In short, the book goes over how businesses (or individuals that want to brand themselves) can use social media in ways that work to their advantage.  Things such as gaining trust with your followers, providing them with value, etc.  It’s an awesome read and one of the very few books I’m passionate about recommending to others.

There’s an etiquette (and strategy) in promoting your business on sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. You don’t want to come across as a spammer, pushing out sale after self-serving sale and think that your followers will hang around.  Everyone loves to buy, but no one likes to be sold to.

Today’s perfect example of this is a conversation I had with Ferraro’s Pizza, a Saint Louis joint that uses Twitter to promote themselves.  Before this week, their Twitter account was abandoned, unused and dormant since mid-October.  Then today, the account suddenly pipes back into action – promoting their great lunch sales over and over again.  In a matter of 9 minutes, Feraro’s sent out 5 tweets about their specials. That’s. Excessive.

Not only that, but previous tweets were also self serving.  There’s no value.  There’s no recipes or coupons or interesting pizza facts. Just me me me.

Anyway, after the fourth self-serving tweet in 7 minutes, I had to say something. It was getting annoying. So I thought I’d go the “are you paying attention to your followers” route.  Sure, it was vague, but I wasn’t actually expecting them to pay attention anyway.

Two minutes and one more promotional tweet later, I took the more direct approach.

A plea to stop the spamming.

Soon I get a direct message from Feraro (I’m assuming it’s the owner) asking me if I’d like him to stop tweeting.

(from TweetDeck – I couldn’t get twitter to display this DM, not sure why. Maybe he deleted it or something, I dunno.)

The link I sent him goes to Brogan’s book mentioned above.  At this point I’m still trying to be helpful in a somewhat non-asshole kind of way. Well, as best as I can.

So here’s where it gets really interesting.  A minute later, this is posted to Feraro’s main feed:

If I were a female of African American descent, I probably would have just exclaimed “Oh no he di’nt”.  Seriously, Mr. Feraro, you just missed out on a tremendous opportunity to grow your business.

A potential customer asks you to stop spamming, and you go the insult route? Is that how you think you’ll grow your following?

But it gets better.  A minute later, another pizza company in Saint Louis, Caitos, replys with an absolutely beautiful response:

Now there’s a company that understands social media. No pushy sale sale sale, just a polite word at the right time. Awesome.

It reminds me of Southwest Airlines, a very active online brand that monitors their competitors brands on Twitter and such.  If someone complains of their Delta flight being delayed, Southwest will reply with a simple “Next time try us, we’ll give you $xx off”. Smart. Non-intrusive. And the offer will probably be taken up.  They win.

Finally, to finish off this terrific example of how not to promote yourself online, Mr. Feraro adds one last thing to the conversation:

Remember when your sibling used to say “He started it!”?

Good (or should I say bad) job, Feraro’s Pizza. Perhaps you should go get Trust Agents now. And you might want to throw in an extra topping of Trackur too. You’re gonna need it.

UPDATE: Caito’s was nice enough to send me a “Twitter TECHLH Special”. I like to call it the Smackdown Special. Print out your coupon and so getcha some damn good pizza!

• How Come That Idiot’s Rich and I’m Not
• Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
• The Innocent Man (fiction)

I’ve actually read the Millionaire Mind one twice now.  It’s a great book, highly recommended.