Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Be Sociable if You're Being Social

I got an email on Friday from Deadly Ponies:
Obviously I am a fan of Deadly Ponies as I have signed up for to receive emails from them. I love a good email that tells me I can win product, so I thought, tell me more...

Click on through to their Facebook Page.


Here is where I have an issue.

What they are asking for, in order to possibly win up to $1,000 worth of product is:

CHANCE TO WIN $1000 WORTH OF DEADLY PONIES!!
Simply post a comment below this picture and then get people to like your post . The person with the most likes wins! Winner receives a voucher to spend on the DP online store to the dollar value of the likes they receive. e.g. Receive 820 likes = receive a $820.00 voucher
Cut-off is 12 noon, 1 August 2011, so get liking.
Voucher Limit $1000.00

Here is where we find my first issue "post a comment below this picture".

As per most well behaved Facebook 'likers', their fans have taken to this well and started commenting. As of writing this post, the top number of 'likes' any one comment has had is 98. Not sure how many of you have purchased Deadly Ponies product before, but $98 doesn't buy much. 
Now, as someone who works with Facebook and products on Facebook a lot, I saw some flaws in the way that they are running this 'competition'. Not one to leave something like this be and honestly wanting to help, I wrote a status update for Deadly Ponies:


It reads:
Hi Deadly Ponies.
While I understand what you're trying to do with your promotion to win $1,000 worth of your fabulous bags, I feel as though your method is flawed. Unfortunately by asking people to comment on your status, you actually won't attract any new facebook likes 'organically' which you could have by having people post their love of your product in their own status. If I comment on your status, only the 2 friends of mine who also 'like' you, will see it. By doing it this way, in my own status, I share this with my 350+ friends, who might also think - gosh, I love Deadly Ponies also.
Just something to think about.
xx



I thought it was pretty nice overall. Nothing too mean. Simply a suggestion.


My own friends have responded quite well to my comment. Deadly Ponies it would seem, have not.


I understand Facebook and when I @ reply a company page as I did in this instance, it posts to their wall. I'm not sure how they have set the page up, my post however, seems noticeably absent. It makes me wonder if they deleted it themselves?


I am all for companies embracing social media and using it to build their following, but the point of social media, is to be sociable. So let your audience be sociable with you!


My second issue, is that the competition itself is actually against Facebook's T&C's. You're not actually allowed to run a competition straight from a status update. You have to do this through a third party app. What concerns me for Deadly Ponies is that they have built quite a nice fan base (I'm assuming) without doing any Facebook advertising. With the introduction of this campaign their 'organic' growth in fans could easily tip FB off that they are running this competition and FB are totally within their rights to shut the page down completely.


I really like Deadly Ponies and love their bags especially, but sometimes you need to ask questions, read conditions and listen to others.   

4 comments:

Jonny said...

Ahahahaha I <3 DP!

Oh noes!

iChild said...

I did forget to mention the unfortunate abbreviation of Deadly Ponies.

Yes - we really do all have incredibly dirty minds.

Nicole Williams said...

Think your comment was spot on, Deadly Ponies should have been thanking you for taking the time to make the suggestions! Feedback is the best way to grow, and you tend to learn a lot more from negative/constructive criticism! A recent DVS Facebook campaign was pulled for the same reason - using "likes" as votes is against FB policy.

Deadly Ponies said...

Hi iChild. Thought we should come back to you about your blog. We dont delete people's comments from our facebook wall (unless they start swearing like crazy person). In fact we dont recall seeing your post at all, but then there were a heap on that competition. What we did do is delete the competition image after it concluded. We thought it would begin to annoy people as every comment would result in duplicated messages to everyone. Upon reading your advice it makes perfect sense, so thanks! We set up the comp for a bit of fun as we are just getting into the whole social media thing. It is proving really handy in keeping in touch with our loyal DP family. You are clearly a pro so please feel free to swing your advice in our direction anytime. We are so sorry if it appears we deleted your post, i promise you we did not. BTW we gave away $604 worth of product which was pretty sweet for our lucky winners. Again, thanks and our apologies!