Hacking Algorithms is not Best Marketing Practice

How many businesses spend time and effort in social media marketing? Over the past decade, marketing on social networks like Twitter and Facebook has become a Mecca of free advertising but at what cost?

Hacking Algorithms

Programmers and technical support personnel at social networking sites have begun a battle of sorts with marketers of goods or services for free on their pages. New algorithms and blocks have been built into the platforms to discourage marketing from reaching everyone and it is working for the most part.

However, small and large businesses have whet their appetite on the free exposure and found ways to reach past algorithms to continue exposing their products and services to the general population. The idea is to raise exposure but the numbers don't show effectiveness of the tactics.

Targeted Ads

When an ad is targeted to a group of people who wish to know more about the service, then popularity and recommendations go up. That is not what is happening when businesses try to circumvent the guidelines and rules that social networking sites put in place. The business may get 10,000 'likes' or 'followers' but are they getting 10,000 new customers? Statistics seem to indicate the opposite. Those who initially checked the 'like' box are likely to become annoyed by additional ads sent to their timelines.

Google and SEO

In the beginning of search engines, it was easier to reach top of a search list. Google has created new algorithms that look for quality over quantity. Instead of searching for a topic and having a list of websites that use the keywords often, they search for websites that use keywords in a quality and pertinent way. This puts the highest quality websites at the top of the list and improves searcher's satisfaction with the results.

Best Practices

Marketing to targeted audiences is the best method of driving traffic to your business. Lists of fans who have no use for your service will not boost traffic regardless of their numbers.

Exhausted

In that past three or four years, CEO's like Mark Zuckerberg have been looking for ways to improve the social content at the cost of reducing irrelevant marketing posts. It is much more difficult to continue to force a business's existence on Facebook. The addition of a mini-questionnaire when users hide content helps Facebook to further reduce the appearance of marketing posts.

Improvements in Marketing

If marketing companies followed the algorithms rather than trying to hack past them, they would likely find positive results. Their audience would be targeted to those who are in need of the services or goods they are offering and everyone would benefit.

Let's face it, most people do not want to be bothered with irrelevant advertisements. This is across the media market, too. Online television programming removes ads for a fee. These services are very popular. The same can be said for online advertisement. People will search for what they need and do not require in-your-face advertising that is more intrusive than helpful.

If marketers wish to reach their clients, quality over quantity is key. Ensure that your website presence is positive. Pay the money for a domain and acquire a web developer to give your SEO and your site the desired effects to draw the public to your website rather than trying to force it on them.