Jenny SussinAlright, I know I don’t normally blog multiple times in a week, even a month (my monthly cadence is shameful, I know) I’ve got to shout this from the rooftops/Gartner Blog Network:
MARKETERS: DO NOT RUIN PINTEREST FOR ME.
Seems ironic I am saying that given my job is to help companies determine social strategy and leverage popular social media to generate business value. Here is what I think you might have heard:
MARKETERS: DO NOT MARKET ON PINTEREST.
Okay now go back and read what I actually said the first time. I said don’t ruin it. When marketers first got on Twitter, and some still do this today, they completely saturated it with billboards. Awful idea. Nobody likes to be told, they want to be a part of the conversation. They want to be part of coming to a group decision about something being cool or wretched.
This blog post is to serve as a warning more than anything. Please be subtle. I’m cool with your marketers pinning sweet duds to public pin boards, but let’s not overdo it by sticking some info under it about your new fall line coming out and a URL. Understand the medium and how it works (hint: you don’t need to do that to get people to your page,) don’t abuse it, k?
Your friend,
Jenny
Category: marketing social crm social media Tags: 360, crm, gartner, gartnercrm
6 responses so far ↓
1 KH January 11, 2012 at 7:07 pm
I TOTALLY agree with you on this, but it’s spelled “Pinterest.”
Might want to fix that…
2 Jenny Sussin January 11, 2012 at 7:10 pm
1) Ha!
2) Woops!
3) Thank you!
3 Matt Carter January 11, 2012 at 7:41 pm
I think it’s also spelled “whoops”. Ha just kidding.
I couldn’t agree with you more about Pinterest. As a marketer, one with an admittedly social bent, I’m always looking for new ways to leverage new channels.
However, “leveraging” a new channel means understanding its purpose, how people are currently using it, why they’re currently using it . . . and then . . . and only then . . . adding something of contextual relevance to the conversation already occurring.
You don’t interrupt a conversation between a group of people at a party and loudly proclaim how handsome (or pretty) you are, do you?
That’s called “sales-forcing” and it’s got no place in the social world.
4 Jenny Sussin January 11, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Here, here Carter! Lovely to hear from you, and here of all places (notice the proper spelling on the homonyms – trying to prove I can spell.)
I’ve recently stopped interrupting conversations at parties to proclaim how wildly hilarious I am (I sell on personality, not “pretty”) and I love that analogy.
It’s like in the movie “Never Been Kissed” when the popular girls are all talking and Drew Barrymore’s character wants to be friends with them so she just bolts up the stairs of the school and says, “Kiersten, Kristen, Libby! Whats up girlfriends?!” And proceeds to fall flat on her face. It was painful for all of us to watch. *Hint, Hint*
5 Crysta Anderson January 11, 2012 at 8:05 pm
I largely agree with you, Jenny. I think the natural tendency will be for B2C companies to test the boundaries and see how far they can go – how promotional they can get – before they annoy people.
Marketers can benefit from Pinterest (whoops on the “PINETREST” still above), but only if they let users organically do it for them by using the site as it’s intended: to share things they find cool or interesting. Matt’s right – they can add to those conversations, but they shouldn’t be screaming them at passersby.
6 Jenny Sussin January 11, 2012 at 8:10 pm
Oh boy. My next blog post is going to be “Blogging when you’re too busy to: a spell-check epidemic.”