competitive tactic or spam?

By on September 23, 2010 in Uncategorized

I tend to have a lot of conversations about what things I see companies doing in social environments that to me seem to straddle the line between competitive tactics and spamming. I have heard a lot of arguments from both sides on this, and it all comes back to the saying, “an eye for an eye”, if someone does it to you, you can do it to them. Then question of who does it first also gets just as much attention. Whether that is actually the correct way of doing business or not can also be argued, but thats not what I am trying to determine.

It all started with radio and ad campaigns, competitors calling each other out over quality of products or who does what better, even today I still enjoy the TV commercials of Pepsi and Coke going at it. But now that we live in the world of social conversations, chat rooms and influencers, where does the line get drawn? In the world of Twitter, which is now a viable resource and influential arena for B2B and B2C companies alike, what constitutes a competitive tactic or spam?

So here is my question to you:
Would it be ok if Pepsi used the Coke hashtag (#coke) in their tweets? to help them reach a new audience? to help disrupt Coke’s marketing campaign? to redirect traffic from an event?

Or is this considered spamming?

I would really love to hear your comments on this, as it is very easy to replace Pepsi and Coke with any company’s name and a competitor. Unless of course you think it is ok for B2C, but not for B2B, which then I would love to hear your comment on that as well.

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    • http://twitter.com/stepnold Stephen Nold

      SteveExcellent post – excellent questions. I have a simply answer – if the message isn’t value to the audience and you are pitching your brand, I consider it spamming. This can take on several variations as Coke can spam their own community and still use their Coke brand. If a tweet has value to the Coke community (which may not be ‘Buy Pepsi today’) then I would support the tweet. If Pepsi sold their secret recipe to Coke, I think the Coke community would be interested and would not reject the message. It is less about the placement of the message but rather the value of the content + the promotional pitch that creates spam.

      Moreover, many messages contain no brand pitch and are just bad tweets, but they do not fall under the category of spam.If I place my event hashtag into your blog (#mtosummit) or provide my twitter name for new followers (@stepnold), some of your readers may find that offensive or others may appreciate the opportunity to connect. Guess we come back to the saying, ‘Spam is in the eye of the beholder.’

    • http://twitter.com/cagedether Daryl Pereira

      Provocative stuff!

      My feeling is that we’re moving into a new paradigm where companies have to be more transparent and treat their customers with more respect than they may have in the past. In this instance this would mean using hashtags that represent and define your message, rather than try and steal visibility.

      Pepsi could only use the #coke tag if they are taking about Coke (eg. competitive comparison).

      But maybe I’m being naively optimistic!

    • Anonymous

      Steve,

      First of all I have to say this is an excellent topic worthy of much needed discussion. To this day I strongly believe using a competitor’s hashtag is the social media equivalent of becoming the unwanted guest at a party. Here are my reasons why:

      * Hashtags build communities around a particular topic. Using them to post unrelated content is misleading and distracting to users focused on a specific discussion.

      * When Twitter users are engaged in using hashtags for realtime chats (i.e. events) they should be able to do so without any “commercial interruption” from a competitor.

      * Using a competitor’s hashtag is an implicit admission that users are more focused on someone else’s conversation and not yours. I believe users may feel their conversation space is being invaded.

      I know these tactics may bring visibility during time sensitive discussions and turn heads to raise click-throughs. But companies should avoid invading Twitter users gathered around a specific hashtag to engage in conversation. This is simply called being #respectful to the Twitter users.

    • Anonymous

      thank you for the response Stephen. I agree, content (and relevance) is king. On your closing statement “Spam is in the eye of the beholder”, I wonder if there is a point where the masses agree, and at which point is that. Let me pose a question to you, “if a competitor of yours was using #mtosummit to push their own products, would that be considered Spam?” (their products could be relevant to your attendees but take away from your bottom line)

    • Jddubow

      I agree with a lot of your points. Then I say to myself, why is this any different than a competitor buying ad space in the airports or taxi cabs in the city in which you are hosting your conference? It’s effective in that it makes people pay attention to their name yet it’s an obnoxious tactic.

      Also, in the B2B space, we have co-opitors (competitives that are also business partners), so it’s not as simple as a B2B company could have multiple objectives with the competitor’s hashtag.

      Again, no right answer but something to approach cautiously.

    • Anonymous

      I like you comment about companies needing to be more transparent with their intentions, especially larger companies looking to avoid sever backlash within the communities.

    • Anonymous

      I think this is a great point:
      “Using a competitor’s hashtag is an implicit admission that users are more focused on someone else’s conversation and not yours. I believe users may feel their conversation space is being invaded.”

      now, what about events? does the same rules apply? thanks for the response.

    • Anonymous

      I’m glad you brought up airports and taxi cabs!

      Competing messages (i.e. purchased ads) surround a company’s event but they are not placed inside. Why do you think Twitter created Sponsored Hashtags? They were created so companies could buy visibility for their hashtag without appearing inside another.

    • http://nothingbutsocnet.blogspot.com/ Zena Weist

      Love the question, Steve. If it’s straight up and relevant for the audience, I think use of a competitor’s hashtag is fine.

    • Anonymous

      are we saying we should expect the same type of behavior in social communities as we see in the traditional sense?

      i can see twitter hashtag usage for an event being compared to being inside the venue, so the taxi/billboard scenario would be inside the physical location (i.e. conference hall). Is it inappropriate then? you thoughts?

    • http://www.bilal.ca Bilal Jaffery

      It is spam and nothing more. Social is suppose to be open and with any open envoirnment, we must respect it so that it does not backfire. I am actually happy that the social web is bringing us back to our our tribal roots. Where we actually cared about our community and not just us. By employing such tactics, yes, you can possibly have short-term success but at a long term expense.

      Goes aligned with internal social movements as well. http://www.bilal.ca/social-software-networks-lotus-connections/

    • http://www.bilal.ca Bilal Jaffery

      Idealistic views are always the engine behind any positive movements!

      Definitely not naive.

    • http://www.bilal.ca Bilal Jaffery

      What about an event stream? Where people are specifically only talking about the event and nothing more.

    • http://www.bilal.ca Bilal Jaffery

      Well said.

    • Mruotolo

      Whether it’s your website or your Twitter page, it’s good to be good to users. Intentionally duping them with your competitor’s hashtag is not cool (and quite rude to the competitor and their metrics team). The only exception to this would be if it were very funny. We could all use more entertainment : )

    • Steve Furman

      I don’t view it as spam. I do view it as unprofessional and tricky if Brand A uses a hashtag about Brand B. Unless, brand A is actually referencing, talking about or linking to something about Brand B. I see this no different than any other communication. If Brand A wouldn’t put Brand B’s name in an official press release or on their web site, the it shouldn’t be in their Twitter stream.

      It’s not that hard of a concept and people who use Twitter will see that immediately and take their personal action.

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    • Paula Alderlieste

      Hi Steve

      Tricky question… this will depend on the information and aim of the tweets, the amount of time and the intention for tweeting…but in general, I would say it is even good that companies talk to each other using social media because the reality is that they do research each other and have contact with each other. But if companies do take this path B2B would need to be very careful, especially not to spam each other.
      .

    • Deichten

      Using another company’s hashtag for furthering your own agenda is akin to taking their logo or other brand asset. If one believes, as I do, SOCIAL Marketing places an emphasis on building and sustaining relationships, then I would hope participants would follow “the golden rule”.