June 9th, 2009
Squarespace: Stop harshing my Twitter experience
So Squarespace, which does hosting and other webby stuff, is doing an iPhone giveaway via Twitter. Basically all a Twitter user needs to do is enter the #squarespace hashtag into a tweet and then he or she is eligible to win a $199 Apple gift certificate (which could be used for an iPhone). The catch? Said user must enter every day (i.e. #squarespace in the tweets) for a new chance to win.
Earlier today I saw a bunch of positive comments: “Cool for SEO!” “Great way to trend on Twitter!” Etc. Ok, sure, fine. But lately, more of the comments I’ve seen are along the line of this one, from my pal Mike Fratto:
It’s getting really, really annoying. I only follow about 850 people. That includes a mix of dear friends, security nerds, hockey fans and folks I read. My TweetDeck “All Friends” column today was swimming with #squarespace hashtags. It made me want to do one of two things:
- Unfollow* my poor friends (if I didn’t already unfollow them for #spymaster)
- Buy them all iPhones just to stop the madness
As I wrote about Turner Broadcasting this morning, this is a case of a decent idea that was taken too far and is starting to turn people off. What about a contest that encourages people to deliver some value? Yesterday Smashwords CEO Mark Coker did a Twitter contest — Tweet something about Smashwords and you could see your tweet in an ad in Writer’s Digest. Coker did two things right: 1) He asked for substance 2) He ran the contest in a short time. It was interactive — it wasn’t just pushing out noise. It allowed him to engage with his users.
How is Squarespace ever going to engage with these users? Honestly, the only reason I even looked to see what Squarespace does is due to responsible blogging. I otherwise wouldn’t have taken the time to look.
Contrary to recent beliefs, I do say nice things about social campaigns. But lately I’ve mostly heard noise. Where are all of the other good ideas at? Please share them.
*No friends were injured or unfollowed in the writing of this blog post
Jennifer Leggio, aka "Mediaphyter," writes about the "social business" side of social media - including enterprise, security and reputation issues. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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