Google and Google+

31. Google’s search engine is used by 85% of global Internet users every month. (MediaPost)

32. Google+ is expected to reach 400 million users by the end of 2012. It’s membership is 63% male, with the largest cohort in their mid-20s. While the largest block of users by country are in the U.S., the second largest is India. However, only 17% of users are considered “active.” (Jeff Bullas)

Pinterest

33. The image-based social network has grown 4,000% in the past six months, now boasts more than 4 million users, and keeps those users engaged: the average Pinterest user spends nearly an hour-and-a-half per month on the site, behind only Facebook and Tumblr. (Jeff Bullas)

34. 83% of Pinterest users are women. In the U.S., the most popular categories are Fashion, Desserts, Clothes and Birthdays. (MediaPost)

35. But in the U.K., the five most popular topics on Pinterest are Venture Capital, Blogging Resources, Crafts, Web Analytics and SEO/Marketing. (Pooky Shares)

36. 22% of all pins come from New York, followed by Los Angeles at 15%. A higher percentage come from Minneapolis (10%) than from San Francisco (8%)–even though Pinterest is based in Palo Alto. (MediaPost)

37. Pinterest is virtually tied with Twitter (at 3.6%) for the amount of referred social traffic it sends to websites. (Pooky Shares)

Tumblr

38. Tumblr grew 900% in 2011 and now has 90 million users. However, just 2% of members account for more than 40% of all traffic. (Jeff Bullas)

39. The five most popular tags for Tumblr posts are GIF, LOL, Fashion, Art and Vintage. The U.S. has the largest share of users, followed by Brazil. (Jeff Bullas)

Mobile Marketing

40. 4.8 billion people now own mobile phones. Just 4.2 billion own a toothbrush. (Mindjumpers)

41. One-third of smartphones globally use the Android OS. (MediaPost)

42. The number of tablets in use in the U.S. rose from 34 million in 2011 to 55 million this year and is expected to reach 108 million by 2015. (TMGmedia)

43. Mobile commerce is projected to ten-fold from 2010 ($3 billion) to 2016 ($31 billion). (TMGmedia)

44. While three-quarters of b2b marketers are aware of the growing importance of mobile devices, only 23% rate mobile search as either “important” or “critical” to their search marketing objectives. (BtoB Magazine)

45. Just 16% of b2b marketers are producing mobile-specific content as part of their content marketing efforts. (Smart Insights)

46. Although the percentage of visits to b2b websites coming from smart phones has increased nearly 50% in the past year, they still represent only about 1 out of every 24 sites visits on average. (Webbiquity)

SEO and Search Marketing

47. 57% of B2B marketers say SEO has the biggest impact on their lead generation goals. (Mindjumpers)

48. Though half of all b2b digital spending is focused on search and most websites are organically optimized, only 65% of b2b marketers have ever used pay-per-click advertising. (BtoB Magazine)

49. Search provides the highest quality leads. According to research by HubSpot, “SEO leads have a 15% close rate, on par with the close rate for direct traffic, and ahead of referrals (9%), paid search (7%), social media (4%), and outbound leads (2%).” (Marketing Charts)

Blogging

50. Social media sites and blogs reach 80% of all U.S. internet users. (Mindjumpers)

51. Social networks and blogs account for 23% of all time spent online — twice as much as gaming. (Mindjumpers)

52. “Increased frequency of blogging correlates with increased customer acquisition, according to…HubSpot. 92% of of blog users who posted multiple times a day acquired a customer through their blog, a figure that decreased to 66% for those who blogged monthly and 43% for those who posted less than monthly.” (Marketing Charts)

53. The most popular frequency for blog posting is weekly (60% of bloggers). Just 10% post daily. (Marketing Charts)

54. Blogs are the single most important inbound marketing tool. “When asked to rank the importance of the services they use, 25% of users rated their company blog as critical to their business, while a further 56% considered them either important (34%) or useful (22%)” for a total of 81%. (Marketing Charts)

55. B2B companies with blogs generate 67% more leads per month on average than non-blogging firms. (Social Media B2B)

56. For those looking to outsource, a professional consultant will generally charge $1,000-$3,000 for setting up a blog, $1,000-$3,000 per month for ongoing content development/editing, and ballpark of $200 for a single guest post. (Mack Collier)

Video and SlideShare

57. 52% of b2b marketers use video as part of their content marketing mix. (Smart Insights)

58. Video production costs vary widely, depending on length, quality, type of content and other factors. High-end animated videos can cost $20,000-$30,000, while simpler interview-type videos can be under $1,000. Common 2- to 3-minute videos with a mix of live action and simple animation typically cost $2,000-$5,000. (Mack Collier)

59. SlideShare draws 60 million visitors per month; but most importantly for b2b marketers, it attracts 3X more traffic from business owners than any other social media site. (Jeff Bullas)

Social Demographics

60. On social networking sites, men and women are about equally willing to share their real names (both about 87%), political and religious affiliation, and the brands they like (~77%), but men are far more likely than women to share their physical address (11% vs. 4%), their current location (35% vs. 20%), their phone number 15% vs. 4%), and their income level (16% vs. 5%). (AllTwitter)

