Rabid marketing idiocy

I understand the crazed auto-following of anyone who mentions 'marketing', of course - the idea being that marketers all follow each other (though I don't see how any of them hope to sell anything to people who are all trying to sell things...). What I don't get is the pointless following. I suppose it's because most of these people have automated everything in the belief that a machine can do a better job. Or that they can't be bothered. Probably the latter - in which case I'm even less interested. It amazes me when people think they can sell - or perform any kind of service - without paying attention to their clientele. As for the book, I hope you read it too. Once it's actually out of editing (ouch, that's a painful process). There's a chance for a freebie copy for people who're interested (see profile), though even with that I'm only 'marketing' it to people who're interested and not just everyone. I'm pleased to say that I think it's had a success even before publishing: the approach has just worked for someone I "met" while doing NaNoWriMo, since she'll soon be working for my main client. Without marketing herself at all. Woohoo!

Keep in mind you are discussing with a person that thinks "a tweet" is something her canary does. Well not really, but everyone is not on the same level, I am saying. I am trying to learn about your topic and appreciate the work you have put into this. I already think your book has a great deal of merit and will make for an interesting read even for people like me. It may actually be a big help to people too and I'm encouraging you to continue with it very strongly. I like to write, no, that is not correct, writing is something precious to me. Would I consider 'selling' it? Well to a point, I guess, like you said in this discussion that follows, “Marketing has become such a part of our lives that almost no one has considered how nice life would be without it” - SpikeTheLobster I remember seeing this marketing article once that was encouraging people to take “information” that was online, use software to change it to the extent that it was not the same, thereby solving a copyright issue and then re-post the article into a blog to make money from. This marketing technique, this article called “blogging to make money is easy”. This is not what I want to do! I want to write and if I do a little research surely give credit, making note of those I get information from. If marketing (or the type of marketing that give marketing a bad name) attempts to make me into a uncaring ‘plagueism’ marketing machine, it is time we parted. In short after reading that article I stopped thinking about blogging for money.

To be honest, I'd rather do that bit of marketing myself (as I am doing, even though it's an unpleasant experience). The day I pay someone who puts "Interactive Social Media Resources", "Social Media Maven" or other such buzzwordy phrases on their profile, I'll know my soul is forever lost.

By the past I have never cared about marketing directories offering me a link -- I never paid, so I have kept my soul --, but with a site offering mainly resources for schools, I was really annoyed when I was founding keywords or links in p*rn sites, satanist blogs, and other joys. Sadly, there is no way to force somebody to remove a link.

A couple of wonderful ideas and expressions in your response, there! "they figure the more followers they have the more chance of getting either a referral or someone that is interested" - absolutely. But that's like dropping 1,000,000 leaflets onto a city from the sky (and hoping for a 0.001% response) instead of targetting your audience. It's rather inefficient and precisely what modern marketing isn't about. "Following someone for the same reasons as the person following you is like chasing yourself" - that's a beautiful way to put it. Awesome!

Thank for liking my response. I agree with you Spike. To market anything, whether it is a referral link or a product needs to be targeted to the proper type of audience. When you said it's like dropping a million leaflets from the sky, is like finding a needle in a hay stack. Why work harder when we all can work smarter.