supereric

I’ve become increasingly suspicious of anyone who markets themselves as a social media strategist (or guru or expert or what-have-you) these past few months. At one point (sometime last year) it appeared that this new role could be an exciting, innovative, and interesting way to get the word out about a company or a product or an event. As usual, the real marketing geniuses (the aggressive ones with few scruples?) are rushing in to claim and perhaps maim a good idea. I suppose that’s the way things go. 

In my job as senior community manager at Ning, I deal with a lot of different kinds of people every day. Some good, some bad. It’s an interesting job. Occasionally, we see link-droppers or advertisers come into our online community who have simply shown up to market their multi-level marketing scheme, their amazing new diet pill, etc. When that happens, we politely ask them to leave. We have a set of community guidelines that prohibit that kind of advertising. 

This week, a representative of an up-start, start-up Ning competitor came into our community to encourage our customers to leave Ning and start a new community at his employer’s site, Lunch.com. Ryan Weiss (who recently joined the Ning Creators community that I help oversee) is the social media coordinator at Lunch.com. I joined Lunch.com not too long ago because it looked kind of interesting. I don’t know a lot about how they work, but this definitely makes me pause and reconsider my Lunch.com membership.

I personally think that sending private messages like this one to members of our community is, well, just plain outrageous. I can’t imagine ever thinking of marketing in this way to my competitors. It seems beyond unethical. If nothing else, it’s a serious violation of professional courtesy. In my mind, the job of community manager has a slight bit of nobility to it, and all of the people I’ve met who do this type of job seem to have a shared sense of conduct. I also, perhaps naively, thought that people who work at start-ups should always try to help a brother out. You just never know when your start-up will fail (or succeed). But maybe I’m wrong. 

[I sent a message to Ryan on Creators but I haven’t heard back yet. I will update here if I do.]

Is it okay to do this? Do we, as community managers — or “social media managers” — have an ethical code? Shouldn’t we? Yes? No? Am I overreacting in thinking that this is not cool? Have you ever done this type of geurilla marketing before? Is this type of conduct something J.R. Johnson, the founder of Lunch.com, encourages? 

Feel free to let @ryan_weiss or @supereric or @jrlunch know how you feel if you have an opinion about this.

Or, simply comment here if you have an opinion (anonymously, if you like). If I get enough responses, I’ll share them and maybe even turn this into a poll or something more. Would love to hear your stories if you’ve ever considered — or performed — this kind of customer poaching.