The Cheek of it! Selfish Marketers!

Written by Frank Profeta on Aug 9, 2010 8:09 pm

Hey, it’s Frank here. Had a really shocking (and quite frustrating) experience a few weeks ago, now I let it go at the time, but I was thinking about it today while I was chilling and I decided to share it with you.

This is something that’s really been bugging me so I’m gonna get it off my chest and see if you’ve had something similar happen to you! Don’t forget to share any stories relevant to this in the comments section. Think of it as a warning for our awesome community here!

So here’s what happened...

I spend 1 or 2 hours a day creating relationships on the social media networks and looking around at other blogs commenting on anything I see of value and sharing anything that I feel will benefit others.

On the particular day in question, I came across a lady on Facebook with whom I had a quite a few friends in common so I thought I’d get in touch and ask her to connect. She duly accepted and I’d created a new relationship!

I’m not gonna mention any names by the way; this is by no means a personal attack!

Listen to the cheek of this...

I generally take a moment to write a quick thank you on the wall of any new friends on FB, on this occasion I was beaten to it. This new friend had said something like this –

‘...thanks for the add really look forward to getting to know

you better, check this out...’

She then shared a link to her own blog and a product she was selling (something about a green shake, cos I checked it out).

Why am I telling you this story...?

I don’t have a problem with people sharing their links on my FB wall, I’m very proud to say I stick to the 80/20 rule (80% giving/sharing – 20% asking for something in return). But because I didn’t really know this lady, I figured if she wanted to share a link on my wall then I would return the gesture.

So I did. Only to find that about 20 minutes later when I had actually gone back to her page to write a nice thank you on her wall, she’d taken my link down. What the... I mean what made her think it was OK to put a link on my wall when she wasn’t willing to let me do the same?

I was boiling up inside! I eventually calmed down after I clicked on the link again and noticed her Alexa.com traffic rank was about 4.5 million after a year of being live, mine was under a million at the time after about 40 days – that’s what you get by using those selfish tactics – poor results! I give 10 times more than I have to and my results show!

I never take this approach with new friends and I strongly recommend not doing so yourselves! Always start by being thankful and going above and beyond what is expected, give, give, share, share then ask! Simple!

By the way, I took her link down cos I only want to be involved and syndicating content with like minded and loyal individuals like you guys here!

Final thoughts...

I wanted to get that off my chest and I feel a lot better for it. In short I suppose things like this happen for a reason. I understand why giving and sharing is so vital if you want to create long and fruitful relationships and have lots of great people syndicating your content and getting loadsa traffic because you’ve done so much for them!

Please share to serve the great marketers out there doing things the way they should! If you know anyone who has been a victim of this selfish almost spam like method of Social Media Marketing, bring them here so they can share their story and help strengthen the community. Please no names though, these people have to learn their lessons for themselves.

P.S. Let’s connect ourselves on FB, Youtube or Twitter if we haven’t already!