The notion of social web and how companies can engage is as multi-faceted as anything I’ve seen in my 12+years of marketing online. The many ways for companies to involve themselves using social technologies are as varied as the reasons they may do so. Whether it’s to better connect with customers, attract more media attention or crowdsource product ideas, social web participation can offer many benefits.
This understanding of different perspectives and methods leads us to a new TopRank Reader Poll that considers the many different approaches companies may take towards social media. As a poll, it’s only a snapshot in time, but the results will be of great interest to all who participate. Please select up to 1 “best” answer:
Please select the social media marketing tactics below that you consider "black hat".
- Fake blogs (36%, 23 Votes)
- Fake persona (27%, 17 Votes)
- Creating accounts on behalf of clients (20%, 13 Votes)
- Maintaining accounts on behalf of clients (17%, 11 Votes)
Total Voters: 30
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Please share this poll with others by retweeting, linking from your own blog or email so we can get a great sample size.
Thanks Lee! Unfortunately, any social media plans I have put forth to our upper management have been killed by our parent company’s vast team of lawyers. They are terrified that we might actually talk to a consumer! I would imagine that other regulated industries have similar constraints placed upon their marketing efforts as well.
I live in the Czech Republic, where a lot of companies (mainly from offline business segment) do not know anything about PPC, search engine optimization or online marketing. They are trying to learn slowly what to do with their website. With social media it is going to be the same. Today people just try to learn using social media. When they will have noticed that social media can also be used to informa others about their products or services social networks will be full of adverts and “just marketing” buzz. This is the current situation in the Czech Republic (Europe), where we are about 3 to 5 years behind USA regarding Internet and online marketing.
Interesting poll and I am not surprised the voting is so spread.
What I do like is the fact that companies seem to be slowly implementing social media into their business one way or another.
There are some great examples of social media in action. I work for Best Buy in the UK and a great example is Best Buy in the US.
Interesting poll – In Canada social media is still a new thing to many in marketing. Twitter is seen as a time waster and blogs as something for the amateur enthusiast. There are some early adopters. I look forward to seeing this grow in Canada.
@ Rich – Best Buy in the US is a great example of a comprehensive social media strategy
Hi,
Talking about social media and big companies. Well, it really seems that beside USA and just a very few other countries, the rest of the world is still learning and wondering about that “NEW” thing, and if it will help them to improve their businesses.
And it is kind of sad and funny, because it has been for a while in the air, all the blogging, web 2.0, tweeter, affiliates and online/internet marketing stuff.
So, as the guy above said, slowly but surly, the big “OFFLINE” business will going to take advantage of social media. And one more thing,in fact right now, there are more money spend in online advertising than any other kind of advert.
I think that many companies are really still trying to figure out just how they should be approaching all the social websites. They are still so young and evolving that many businesses have to consistently tweak their approach.
In Germany, where I work now, the SM integration into company’s everyday business life is quite slow. Not that people wouldn’t know what SM is, but I would say not everybody knows how to use the power it has (and sad enough, it’s online business, where I work). So together with other enthusiasts we are currently starting to change it. And make the existing dead profiles on all the social medias little bit more alive. Thanks for the useful blogs about this topic.