Unethical advertising practices offer a tantalizing shortcut to success. Some common black hat marketing tactics, and the real price small businesses end up paying in the long run for making these mistakes š§µā¬ļø
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Building a small business up from scratch is incredibly difficult work, and the pressure to build your social media channels at any cost can be killer.
But as good as it would feel to go from 0 to 5,000 subscribers in a month, there are no real shortcuts to success when it comes to #digitalmarketing.
So itās important to remember that ethical marketing practices are the best marketing practices. Donāt just follow the letter of the rules ā the real humans reading and watching your content will be able to see if your heart isnāt in the right place.
And theyāll judge your brand accordingly.
Here are 5 black hat practices to avoid when it comes to #SEO, #socialmediamarketing, and building your brand online:
Ethical Advertising No-No 1: Buying likes, shares or subscribers
It's a testament to human ingenuity that we look at any new phenomenon and think, āHey, how can I make some easy money out of this?ā
With likes, shares, retweets and followers almost becoming a form of digital currency, a burgeoning market for purchasing them has surfaced over the past decade.
Now, this might *sound* like a great idea. Social media management and marketing is a full time job taking a minimum of 6-8 hours of work daily.
If you're running a small business, there are so many other aspects of the business that demand your time. Whether youāre working alone or with a small team, it is difficult to spare the amount of time and energy that organic social media marketing requires.
This makes purchasing followers look like a tempting prospect. If your account already has a large following, it will look established and trustworthy to potential followers.
What's more, social media marketing experiments have proven that paying for followers actually leads to an uptick in organic following as well.
But a large following means nothing without engagement. That's okay though, bot farms have a solution for you. You can now purchase engagement *as well.* BUT you need your engagement to turn into sales, and that's where this particular train grinds to a halt. #ethicalmarketing
Purchasing social media clout is, without doubt, a bad idea.
a. You'd be breaking the TOS of a number of social media platforms, including Instagram, which has started cracking down rather heavily.
b. Paid follower accounts tend to be inactive or even bots. Such accounts are actively suppressed by Instagramās algorithms, and will therefore hurt your pageās standing.
c. Little to no organic engagement. ā”ļø Even if you purchase engagement from accounts run by humans, such accounts are usually maintained for the express purpose of trading engagement. They will eventually go dormant, and your engagement rate will take a deep dive.
d. If not enough real people who fit your buyer persona have seen and engaged with your content, you're not going to get many sales from your #smm efforts.
Lastly, social media algorithms use your existing following to understand your ideal target audience. If the accounts that follow you donāt match your target audience, you'll have a lot of trouble reaching the people who need your product or services.
Ethical Advertising No-No 2: Stealing or plagiarizing content.
No, not even if youāre giving credit.šš¾
Sharing a post to your Instagram or Facebook story because you appreciate someoneās content is one thing. Recreating it just because itās doing well is another.
If youāre looking to run an actual business, and you've been primarily leaning on someone elseās work, when someone actually hires you, you wonāt know what youāre doing.
Ethical Advertising No-No 3: Don't be vague about permissions
Social proof and testimonials are essential elements of a marketing strategy. And endorsement from a satisfied customer can go a long way in building your reputation among potential customers.
In some cases, like cosmetic, dental or gender affirmation surgeries, before/ after pictures can be worth a thousand words.
But using vague legal terms to get someoneās permission to use their photos for your marketing is a terrible idea. By obtaining their signature on a release form, you may have followed the letter of the law, but not its spirit.
Using someone as a subject for marketing purposes needs to be something they specifically consent to. In the long run, this can lead to a backlash and boycott of your business. It could even hurt your industry as a whole, as everyone else will also be tarred with the same brush.
Moreover, as far as legal principles go, such consent forms would not meet the letter of the law if challenged. The essence of any contract is "consensus ad idem" - meeting of the minds. All parties to a legal agreement should be agreeing to the same thing in the same context.
Ethical Advertising No-No 4: Don't SPAM
Scattering links to your website around the internet for unsuspecting users to come across used to be a pretty popular practice, back during the early days of the blogosphere.
Nowadays, this is just a guaranteed way to ensure youāre removed from a blog or forum, and not invited back. #bloggingtips
And whatās more, this practice lowers the authority and credibility of your site, so there are only upsides to being ethical in this situation.
Ethical Advertising No-No 5: Don't purchase lead databases
Cold calling and cold emailing are an essential part of #directmarketing, but should be approached with care.
It is important that the recipient of your messages know how youāve received their contact information, and their permission should be implicit in the process. #emailmarketing
For e.g., emailing someone who has made their contact information available on a network you also happen to be on provides them with a direct line on how you know them, and how they know you.
However, a purchased lead database means you have no way of tracing the provenance of the contact information you receive.
You would have no way of knowing why or how a personās information was originally provided, and whether they have implicitly or explicitly agreed to be contacted for this purpose.
This not only damages the relationship you build with your lead before you even start, but also can result in you being reported as spam, and/or penalized with a blocked account. #digitalmarketingtips
TL;DR: Marketing is an essential aspect of building and growing a business. But financial sustainability needs to go hand-in-hand with ethical sustainability.
Practicing #ethicalmarketing goes a long way towards building a great reputation for your brand, but itās about more than that! With good marketing comes great power and the ability to influence minds.
Ethical marketing therefore involves thinking beyond yourself and your brand, and about the effect and influence your messaging will have on the people who see it.
And that's a wrap! What are some examples of #unethicalmarketing you've come across? Let us know! š
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