Meatball Sundae

What is a meatball sundae? If you haven’t read the book by Seth Godin, I highly recommend that you do immediately. Seth takes a deep look at the history of marketing and how it is and isn’t working with today’s new tools.

I will cover a few basics. An example of a meatball sundae is when you take one form of advertising, like a newspaper ad, and use that same ad on your profile in facebook.

Not only is this annoying, because facebook users don’t login to read spam or be interrupted with a sales ad, it is completely ineffective. Let me show you an example of a meatball sundae.

So, Dennis is posting on his fan page and having great conversations with people about investing in apartments and real estate. Then out of nowhere, random sales post, just like a newspaper add. As you can see, no comments were posted.

I can promise you this did not generate any leads and there is a good chance that many people would just hide this persons post forever or even unfriend them.

The next example is even more grievous; interrupting a conversation with a sales pitch.

Somehow I imagine this person as a used car salesman looking to sell me anything. Not only am I going to ignore this but more than likely I will flag it as spam.

The point that Seth makes is that there is a time and a place for all advertising and marketing. Just make sure you are sending the correct message for the medium you are working in.

Both comments above are perfectly acceptable in a newspaper, magazine, or even in the correct category on craigslist. However both are inappropriate, unwanted, and completely ineffective with social media.

Real estate investors seem to be the worst at this, jumping into conversations with an ad while offering nothing to the conversation. I actually had some great examples of this however, I chose non real estate related examples to avoid embarrassing some people I know.

Whether you agree or not, I’m sure that at the end of the day, results matter the most. If you follow the “new rules” of social media, which requires interaction and relationship development, you will dramatically increase your results. Insist on using the “old rules” and find yourself wondering how anyone makes money using social media.

I’m not going to repeat everything that Seth already wrote. Buy the book on Amazon here, or drop by and support your local book store. It’s worth every penny.

Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync?

Be a Renegade,
Jeremy Burgess
The Detroit Market Expert