Oh, Runner’s World Magazine. As a big brand that’s socially savvy, I thought you would know better than to commit a deadly social media sin—screaming marketing messages to your fans.
The truth is, most people don’t trust advertisements from brands; they trust their peers. Here’s the beauty though– when a brand fosters an online community, they create brand advocates. Brand advocates equal word of mouth advertising, the most valuable kind.
I understand every brand has talking points, sponsor plugs, etc. they have to push out. In order for those “marketing messages” to have success in the social space, brands have to think outside the box. Create content, not just a billboard. Trust me, shareable content that fans engage with is much more valuable in the long run (no pun intended) to both a brand and their corporate sponsors.
Runner’s World Magazine’s tweet received 13 retweets. Not very engaging for a brand with 500,000 followers (0.0026 percent of their fans). Of course, I don’t know how many people actually clicked on the link, but I know one thing… seeing the tweet did not make we want to click through or check out the product at all.
Yes, the sponsored tweets are a major fail, not only for Runner’s World Magazine, but also for the companies of the products they are plugging. Here’s to no more posts labeled SPONSORED.
