By: Hillel Fuld (@hilzfuld)
It has been a while since I went on one of my rants here. I mean, I do it on Twitter quite often, but a full-fledged rant blog post? Haven’t written one since I listed my annoyances with the way people behave on the web back in June, 2014.
Everything great about social is dwarfed by the annoyance caused by the guy who logs on every 6 months to promote something/ask for a share!
— Hillel Fuld (@HilzFuld) February 18, 2015
I get it, I really do. Everyone around you is talking about this thing called social media that works wonders and makes things go viral. At first, you dismiss it with a simple “Ain’t nobody got no time for that!”
But then, something happened. All of a sudden you were running a business, or you got a new job, or you are trying to raise money for a good cause. So you caved and decided it was time to finally open a Twitter account or log in to your inactive Facebook account and start going viral. Right? Wrong. So. Very. Wrong!
You may have noticed that your tweets and Facebook are not going anything even remotely resembling viral, right? You know why? Because you don’t build the 21st floor of a building without first laying down the foundation!
Can the social web really enable you to reach global audiences in a way no other platform in history could have? Absolutely. Will you experience that magic? Not if you continue down this route! So let’s take a step back. You now need some results, right? You need to raise money for that poor family you are trying to help out of the kindness of your heart, right? My hat is off to you and I say that with a total lack of sarcasm.
If you are looking to raise money or accomplish anything else that requires people to respond to your request on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, YikYak, Snapchat, or any other ridiculous sounding platform that falls under the category of social media, then you need to get back into your DeLorean and travel back around six months to a year.
Ok, now that we got that out-of-the-way, here is what you need to do. Show those people, the ones you are going to be depending on in a year from now, that you care. Share some great content with them, reply to their tweets, comment on their Facebook posts, share their content, and build that relationship.
Seriously, folks. People spend time building their audience on the social web. Don’t just log on to Facebook, start pushing some product and expect everyone to play along because they know you from kindergarten. Oh oh oh, while we’re on the topic, if you are going to embrace the spammy and ineffective strategy of begging friends for Facebook likes, how about you ask the ones that are relevant? You know, the ones that may actually care about your product. Don’t be this guy!
See, here is the thing. It’s not your cause that I disagree with. In fact, I find your cause and desire to help that poor family or those soldiers to be a noble one. Really I do. But, if you are asking someone who has a large audience to share your stuff, do you honestly believe you are the only one who thought of that brilliant idea? You’re not.
That guy that only signs into FB/Twitter to push, promote, and broadcast at which point you begin the countdown till he asks you for a RT. — Hillel Fuld (@HilzFuld) February 18, 2015
So if you expect to get a positive response from your kindergarten friend among the 100 other people who ask him every day to share their stuff, think about what would make that person use his or her audience, the one they spent years building, to promote your cause. The answer? They will do it for you if they feel you would do it for them!
Too many people view social as a sales platform, a means to take advantage of relationships in which they haven’t invested.
— Hillel Fuld (@HilzFuld) February 18, 2015
So shoot open those gull-wing doors on your time machine, roll up your sleeves, and spend the next year or so listening, helping, being friendly, authentic, and just human. Remember, we have to ears and one mouth, use them in that ratio. Of course, the result of doing all those things on Twitter and Facebook is a whole lot more than the ability to then sell to your friends, but that is a topic for another time.
For now, you are the guy who keeps tweeting or messaging his friends every six months to promote something without investing in their trust, so we need to fix that. The greater discussion of what you can achieve on the social web if you maximize its potential, is a much more important discussion, but baby steps… 
Now let’s take this one step further. If you did not invest in those relationships and are trying to get people to promote your stuff, then just go ahead and deactivate your social accounts and do something else with your life. However, even if you did spend the time showing those people that you care before asking them for help, get this, their answer might be “No”.
If the answer to “Please share my crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the local Ballet class” is “Sorry, that is not my thing and my audience is not interested in Ballet”, don’t, for the love of God, come back with “Dude, it will make people happy. Don’t you want to make people happy?” or What is wrong with you? You are not a real friend.” or “You are a unicorn killer and a horrible person.” Just don’t.
To sum it up, the people who think they can sign on to Facebook once or twice a year and expect their stuff to go viral by asking their friends to share it with their respective networks are doing it all wrong. Not only will those people ruin their personal brand and the brand of the product/company they are trying to promote, but they run the risk of actually ruining real offline relationships. That’s right. No one likes takers who never give back. Not offline and not online, so just don’t, mmk?
No one says it like Gary. Pardon the language, but hey, it’s Gary!