There is a growing trend in social media – outsourcing. Package deals are now a dime-a-dozen. Hire one of these supposed social media experts and they’ll take over the drudgery of creating and maintaining your presence on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even Biznik. For a mere $1,000 set-up fee and $500 a month, they’ll create a profile for you, upload your photo and pertinent bio information and then, supposedly, assume your virtual persona – tweeting, and updating, and connecting with the community to establish your ‘personal brand.’ In most cases, the reality is a far cry from the promise.
There are heated conversations regarding the value of social media to business. There are even more differences in thought on the approach organizations large and small should take to establishing their online presence. Here’s a particularly informative survey of opinion. The question is particularly germane to the small business owner and entrepreneur that has a plate already overflowing with to-do lists and time demands. The option to outsource yourself must be truly appealing given the buzz about the benefits of social networking for business. But will a service provider create an authentic experience of you? Will they accurately reflect the services of your business? Can you truly outsource the relationship aspects of your interactions with others on Biznik or the other social networks, for that matter?
We’ve seen a very disturbing trend over the last several months related directly to these emerging services. User profiles are being created by individuals who are certainly NOT the individual reflected in the profile. We strongly suspect the outsourcing of social media presence to lie at the root of this pernicious situation. The typical pattern is quite consistent:
- A profile is created
- The email address of record for the account is always from a free service (Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail)
- Typical ‘About you’ language is populated usually written in the third person
- A profile photo is uploaded
- A website link to another social network is added to the profile
- The user never returns to Biznik
Following the breadcrumbs, it appears that most of these profiles are being created by ‘affiliates‘ of companies selling the social media packages described above. The affiliate is not an employee of the company. Rather, they earn a bounty on every profile they create. Indeed, many of the package vendors are beginning to behave like MLM’s offering a revolutionary business opportunity to the ‘work-from-home-and-make-millions’ crowd. They entice their unsuspecting ‘partners’ with promises of a lucrative career and then make a mint on their efforts.
The damage these denizens do to the likes of Facebook are minimal. Indeed, the LinkedIns of the world are simply rolodex like databases where the social relationship is a secondary concern. This type of profile actually supports their business model – the larger the database the more lucrative the network. However, social relationship communities, like Biznik, pay a significant and costly price. Such profiles created on this service clutter the community with dead-ends and bridges to nowhere. Given that these individuals have no intention of engaging with the community or working to support the success of other Bizniks, they serve as a significant distraction polluting the community pool with detritus. They suck resources from the community, confuse the active membership, and provide nothing in return. So, we act on your behalf.
Over the course of the last several months we’ve implemented a tidy little package of backend functionality designed to preclude many of these characters from persistently damaging the Biznik community. We are now able to block the creation of many of these profiles as patterns emerge identifying sources of bogus profiles. I’ll not get into the specifics, but rest assured, we are watching.
And you have a role to play! Each Biznik profile page has a control in the lower left hand corner of the page to ‘Flag this member’. If you see a profile created that looks particularly suspicious, flag it and we will investigate. Help us to keep the community vibrant and fresh, populated with real Bizniks interested in supporting one another to grow their businesses and make a difference. It really is about the relationship!
