
Is it creepy when brands pester you on social media? - edent
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/02/is-it-creepy-when-brands-pester-you-on-social-media/
======
makecheck
EVERY communication from a company that isn’t “thank you for your business” or
“invoice attached” is creepy. We need to return to a strict relationship. And
I want to have more control: I want key exchange, where once I’ve paid I can
_revoke_ your ability to reach me so I _never_ hear from you again unless _I
want_ to reach you again.

Company communications out of the blue come off as having an extremely
exaggerated sense of self-importance. I have a hard enough time keeping up
with friends and other _desirable_ contacts on a regular basis, yet your
stupid company thinks I want to see your weekly E-mail spams or
“notifications” (read: ads) every _day_ on my phone? (And we _all know_ they’d
send you “notifications” every 5 minutes if the damn platform didn’t step in
to prevent it.)

~~~
implying
Ideally, this would be the case, but information such as product recalls and
safety information would be impossible.

~~~
buckminster
If you sent me a product you can send me a letter.

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tyingq
Still a bit creepy, but I enjoy Wendy's trolling:

[https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2017/1...](https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2017/12/funny-wendy-tweets-jokes-4-5a3b7166cfcbc__700.jpg)

[https://cdn.funpic.us/wendys_tweets_are_great-47-242772.jpg](https://cdn.funpic.us/wendys_tweets_are_great-47-242772.jpg)

Edit: If they do ever bag on you, though...ask how they make the chili.

Any questionable patty from the grill goes in a unrefrigerated pan, all day
long. Then, they mix in the beans/sauce and freeze it for 30 plus days. It's a
notable exception to their militant "never frozen", "fresh", schtick. Odd,
since the burgers are actually done well, and are fresh.

~~~
rootusrootus
It's not questionable patties, it's ones which did not get used in time for a
burger. Cooked a little too long, that probably makes them _better_ for chili,
not worse. And they are put in a warming drawer, which is a lot different than
an 'unrefrigerated pan'. Also, they freeze the meat for up to 7 days, not 30+.

Honestly, that sounds perfectly fine. The best ground beef has been thoroughly
browned, that's probably why people think their chili tastes so good.

~~~
LeoPanthera
They safely recycle unused burgers into a different product and you're somehow
trying to twist this into a bad thing.

If it was unhealthy, people would be getting sick from eating Wendy's chilli
all the time, but obviously they are not.

We should be encouraging _more_ companies to reduce their waste, but you're on
a weird hate crusade instead.

~~~
rootusrootus
Perhaps you meant to reply to the same comment I did, and not mine.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Oh, yes I did. Sorry! :/

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sokoloff
When you choose to call out a person/company (good or bad) in an electronic
public square, I think it's fair for other people/companies to jump into the
conversation if they so choose.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
So if you were having a discussion about someone in Starbucks you'd be happy
for me to change table and jump into the conversation?

~~~
kohanz
What if you were having that conversation so loudly that people inside and
outside the Starbucks could hear you and when you mentioned a brand's name,
they were immediately notified and your conversation was permanently
associated with their brand? I mean you literally see this phenomenon in
public where people converse too loudly in public and strangers then do end up
overhearing and feeling, rightly or not, that they can jump in because a
conversation that loud is simply too inviting.

~~~
ggggtez
In real life, the is only maybe 20-30 people in Starbucks at most. Online is
not the public square.

------
jdormit
I honestly don't understand complaints like this. When you post something on
the internet (on a service that has a documented, public API!) anyone can see
it, by definition. Twitter isn't your local pub - it's a public forum visited
by millions of people daily. If you don't want those people reading and
reacting to the things you write, don't write them on Twitter!

And yeah, brands aren't people. But guess what? Brands are made out of people,
and those people have just as much a right to be on Twitter as you do!

There are lots of forms of electronic communication that are non-public. If
you don't want people reading what you say, use those.

/rant

~~~
mattmanser
Isn't this actually a damning indictment of how normal humans expect social
networks to work, versus how they actually do?

You don't expect big corporations to have spies listening to every
conversation in a random party in your local park, but you don't mind other
people joining in, it's kinda the point.

People think of social media as a big party of real people, not as a massive
corporate espionage listening to every conversation for certain trigger words
so they can slimely sidle up, butt into the conversation and try and sell you
something.

~~~
Finnucane
If your feed is public, then it’s less like a party than standing at speaker’s
corner in Hyde Park with a megaphone. And yeah, some of the folks in the crowd
are corporate shills yelling ads back at you.

~~~
mattmanser
You're missing the point, that's not how 99% of normal people _think_ it
works, consciously or subconsciously, it's regardless of how it actually does.

