3/13/2012
The Ultimate List of Marketing Pet Peeves
It's time for the airing of grievances.
Brad Shorr and I teamed up to make this list of marketing practices that should be banned. What can you add to our list? C’mon — let’s vent!
Category 1: GRR
- Just because you understand Social Media, doesn’t mean you’re a Social Media Marketing expert. Understand?
- Quantity doesn’t equal quality. Having a high number of followers or Likes means nothing if they aren’t interested in you.
- Sharing email addresses. If we subscribe to your newsletter, we want to receive YOUR newsletter, not an affiliate who pays you for your list. We get enough emails as it is.
- #Overuse of #hashtags on #Twitter makes #us #crazy.
- Blog post titles that promise enlightenment and deliver platitudes.
- The word curation.
- Pop-up ads.
- Think before you type. Twitter is not a place to spew verbal diarrhea. Your followers appreciate a well thought out response or tweet, even if it takes you an extra minute.
Category 2: GRR+
- Shiny object syndrome: Marketers who fall in love with “the new thing” and completely abandon what’s been working or is just at the cusp of mainstream acceptance. (From Jason Pinto.)
- Websites that speak. If we want to hear your video, we’ll play it. We multi-task and will be annoyed and startled if your site starts talking amongst our 25 tabs and 6 windows.
- Crazy quilt, migraine-inducing Twitter backgrounds.
- Don’t post on Facebook as if it’s Twitter. The great thing about different social mediums is they have different implied rules. We will un-like you if you treat Facebook like it’s Twitter and post every hour.
- Websites without phone numbers. Good news: We want to buy $100,000 worth of your stuff. Bad news: We’re too lazy to fill out your 10-field contact form, so we’ll just order from your competitor with the 800 number.
- QR codes on TV commercials. Quick, jump off your couch, grab your phone, and scan your TV, all within 10 seconds … you gotta be kidding us. (From Mike Malone.)
- Pop-up ads.
- Confusing brand management, PR, marketing and advertising. They are all different. (From Ryan McAbee.)
- DON’T POST IN ALL CAPS. You can’t seriously be that angry, or that stupid.
- On Twitter, use an old style retweet (RT @username:). It’s respectful and allows you to actually tell us why you deemed this worth sharing.
Category 3: GRR++
- Your daughter/nephew/administrative assistant isn’t a graphic or web designer if they use Publisher, Constant Contact or Word.
- When we give you a proposal for a website, don’t come back and say your neighbor knows WordPress and can throw something together cheaper. If you want a professional website, hire a professional. If not, then don’t ask for a proposal. They take time.
- Inforgraphics that make concepts harder, not easier, to grasp.
- Automated direct messages on Twitter. We don’t want to hear your canned sales pitch. We didn’t connect with you to make a million dollars by Thursday selling real estate.
- Show or tell us who you are instead of your brand. (From Ryan McAbee.)
- Pop-up ads.
- If we don’t know you on LinkedIn, don’t connect with us by saying you are our “friend.” If you really want to connect that bad, make some sort of effort such as joining a group that we are apart of or finding a mutual connection for an introduction.
- Execs who put the kibosh on a meticulously crafted website design because their spouse didn’t like it … a depressingly dense combination of nepotism and despotism.
- People who use social networks solely as a press release distribution service. Yes, SM can help you spread the word like never before, but if that’s all you do the impact will decrease over time. Engage in conversations, share content from others, and simply post a variety of content from your own pages … in addition to all those article links. (From Jason Pinto.)
- Intentionally confusing email unsubscribe forms.
- Spelling and grammatical errors: We get it, everyone makes mistakes, but if they are throughout your website, blog post or tweets it’s sloppy and we assume you just don’t care.
We're really getting upset now.
Category 4: #@!&^!!
- It’s not a “Twitt,” it’s a Tweet.
- Auto-posting from Facebook to Twitter.
- Pop-up ads.
- If your site doesn’t work in Safari or Chrome, fix it. A good web developer designs for all browsers. And why the #@!&^!! are you using Internet Explorer, anyway?
- Internet Explorer.
- Political telemarketing. If Alexander Graham Bell were alive today, he’d roll over in his grave.
- Email marketing without permission. There’s a special circle in Hell waiting for you.
- Pet peeve posts. You have enough headaches without being subjected to ours.
OVER TO YOU
We welcome your peeve-worthy additions! What drives you up the wall?
About Donna Vieira
Donna Vieira is currently Director of Marketing and Communications for Curley Direct. In addition, she is a marketing and social media consultant, avid technology geek and public speaker. Follow Donna on Twitter, @DonnaVieira or connect on LinkedIn (if you have a mutual interest, of course!)
WAIT!
There’s more …
Postscript Pet Peeve: Not giving credit for images.
(Image credits: Angry man screaming in extreme rage — © dundanim #9379976; Furious woman — © olly #32201374; all Fotolia.com.)
This post was inspired by George Costanza.
