It doesn’t matter what you say about me as long as you spell my name right. That was the long held belief of many advertising and PR pros. It assumed people don’t remember the details, just your name. I saw this in practice 11 years ago when I was at Conseco. As we slid into bankruptcy, there were countless news articles describing the mismanagement of the company in great detail. While our agents noticed, consumers seemed to be oblivious. They just  heard the name over and over again and remembered us.

The Shane Company has the most annoying but recognizable commercials. The sound of the owner’s voice is like nails on a chalk board. As soon as I hear it, I switch stations.  I do, however, remember the Shane Company.

And in the realm of social media, there is  Tod Esquivel, AKA IndyFitBrides, IndyFitGrooms, IndyFitKids, IndyBootCamps, IndysBiggestLoser, IndyFitMoms and IndyFitSeniors, just to name a few. He is also known as IndyFitGolf, IndyFitBowling, IndyFitRowing, IndyFitPolice, and Indy FitFirefighters. In all, I found 57 different Twitter accounts.

He follows everyone he can from all of his accounts on Facebook and Twitter. His recent expansion to Foursquare and LinkedIn was really annoying as he spammed many of us with 5, 6 or even 10 separate invitations to connect. While local social media pros ignore, unfollow, and block his tweets, we know his name. He is the butt of many jokes, but  his accounts have followers, and some even have interaction.

So the question is this: Is this unsuccessful marketing if people remember your name? 

In my opinion, it is unsuccessful:

  • He has spread himself so thin, none of the accounts are well-developed, with strong followings. If he allocated just half the time he spends dreaming up new accounts to making his primary one more interesting, he would be a social media powerhouse.
  • Most of his accounts have low or non-existent Klout, and even his primary account is still below 40, indicating little or no influence.
  • In addition, he has created so much negative energy around his brand, he is missing the opportunity to leverage the support of the Indianapolis social media community, which is, for the most part a generous and supportive group.
  • His strategy on LinkedIn was in direct violation of their terms of service and his accounts were shut down. Reports have also been made to Foursquare for his violation of their TOS too.

What should he do?

  • Todd needs one social media account for each network. There is no reason to have dozens of dummy accounts all supporting the  same business. It’s divides his potential audience, wastes time and provides limited results.
  • He needs to blog. According to Hubspot companies that blog get 55% more web traffic and 70% more leads than those that don’t. Tod could dramatically increase his sales opportunities if he would eliminate most of his accounts and use his spare time generating content for his website in the form of a blog. Writing fitness tips for policemen, firemen, golfers, fishers, racers, tennis players, seniors, moms, dads, grooms, brides, and horseback riders would fill a years worth of blog posts and deliver measurable SEO benefits.

I am sure that Tod is a nice guy, but I would rather be fat than follow IndyFitAnything.

 

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