Status Hi-jacking

Status Hi-jacking

I’m sure this has happened to everyone at one point or another. You post something in your status on facebook and someone hi-jacks the status.

Some examples…

• Two of your friends have started their own conversation within your status.
• Someone has used your status to ask you a question unrelated to the topic that they could’ve (or should've) easily messaged you privately about instead. 
• Someone has posted something that is not related to the topic of your status in anyway shape or form.

The last one is what recently happened to me and prompted this blog.

Earlier this week I posted a status with a link to an article entitled “135 Reasons Why Radio Won’t Play Your Song”. A couple people had liked the status and one individual posted a comment. At first I excited and anxious to see what the comment would be, but unfortunately the comment wasn’t about the post. The comment wasn’t even related to the post in anyway. I don't remember the exact wording, but the individual's post was something along the lines of “Check out some of my music” and then a link to their webpage. 

Now there is a chance the individual who did this is reading this blog and to be perfectly honest, I hope they are, simply because they need to know/learn that hi-jacking someone else’s status is probably one of the worst ways to promote yourself.

Also, if you are reading this please understand this rant isn’t directed entirely towards you, because you’re not the only one to have done this. I administer a couple different facebook groups and not all of them are music related, but I still regularly find myself deleting the random “Check out my band” posts that pop up.

Did we not learn anything from MySpace? That was one of the main annoying factors with MySpace. Everyone’s message board or wall (did they call it a wall, I can’t remember) was flooded with “Check out my band” type of messages. It turned people away, not only from the offending artists but from MySpace as well.

Now before anyone says, “I do it because if even just one person clicks on my link and likes my music, it’s worth it”…sorry, no it’s not. Your return on investment, investment being the effort it took to post the comment will never be recouped. And when you think about the amount of effort you put into posting that comment (most of these posts are obviously just copied in pasted from one comment box to the next), not even coming close to seeing the return on the effort means it’s not worth your time and you should be focusing your efforts elsewhere.

In this day and age where we are FLOODED with spam (yes, what you are doing is a form of spam) and messages like this are some of the easiest to ignore. Even if they do check you out, the chances that they will actually retain and remember who you are, is next to minimal. Regardless of whether your music is good or not, the likely hood of actually connecting with a potential fan is very slim.

Studies have shown that major brands like Nike, Harley Davidson and Louis Vuitton typically only see a 2% return on their posts and that just their posts! Comments see an even smaller return and I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure your link to your webpage isn’t as strong of a brand as Nike, Harley Davidson or Louis Vuitton.

You want to connect with a potential audience, gain a potential fan…make an effort. Hi-Jacking other’s status or trying to disguise spam by posting it as a comment is not effective and not where you should be focusing your efforts. 

The number of people you will annoy with these types of promotional tactics significantly out weight the number of people who might see the comment, click on the link and actually like your music (again…regardless of whether your music is good or not).