About Donna Vieira
Donna Vieira is currently Director of Marketing and Communications for Curley Direct. In addition, she is a freelance marketing and social media consultant, avid technology geek and public speaker. Follow Donna on Twitter, @DonnaVieira or connect on LinkedIn. View all posts by Donna Vieira →Featured Posts
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23 Responses to The Ultimate List of Marketing Pet Peeves
Here’ s a great rant about “curation” from Matt Langer that I just had to share. Thanks to Ruud Hein for finding it.
http://blog.mattlanger.com/post/19184734567
That’s a great post, Brad! Seems like Matt should help write our sequel
Comic Sans!
Can’t forget about e-blasts using the title You have just won 1,000,000 Dollars! Claim your prize now!
Harrison, those are great too! Thanks for contributing.
That was absolutely brilliant, Donna! So many truths that would normally make me pull out my hair but, seeing your list, I couldn’t help but laugh.
So many people just don’t get it when it comes to connecting and engaging online. The best is when you hand them a proposal and they take it to their son or friend to do. It really makes us entrepreneurs wonder sometimes if we are putting too much time and effort into our proposals.
Today I screen potential clients thoroughly before going through the proposal phase. I need to make sure they are absolutely serious about increasing their success (and revenue) online. Only when I’m satisfied do I move forward. In the end, this process saves more time then all the proposals that aren’t taken seriously.
Thanks so much… for voicing the truth and for making me laugh.
Shannon,
Thank you so much for your comment and kind words. Brad and I had a great time putting this list together, and it was fun to receive the contributions as well.
I hear you on screening for proposals, it almost makes us all have to re-evaluate our processes and slow down the sales process which is the opposite of anything they’ll tell you in business school or in the “real world” for that matter.
Glad we were able to give you a great laugh! If you have any more to contribute, feel free to send them our way for a possible sequel
Please follow us on twitter as well, @DonnaVieira and @BradShorr.
- Donna
Great comments and advice on SM etiquette… will definitely retweet AND put on my Facebook page… there are great pearls of wisdom a few people I know need to understand but I don’t feel comfortable telling them directly. This will do the job!! Thanks.
Well duh… if I post on FB, my name is here! What was I thinking?
Mary, Another one of our (many) pet peeves is people who can’t admit they made a mistake … so no worries here.
Thanks for commenting and we hope the information helps you one way or another.
Confession: I just realized I am guilty of Retweeting the easy way. Hadn’t occurred to me before, but will definitely make a conscientious effort to Old School the RT. Thanks!
Ooh! Venting time alert!. Personally, those annoying pop-ups really pisses me off big time. Almost all the time. Especially if it’s that big and you’re focusing on reading the content. Then just, BAM! Right into the screen!
I agree, Cathy! It’s like having a child jump up and down in front of the TV during a show/movie
Great post Donna. This one from your list is my biggest pet peeve! As I work on the web all day nothing is worse than figuring out on which tab that darn video is playing.
“#2. Websites that speak. If we want to hear your video, we’ll play it. We multi-task and will be annoyed and startled if your site starts talking amongst our 25 tabs and 6 windows.”
Thank you for your comment, Gina! It is SO annoying for those of us who spend our day amongst tabs and windows.
Great job Donna !
2.6 – lol !
)
2.10 Yes !
3.2 …or PLEASE have your neighbor, nephew or admin build your website and then (older and wiser) come back for a serious proposal. (My best customers are those who tried to build their own websites
Thank you Glenn! So glad that this resonated with you. And regarding your addition to 3.2, I agree – I see the same thing.
Those who can’t, try. Those who do, end up re-doing someones work
Great list, Donna. A few of them had me cracking up. I guess we gotta laugh to keep from crying haha.
Appreciate it, thanks Guy!
Love these. I really like the photo of the screaming woman.
I agree. She has one big bad hair day going on there.
Donna, sadly I didn’t discover this post until today, but better late than never! There’s nothing I love more than posts like this where I can relate to every single thing written.
Other incredibly annoying things:
1. Those too lazy (or who just don’t know any better…both equally bad) to take the time to figure out who they should reach out to. When my contact information, title, and exact description of what I do are available, there is no reason I should ever receive an email addressed “To Whom It May Concern” (grounds for immediate deletion)
2. Sneak attacks….I am a publicist advocating the brands I represent. I do not try to fool journalists into thinking I am just their average reader with a really cool story from a place I just happened to visit.
That goes along the same lines as your hilarious mention of the people pretending to be your friends on LinkedIn. Most of us are not Kim Kardashian, we don’t have so many friends that we literally might not remember if you are a friend or not.
3. With that….LinkedIn is getting to be a pet peeve. Sure, we know how to use the “advanced” functions, like groups. But I blame LinkedIn for the outrageous occurrence of friendship-faking attempts. I bet there would be a lot less if that drop down box of “how do you know me?” options wasn’t so limited. if you try to tell the truth, and admit that you don’t know the person, you get punished and turned away.
Thanks again for the hilarious post. Had a rough day today, and this just made it a lot better. Keep them coming!!
Meredith, I really like your #1. Another form of this is when people send inquiries via blog comments, when contact information is plastered all over one’s website. GRRRRRRR.
Meredith,
Thanks so much for reading and giving such great pet peeves! #1 and 3 are my favorites
LinkedIn is absolutely becoming an issue.
Also appreciate you following me on Twitter!
Donna