[unalone]

Ugh. I dislike that advice very much.

I'm not a fan of people who use social networking to advertise. I know there are practical benefits, but the idealist in me wishes that people wouldn't pick up media just to abuse it. Some things are great: I remember there was a comment here about somebody who complained about Comcast on Twitter and got an instant response. But I've seen too many people who use Twitter and Jaiku and Tumblr to post links back to their content and that's that, and I hate that.

Of course, the idealist in me thinks that you shouldn't advertise in every venue possible, that you should work until you've got something so useful that word-of-mouth brings people in, and that's not entirely practical either.

[fallentimes]

Disclaimer: TicketStumbler uses Twitter, Facebook and Blogging

What if you have people come to you instead of vice versa? For example, you never follow anyone on twitter you make people follow you. I agree that the spammers are a huge problem, but I think some of these tools can be used for good.

I raged about Comcast on Twitter yesterday and they haven't done anything. Bastards.

[unalone]

The ones you mentioned are okay if you're using them decently. I can see why TicketStumbler would benefit from Twitter, absolutely. And Facebook and blogs are different: blogs help you reach out to your current users, and Facebook Pages are built to let you attract fans. I guess that's not the misusage I was thinking about: I referred more to the spammers and the people who sign up for every service imaginable just to attract people. (The owner of AllFacebook, which I used to write for, did that a lot on Twitter, and it always just seemed slightly wannabe to me.)