Don’t Spam Your Potential Customers

Today I’d like to offer a quick tip to the social media savvy entrepreneurs out there: please don’t spam your potential customers! This piece of advice comes from one of my experiences.  A small business owner who I recently connected with started sending me (and several others who were not blind carbon-copied) messages about his company’s services.  This would be fine except he sent these messages two to three times a day over a 5 day period.  Yes, I received almost 15 messages about this one company, and ALL of the messages were inviting me to buy from him.  There were no, “Hi, thanks for connecting.  Tell me about you,” notes or even, “Here is some information on my latest services.  Please let me know if you or someone in your network would be interested in learning more.”  Nope.  Every message was, “Buy this from me!  Buy that from me!  You can buy this, too.”  That was not the best way for him to gain new clients.

Social media is a wonderful thing for small business owners.  It allows us to build relationships with potential customers and partners from all over the world.  Unfortunately, there is a downside for those who are not aware of netiquette, or online etiquette.  Some entrepreneurs (such as the one I described above) have decided to use social media as a way to constantly push their latest products and services.  Talking about what you have to offer and sharing the occasional sale is fine, but sending multiple messages everyday about your product is way too much.  In fact, it’s spam, and it will get you blocked from email accounts and unfriended on social media networks.  Remember that business, especially online, is about building valuable relationships.  Use social media as a tool to connect, not to annoy.  🙂

Have you been the victim of small business spam?  How did you handle the situation: immediately block the business owner, send him or her a few words of friendly advice, or something else entirely?  I’d love to hear from you.