Social Media Marketing Gone Too Far
Don’t get me wrong, I love social media. I’m an active participant and it sends me traffic, subscribers and clients every single day. I do think you have to target it right though or it’ll just make you look bad. Let me explain.
Two nights ago we received a pre-recorded message from our daughter’s elementary school principal. We get these messages about once or twice a week, usually reminding us about some school event or an upcoming holiday. Not that night tough. Instead the principal rambled on and on about a facebook contest a local car dealer ship is running. The dealership set up a fan page with a short survey that includes a question about what your favorite local school and what your favorite Toyota is. The school with the most votes wins $1,000 from the dealership – thus the call from the eager principal.
Since facebook was down for a good part of yesterday, we received another urgent call from the principal last night. But it doesn’t end there… as I was walking up to the school just now I can hear him making a loudspeaker announcement to all students challenging them to go to facebook and fill out the survey. Remember this is an elementary school and students range from kindergarten to fifth grade.
I realize that schools are in desperate need of funding. I also realize that social media is the big new buzz word in local business, but if you ask me, this is social media marketing gone too far.
I also doubt that it will be very effective because, believe it or not, Toyota of Rock Hill, elementary students aren’t really your target market and by pushing your product on my child, I for one will not be buying a new car from you.
P.S. What are your thoughts? Am I overreacting or does this seem inappropriate and ineffective to you as well? Share your opinion as a comment below.
You may also like to read:
- Social Media Influence – Why You Can’t Afford Not To Engage With Your Market via Social Media
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- The Best Social Bookmarking Sites To Get Traffic – Friday Freebie
- Internet Marketing Challenge – Week Two
- Twitter As A Marketing Tool For Affiliates – Does It Work?
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For a lousy $1,000? What is that, 2 dollars per kid in the winning school?
This is an abuse of parental trust and wrong for the school to promote it. The peer pressure can be huge, some parents don’t like or use Facebook, and most certainly don’t want their young children to be on there.
But . . . it is brilliant on the part of the auto dealer. He’ll get tons of exposure from this.
Ironically, Susanne, even by you and I discussing this, his viral fame is growing. And “any” publicity beats no publicity. {Sigh.}
It definitely seems odd to me, for sure. I don’t know but maybe for a high school. Even then, though – you’ve got the principal begging the kids to get on Facebook. I think I’d rather hear our principal begging the kids to get OFF Facebook, you know? LOL
I can understand your perspective on this, Susanne. I think it’s more a problem with the principal, not Toyota. Obviously parents are the target market but it sounds like the principal doesn’t really understand social marketing. He was smart to target you with the audio message, but targeting the kids is not very effective unless the kids are really motivated to tell their parents to participate. Schools do all sorts of fundraising so it’s natural to want to win this prize. Maybe next time, you can offer some consulting so the principal can be more effective in the future!
He could definitely use a consultation from you. I think it could be handled better like instead of phone messages they could have sent out a flyer. I think that would have been more appropriate, I hate phone spam and the whole phone thing is supposed to be for actual school activities and cancellations, etc. right? He should not be approaching the kids on this either especially elementary. He could have gone out locally to ask for help.
I agree with you about the target audience. For one I wouldn’t do much, as a mom of two elementary kids, for only $1000! Secondly they need to do some research on there target market. What do there potential customers really want? A discount on there Toyota or $1000 for there kids school. If it is only $1000 give me the discount.
I do agree the principal was wrong in pushing the parents and the kids! Honestly the school could raise more than $1,000 doing a fund raiser!
Anita, yes, he sure is getting quite a bit of exposure from this.
After gaining a little perspective, it’s still not my favorite marketing tactic and he’s certainly not earning my trust, but it seems to be working for him.
I do think the school is pushing this too hard and in the wrong way.
Denise, thanks so much for your input on this. I can certainly see you point and I think you are absolutely correct. The car dealer was targeting the parents, which is part of his target market, but the principal didn’t handle it as well as could be expected.
A big part of what’s bugging me is that with the rather new social media people seem to think it’s ok to blatantly advertise where they wouldn’t otherwise get away with it. I’m sure if the school start running ads during their in class tv programs, or hung huge banners across the hall advertising a consumer product, there would be a big uproar, but since it’s just social media, it’s ok to do this.