PETA Spam Wednesday? What Not To Do.
I'd like to start off by saying that what I am about to write is nothing against PETA (I use to work in their online marketing department for a reason) or the new photos that they released today that show the treatment of baby elephants at Ringling Bros, because I do believe the treatment these animals go through is horrid. What I am about to write has everything to do with how PETA used social media to get their story out and that what they did was soooooo wrong.
Around 10am this morning, I saw a tweet from PETA to Heather Armstrong, then Maggie Mason, Erin Kotecki Vest, and my friends Kelby Carr and Lucretia Pruitt. I was curious to what PETA was up to so I went to their Twitter page. I busted out laughing because the few tweets that I had seen from PETA to the people I followed turned out to be something so much more. The message of the @ replies was the exact same text used, "Never-b4-seen photos that will convince parents never 2 take their kids 2 the circus: http://bit.ly/7ha9NL." This tweet, over a 40 minute time period, was sent to OVER 150 people! The tweet was not sent out to their all-star supporters but to mommy bloggers and social media influential moms.
I understand PETA's thought process. The web feature is meant for parents, particularly mothers, so when you start the process of creating an online campaign, naturally, you think of who your target audience is and how you can best reach them. But when it comes to social media and audience development, you can't think of a "target audience" ... you must think about the people who you will be engaging with. As you can see in the screenshot below, Jessica Gottlieb was anything but happy for receiving the unwelcome message from PETA, and I don't blame her! If she hates PETA, that's fine and totally her decision. And just because she is a mom with a blog and active on Twitter, she is supposed to care about baby elephants? WRONG!
PETA was trying to reach moms with influence but what they should have been doing, what every company and organization should be doing is not spamming people with their message. There are people that will care about baby elephants being mistreated in the circus (I do!). They are the ones that PETA should be having conversations with (that's the key word here). Even if you have 1-5 moms that you know care about this issue deeply, those few women will have way more of a voice reaching their friends then one organization @ replying a bunch of moms who are busy and have never heard from you before, and some like Jessica, who even hate you. I mean Erin Kotecki Vest is at the freakin' White House right now representing BlogHer ... that's busy!
So this is my rant. This is me being dissapointed that an organization could do it so wrong. What is great about social media is that we can all learn from each other, both successes and failures. My advice to any company or organization would be "don't spam, don't spam, don't spam." It's pretty easy not to do and focusing your energy on the relationships you're building everyday with your supporters will be so much more rewarding in the end, trust me!
All that said, PETA has an open position for a Social Media Manager. If you care about animals and could help them out, apply!
by: Allie Sullivan (@ashevilleallie)
