Recently I was researching  a topic in social media. As a result I had several twitter followers put me in touch with their favorite sources on twitter. Naturally I followed the people they recommended and the people doing the recommendations. From one of them I got the dreaded auto DM. I supose I should be glad that I only got one considering I probably followed 10-15 people that night.

My reaction: I find it disturbing that someone helping me with Social Media Best Practices Q earlier today has sent me an auto DM.

Auto DM’er (Sent via DM so name withheld):  Touche! But, the auto DM saves me a ton of time. We single moms have to save time as much as we can:-)

Saves you time? Seriously? Auto DM’ers are filling up my DM inbox and email inbox with messages that say “thanks for the follow. Please buy my crap” or “Thanks for the follow. here is where you can find more crap I’m involved with” If you actually think I might be interested in something you are involved with then tell me, personally.

Picture this scenario; you attend a function in your city and meet many people. A few days later you recieve a hand written note from Jane Smith. It says that it was a pleasure meeting you and invits you to drop by her office any time.  Jane thinks they might have some things at her office you might be interested in or business she can help you with.

Jane was nice enough to take time and send a hand written note and she might have something of interest to you. So, you decide to stop in for a bit, but you enter the wrong door. Jane is not there. Instead there a scanner auto scanning  a stack of business cards that Jane has collected at community events. A machine is printing out what looks like personal hand written notes just like the one you received.

Now how do you feel about Jane. For me, I don’t care what she has in her store or how much she can help me in business. She is pretending to be personal but she is fake and she has waisted my time.

A DM has some similarities to a personal note. I open it before I open the rest of the mail. A DM hits my email box and when I get a DM I assume it’s because someone would like a private response and it is probably something more important than an @reply.  It used to work that way before auto dm’s started filling up my email.

For a while 9/10 messages in my DM box were auto DM’s. That’s when I started unfollowing or blocking auto DM’ers. I simply couldn’t find the real messages in all the “thanks for the follow, please buy my crap” auto DM’s.  How does wasting my time = saves you time? It’s an unnecessary and unwanted message in my inbox. If you are fake and want to waist my time in favor of “saving” your time, then you are a spammer and you are not worth my attention.

A few days ago I received a phone call from someone arranging for a conference on Social Media. A journalist friend had recommended me for a panel on PR.  I responded that technically I am considered marketing but that the two are so married it really doesn’t matter. She was floored. Apparently this was a new concept for her.

I had to put on the breaks and remind myself that the PR people live in a PR bubble, The Marketing people live in a marketing bubble and both bubbles are completely ignoring the customer service department. PR, Marketing, and Customer Service need to be three branches of the same tree.  They may focus on different aspects but if they are not connected at some point they are not going to grow well.

I’m not the only one saying this.  CC Chapman has mentions similar statements on Managing the Gray and Ron Ploof talks about it in Read This First – The Executives guide to New media from Blogs to Social Networks. I’ve heard many others say it too. But it’s those of us who do not come from either marketing or PR that find separating the three just baffling.

Wikipedia has several descriptions for Public Relations but the simplest one is “the practice of managing communication between an organization and its publics”

It describes Marketing as “the process by which companies determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales… create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return.^“

So if PR is “managing communication” and Marketing is “build(ing) strong customer relationships” shouldn’t they be talking to each other? And if it’s all about relationships with the customer shouldn’t both departments be talking to the only people in the company who are talking to the customers directly, the Customer Service Department?

I promise not to make this the all Scott Sigler all the time channel but this guy just keeps amazing me.  A few hours after I posted the Scott Sigler as Marketing Genius post, he posted this: (Hint: look for Me and sidekick Erin in the last few minutes) 

Scott didn’t have a camera crew following him around on the tour. He didn’t even have a video camera, just a pocket size still shot camera with minimal video abilities. He also put the word out, again using New Media via twitter, for any fan shots taken during the tour. Again getting more fan involvement.

Fancy corporate video of an event has it’s place but we the fans want to see people like us having a good time with Scott and with other fans. It builds the community.

Notice all the costumes, cakes and hand made gifts. This is grass roots stuff. It’s real, and yet, it’s also selling books. So everyone is happy. This is new media.

For years a sweet older gentleman has been going through our condominiums trash dumpsters looking for recyclables. I used to see him there about once a week. We exchange polite pleasantries but I never learned a second language so the conversation stopped there. He is a sweet old man just trying to get by in this world. Whenever I saw him I would run back to the house and grab whatever cans and bottles we had saved since the last time I saw him.

A few months ago I noticed more, usually older gentlemen, going through the trash. They also started stopping by with much more frequency. Now days it seems like every time I take the trash out or walk the dog past the trash dumpster there is someone going though it for recyclables of every kind. A sign the quicksand our economy is in I suppose.

The other day I saw something that really got my attention. It was a couple, about my age. They were putting the items they found into the back of their truck, a really nice truck. Much nicer than either of the cars my husband and I drive.

Clearly they were making a good living before whatever happened, happened. Right now our only income is an unemployment check. We haven’t actually received the first check yet so our income is only theoretical.

Thankfully, we are still in the category of people putting things in the dumpster and not the group having to take things out to survive. We have lots of options before reaching that point of desperation. But seeing this couple certainly made me stop to think.

As I sit here with only a theoretical income, there is a lot to think about.