I received an email
recently from a company that I shall not name, so as not to encourage business
for them, that deeply disturbs me.
It is selling
automatic Facebook fans. For just ten bucks, you could immediately acquire 500
fans. You could get 10,000 fans by paying just 99 dollars. It’s legal and
reliable – but it’s unethical.
Sure the world of
social media forces us to raise our platform numbers. Employers, clients, and
others whom you may need to impress look at how many followers and connections
you have. Of course the whole story of your social media footprint can’t be
found just in the numbers, but if you look to these numbers to guide a buying,
hiring, or dating decision, look again.
The process is
corrupted by companies selling contacts and immediate connections. The world is
unfair if it judges you based only on numbers of followers, but that doesn’t
justify doing something to falsify or violate the process.
The media and
advertising worlds have already trained us to be suspect of the numbers.
Circulation figures for print publications, Web site visitor totals, and
advertising space figures have all been manipulated, pumped, and distorted.
Consumers hear and believe what they want, but it doesn’t help when these
numbers are bloated or falsely obtained.
The email I received
says: “Buying Facebook fans is one of the best decisions that you will ever
make in your life. This is because when you buy the fans, you don’t have to
wait for months or even years for you to garner a good number of followers."
Of course, why work
hard like a fool when you can just buy your way to what you need to appear
important and connected? Why try to get something properly, when you can just
throw money at it?
I’m being sarcastic,
but others will take that as gospel. There are many who will do whatever it
takes to get what they want, no matter how they do it. They buy term papers in
school, ask colleagues to cover their absences at work, and cheat on their
spouses. They feel the ends justify the means. What’s the harm in buying fake
friends? Because you create a storefront built out of lies and demean the
spirit of using social media to actually build relationships, not fake them.
Have
You Tried Teaching Online Courses?
Check out edX,
Coursera, and Udacity.
My
Apology
I am adding to the
ever-growing overload of digital information with every blog post that I send out. I
also encourage others to create content and to build their brand. I might be
contributing to the problem of information overflow – sorry!
Post-Human
Society
We want to coexist with
technology, not be a slave to it or have it obliterate our old way of life.
Enhance yes, replace or eliminate, no. It shouldn’t be man vs. machine, but the
question is this: How do we merge the two and immerse ourselves in a post-human
world?
Find
Book Groups Or Clubs To Promote Your Book To
Search for “reading
groups” and “book clubs.”
See bookclub.meetup.com
See bookclub.meetup.com
Check out bookgroupbuzz.booklistonline.com
See goodreads.com/group
See library book
groups at read.gov/cfb/state-affiliates.php
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Read – In 2114?
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Marketer Brian Feinblum
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Publishers
Mass Communications Disconnect
Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and
ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media
Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter
@theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This
is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2014.
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