To local businesses

Shooting yourself in the foot is not a good way to do business, and it shows an utter lack of social media norms.

I run the This is Smyrna website on blogspot and two of them on Facebook.  I have no real rules when it comes to the material I post outside of two. I try not to post divisive material such as religious and politics. I also try not to be a free source of advertising for businesses. I love grand openings, going out of business sales less so, and charity driven events.  I view those as the only exceptions.

There are many businesses in town that do want to get their product and service out and try to use social media. You tube is a good example. Sadly they have made it so I will never go to a company that floods a social media site with ad-spam.

I went today to youtube and typed in ‘smyrna tennessee’ and changed a parameter so the newest stuff will come first. I wanted to see if there was anything out there worth sharing.

The first reply was for a local skydiving event, followed by a ad for real estate and then a car from a local lot. Not bad. Just one each…and if I ever get insane enough or drugged up enough to jump from a perfectly fine plane, I now know where to go.

Then I hit spam. Not a little either, but 200. Most of page one of the results and all of 2 and all of page 3 and most of page 4 were the same dang video with just little tweaks of the title. I can see a half dozen or more, but that much. I then went to their page and found over 200 copies of the same dang video

What NOT to do

I support small businesses when possible, but please understand that how you treat social media sites directly effects how I view you. Spamming a video site does not make me want to visit you services, but to avoid them.

I had to go all the way to page 5 before I found something that was not spam.

To the small business owners in Smyrna, something free does not mean you should abuse it.