Clever social media marketing tactic or Twitter spam? YOU decide.
Yesterday, I made an innocuous tweet describing some of the highlights of my weekend, namely seeing The Black Crowes perform at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom and watching “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin.”*
(* Ed Note: The Black Crowes are the last of the great rock bands and “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin” is a classic Kung Fu movie that established many of the tropes of the genre and was paid homage to by Tarantino in “Kill Bill.”)
Someone replied to my tweet with the following:
musiclovesryan@mitchblum did you get to see the black crowes live? SO JEALOUS. im trying to wait patiently for their new dvd! http://bit.ly/BlackCrowesFYE
Now, I generally believe in responding to personalized tweets as that fosters the conversation. But when I clicked on musiclovesryan’s feed I noted that all of his tweets were variations on the one he sent me – a seemingly personalized message followed by a sales pitch/link. Clicking on the link, I was taken to FYE’s page for The Black Crowes’ new DVD.
Someone is clearly searching for tweets that mention The Black Crowes and is attempting to drive sales of their DVD by sending thinly-veiled sales messages. Now, I’m pretty sure that it’s not actually The Black Crowes that are behind this tactic as they are traveling hippies that don’t actually have computers. So this is most-likely a FYE-led campaign.
The interesting thing is, from a content perspective, I’m totally fine with someone seeing that I like the Crowes and letting me know that there’s a new DVD for me to buy. If the tweet came from “FYE” and just said as much I would have been cool with it.
My problem is that FYE feels the need to lie to me by having someone tweet as if they were a real person. It’s patently obvious after 30 seconds of skimming musiclovesryan’s feed that he’s a fake corporate persona. As a result, I don’t trust FYE and I won’t buy from them. I expect honesty and transparency from my partners and vendors.
FYE, may I humbly recommend that you cease with the phony “ryan” bit and just send me a tweet along the lines of: “We saw that you’re a Crowes fan. Did you know they have a new DVD coming out? Click this link to buy the DVD and we’ll give you free shipping.”
That tactic might have worked. Just saying.
I do commend you, however, on your choice of the Billy Ray Cyrus picture as musiclovesryan’s icon. Well played.
