Spam. No Spam.

You already know what spam is. It is not fish and it clutters everything up. One can not do enough to stop this Billion dollar ‘industry’ run by con men and what have you. And thanks to spamming, you and your company may get written off as a spammer.

I had this happen to me recently.

On Twitter, I searched for ‘blogging’ in hope to reach the right people who can use Blogstarta. I know, I know – there is a thin line between spamming and selling (compare it to you walking into a store to buy a perfume bottle, or a guy walking up to you while you sit in your car to try to sell you deodorant). Well, I found a tweet that begged for a reply. That’s how I saw it, as the way to start ‘a conversation’. You know, how ‘brands’ should start a ‘conversation’ with their ‘potential’ customers and the whole shebang? Well, here’s how the ‘conversation’ went:

And to this tweet, I replied (as @blogstarta)

See? A relevant comment. It is directly addressing the person and is specific to the theme of the original content. I was sure I had made an interesting point. Till…

The guy thinks that I am spam bot. A mighty smart spam bot if I say so myself. Although the comment makes sense, as agreed upon by the person, he still links it to spam. That in itself is proof as to how difficult it is to be authentic. That is the keyword here, being authentic. Being real. If your company, your personality and/or your brand is too polished, it may come off as something doctored, something ‘made up’, something like the Spice Girls or the Backstreet Boys, a formula cooked up in a board room of full of spammers and scammers.

So I played it as ‘real’ as I could, and I told the person that I am not a ‘mechanical turk’ but a real person. A few tweets exchanged and it worked…

…but the point remains, “be authentic”. In fact, a more important point is that not many people would say it like the person did, and not many technologies are available like Twitter that can let you know what is being said about you.

You be authentic by not trying to be authentic, how about that for a paradoxical type of statement!? But that is how it is. Being authentic demands that you change your attitude, your ‘core’ to reflect via your interactions and outlook. If you try to brush up your outlook only, you will sooner or later get caught. Then you will be a spammer.