Spam, AnyOne?

Spam, we all hate it and yet accept it as part of  everyday life. I recently gave a social media presentation which resulted in a heated debate about the definition of spam.  I assumed everyone knew what spam was, but there seemed to be different opinions as to what exactly spam is.

According to Wikipedia Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages, especially advertising, indiscriminately. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media.

Spamming occurs when a company typically buys an email list and bulk emails these people without them having even shown an interest in that company or its products.
It is illegal to send unsolicited emails to both companies and individuals.  I was surprised to see some think it was acceptable for spammers to target companies but not individuals.  Spamming is spamming and no differentiation is made between spamming individuals or company members.
The regulations state that when someone subscribes to your list (gives you their name and email) you must give them the option to be able to unsubscribe. Otherwise this is again spamming.
Subscribing to an email list is known in the trade as opting in.  The opt-in form is typically found on the top right hand side of a web page were it is most effective.
Bulk emailing to an audience who have volunteered their name and email in return for a newsletter sign-up or a free product is not spamming.  If you do subscribe to such a list you can unsubscribe anytime to avoid any unwanted further emails.
The only thing is, experienced marketers will mix value emails (containing something of interest to you) with promotional emails so it will feel less like you are being sold to. 

In the late 19th century Western Union allowed telegraphic messages on its network to be sent to multiple destinations. This first recorded instance of a mass unsolicited commercial telegram occurred in May 1864.  Given that spam of one kind or another has been with us for so long, it will continue to be part of our daily lives for some time yet to come.

If you have any interesting "spam stories" to tell, please comment below.
Many thanks, Chris.

LinkedIn Infographic

LinkedIn Facts & Figures infographic

ReTweet Etiquette

We all know retweets (RTs) are vital for spreading your message on Twitter. But there are rules of engagement or etiquette which many are unaware of. Do bear in mind that retweeting has its own etiquette or way in which things should be handled.  Observe these rules and see if you get more of an audience.

 

Golden RT Etiquette

• Always thank those who retweet you, give credit.
• Be reciprocal.  Always retweet a tweet from the tweeb who retweeted you. 
• Do not retweet your retweeted tweets.
• Do not retweet someone who is complimenting you, if you can resist.

 

 

How To Get Retweeted In The First Place

• Provide valuable content to your followers.
• Dont make it about yourself.
• Promote others and their conversations.
• Ask for retweets.  "Please Retweet" not "Pls RT".
• Add a link to your tweet.
• Use hashtags, one is OK, two are better. 
• The best day for getting retweets is Friday, this drops off sharply during the weekend and rises during the week days.
• The ideal time for retweets is noon to two o'clock in whatever time zone the majority of your audience are found in.

 

 

The idea for this post as kindly suggested by Rebecca @scarberryfields.  If you have an idea for a post that you would like to see or if you have a query just write a comment below.

Regards, Chris

  

An Infographic About Infographics

The State of Infographics infographic by NowSourcing.

Customer Satisfaction And Social Media

What do you do when your complaint doesn't get heard?
We all know that social media is a great tool to use if you have a complaint about a product or a service.  It is easy to companies to monitor any negative remarks about their brand with tools as basic as Google Alerts.  But what happens when you are ignored and you know that the problem you are having is being experienced by many others?

In my case, I had an issue with my car before Christmas.  My car was 4 years and 10 months with 95,000 miles (155,000 km) on the clock.  My car let me down and let me down badly.   It was a premium brand car, a BMW to be exact.  The engine had developed a serious fault which lead to the partial destruction of the engine.  Again I wasn't expecting this from a premium brand car less than 5 years old or am I being niave.  I have to mention that this repair cost me $4,160 (€3,200) while the car originally cost approx. $64,000 (€49,000) so you can imagine my annoyance.  I paid for a repair which every other diesel powered BMW was having.

On the advice of a friend I trawled a number of BMW car forums and found that this was a common enough fault on 1 series, 3 series and 5 series diesel BMWs with the N47 engine built between March 2007 and May 2010.   I put this to my local BMW dealer but they didn't want to know.  I even found and internal document which highlighted the problem, do Google PUMA 13588845-03.  This I put to BMW Germany but they insisted that it had to be dealt with through the local BMW dealer.

I posted my story on a national consumer discussion board.  There I was contacted by someone who was running a petition to have the cars recalled.  He was looking for signatories who all had the same problem.  This petition was run through AVAAZ.org, the link was
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/BMW_N47_engine_recall/?tKKRsdb
I shared this petition with my Facebook friends.
I joined the BMW group on LinkedIn, but my comments were never published. 
I am in the process of writing to "BMW Car" magazine in the UK. They are known for airing the views of annoyed car enthusiasts.
As you can see I'm writing a blog post to register my annoyance. 

Have you had an experience like this?  What did you do to get it resolved?  Please comment below.
Should big brands be allowed to get away with this kind of behavior? 


The Problem of the N47 Engine
Since over a year it has been known that the timing chain in N47 engine fails.  Some mechanics put it down to the sprocket that drives the chain, others to the lack of chain guides.  Either way when the timing chain fails the engine becomes damaged.  If the chain breaks while travelling on the highway, the engine will be completely destroyed and will require replacement.  In my case this happens during city driving and resulted in the cam shaft and rockers needing to be replaced.  Nonetheless the engine needs to be removed, stripped and reinstalled.  My car was just shy of 100,000 miles when this happened but other cars with the N47 engine have had this happen at 50,000 miles. 
If you have a car with an N47 engine you should be very worried.