61. Contrary to what you’ve probably been told, longer format video may actually drive higher engagement: “different types of content yield different sharing behaviors. Breaking down video behavior within StumbleUpon, videos viewed between two to three minutes found a spike in sharing out to social media, whereas videos viewed beyond four minutes see direct shares increase by five times. Longer, arguably more involved, content may drive viewers to more intimate sharing routes.” (Ad Age)

Inbound and Content Marketing

62. 90% of b2b marketers do some form of content marketing. 26% of b2b marketing budgets are invested in content, and 60% of b2b marketers say they plan to spend more on content marketing in the coming year. (Smart Insights)

63. The most popular content marketing tactics used by b2b marketers are article posting (used by 79% of b2b marketers), social media excluding blogs (74%), blogs (65%) and enewsletters (63%). Just 10% use virtual conferences. (Smart Insights)

64. The average cost to generate a lead through inbound marketing ($143) is about half the average for outbound marketing ($373). (Econsultancy)

65. Small businesses, on average, spend twice the share of their lead generation budget (43%) on inbound marketing as do large companies (21%). Small organiations spend more than twice as much on social media and 3X as much on blogging as their larger counterparts, while big businesses spend three times as much on trade shows and nearly twice the share of their budget on direct mail as do smaller firms. (Econsultancy)

66. More is (often at least) better. Businesses with 40+ different landing pages/offers generate 10X more leads than those with five or fewer landing pages, and those with 200 or more total blog posts generate 3.5X more leads than those whose blogs have 20 or fewer posts. (Econsultancy)

67. 84% of b2b companies are using some form of social media marketing. However, “best in class” companies generate over 3X their share of all leads (17% vs. 5%) from social media as do average performing companies. (MarketingProfs)

68. 90% of b2b marketers are doing some form of content marketing, and b2b marketers spend on average 26% of their marketing budgets on content. The most effective content marketers spend twice as much as their less effective peers on content development, and consider buying stage when developing content. (B2B Marketing Insider)

69. It shouldn’t be a surprise, but content has to be good in order to be effective. B2b buyers say that less than half of vendor content is useful–and vendors who produce such low-value content are 27% less likely to be considered and 40% less likely to win the business. “Good” content is concise, entertaining (includes stories), more educational than promotional, and is contextually personalized. (B2B Marketing Insider)

Media and Online Advertising

70. Most “national” newspapers are still quite regional: the Chicago Tribune gets socially shared at above average levels only in Illinois, the Washington Post only in Virginia, D.C. and Maryland, and the New York Times only in a clump of northeastern states and Hawaii (though the Wall Street Journal is very popular in Arizona). Fox News is most popular in the southeastern U.S. plus Nevada and Alaska, while the Huffington Compost is widely share along the Interstate 35 corridor (Minnesota to Texas), Florida, Oregon, Maine and the rustbelt. (Forbes)

71. Online CPM rates have little correlation with actual advertiser value delivered. Nearly one-third of all display ads are never seen (defined as 50% of the pixels in view for at least one second). But contrary to popular belief, “below the fold” ads don’t necessarily have lower impression rates than those placed high on the page. (MediaPost)

72. Leaderboard (728 x 90 pixels) and medium rectangle (300 x 250) ad sizes have the highest view-in rates. Coupon and directory sites have the highest ad view rates, both over 80%. In contrast, a sponsor’s ads had just a 27% likelihood of being seen on pet-oriented sites. (MediaPost)




































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1. @_VonCount

Who loves to count? Count Von Count does, that's who -- and he will make sure that you know it if you talk about him on Twitter.

2. @Betelgeuse_3

Don't say it...you know what will happen.

3. @RedScareBot

A Joe McCarthy spambot filters through the Twitter "black list" by searching for anyone tweeting about communism.

4. @LogicalB0t

Professor Spock in spambot form seems to selectively tweet anyone who talks online about space, NASA, the Enterprise, Spock and other geeky topics.

5. @KingLeonidaz_

Any Twitter users claiming something is "madness" will get a famous response from the spambot version of 300's King Leonidas.

6. @MarmiteBot

Love it or hate it, this Marmite spambot will let you know he's listening.

7. @StealthMountain

Stealth Mountain takes one small step for spambots, and one giant leap for grammar. Anyone misspelling "sneak peek" will be corrected.

8. @THEUNlVERSE

Any philosophies or accusations about the universe will get a witty and sarcastic response.

9. @Jedward

Irish pop duo Jedward has a younger fan base on Twitter, so you can imagine the amount of people getting the "We are Jedwardbot" automated response.

10. @EnjoyTheFilm

Though it's no longer active, Cabin in the Woods fans might have received an unwanted spoiler if they tweet about plans to watch the movie.


Nearly every Twitter user has fallen victim to spam at one point — there’s no argument that it’s annoying and detrimental.

But not all of it is bad — in fact, some of those spambots are not bots at all. There are parody accounts that will filter through specific topics and respond to unsuspecting users, like @THEUNlVERSE.

There are still spam accounts using automated third-party applications too. As Twitter cracks down, the more sophisticated spambots find ways to avoid suspension.

For those who might crack a smile at a harmless spambot reply, see 10 of the funniest accounts in the gallery above.

Can harmless spam be funny when executed properly? Let us know in the comments.










































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