People expect Facebook and Twitter to be local, and forget, because that's how
human society works, but not computers.

Whether it's a couple of friends joking about defacing Marilyn Monroe's grave
(with no real intention) or someone moaning about their internet, they don't
expect to be watched by tens of thousands of corporations and hundreds of
governments.

------
kartan
I do not see this so much creepy as scary. Big companies have the resources to
stalk everyone with an open opinion, and the technology is just getting
cheaper.

I want to be able to comment on-line without having tens, hundreds or
thousands of companies creating profiles of my personality.

People need to get back their position in politics, economics and the public
space. If every conversation is exploited to sell more products, how can we as
a society have honest open conversations in the public space?

Sadly, even in the private space (WhatsApp, Facebook, etc.) there is also data
collection and commercialization of people private lives.

Yes, it is public. But, no, it is not acceptable to transform everything
public in a product.

------
TipVFL
I feel like it's kinda expected on Twitter, but I was genuinely creeped out
when it happened within 10 minutes of me posting a complaint about a company
on Facebook. Ironically, my complaint about the company was that they were
creepy.

I was complaining about a property management company who sent everyone in my
neighborhood a letter warning us that renters would be moving in, and asking
us to keep an eye on them and report back.

They showed up, really defensive, claiming that they didn't want us to spy on
their renters, just report issues like if a fence had fallen over (pretty sure
the renters can handle telling their landlord themselves). Then they said they
were going to send a new letter to clarify.

After more of my friends replied and said their "explanation" didn't really
change anything they deleted their promises, and never sent any follow up
letters.

Good job company, you really convinced me you're not creepy.

------
usgmr
I think people on Twitter with a public profile, of all people, know and
understand how public their tweets are. It doesn't change the fact that these
kinds of advertisements are annoying though and that they're within their
rights to complain about it.

Is it fair game? Maybe. Does that mean I should just accept it? Hell no.

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qwerty456127
No it's not creepy when this happens on Twitter. It would be if it took place
during private message exchange.

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simplecomplex
No, it’s not creepy. Don’t broadcast stuff on a service that’s meant to
solicit replies from random people if you don’t want replies from random
people. The constant social media outrage media is tiring and melodramatic.

It would be cool if Twitter had a moderated option, like how many blogs manage
comments.

------
omg_ketchup
Competitors offering you free stuff in public might be the future though.

"Sky Media sucks? Move to Virgin Media and we'll give you 6 months free if you
tweet that you did."

I could see that being a more effective strategy.

------
Sendotsh
Tweets aren't a private conversation. If you call someone out publically, you
can't then expect privacy.

------
harrisonjackson
I would only post something like this to social media if I wanted some sort of
reaction. I'd expect Virgin Media to send a bot reply before some other
company though. I think this form of customer service is far more frustrating
than some other brand trying to capitalize on it. That's the only thing that
seems surprising about this, where is VM in this chain??? Kudos to SkyUK for
stepping in where there is a clear gap in customer service + therefore a
market opportunity.

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SapporoChris
Yes it is creepy. However, broadcasting to the internet and not expecting a
reaction is naive.

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KozmoNau7
Yes, it's extremely creepy. The only information I want from a company is an
order confirmation and invoice, follow-up information on a specific purchase,
in case of product recalls, or direct replies to specific requests I have sent
them.

Every other initiation of information from a company is invasive, creepy and
unacceptable.

------
miguelmota
Don't consider a brand creepy for trying to engage with their customers and
trying to get feedback to improve their product. It'd be more concerning if
the brands completely ignored a complaint on public social media because it
demonstrates that they don't really care about their own product.

------
stuart78
Isn't the problem here Twitter? These posts were 'public' and BandsEye seems
to be simply scraping via the Twitter API. Twitter enables this use case by
denying users any control over how their content can be used. There will
always be creepy/lame actors trying to exploit things, so if we want real
change it might make sense to focus on how the platforms themselves might give
users more control.

Perhaps users who wish to should see a list of 3rd party apps and be able to
choose which programmatically granted access to their public timeline. Why is
there no gradation between private to my select friends and public to the
entire world and all of its annoying APIs?

Ask Twitter.

------
grogenaut
My favorite one recently was expensify telling me, a corporate customer with
no control over the contract, about their superbowl ad. Their marketing team
was obviously super stoked to be able to spend that much money. But I as a
forced user, even if I like the product, don't care at all, actually I care in
inverse porportion to the number of emails I get from your product, compounded
by utility. This is worse than Amazon showing me battery ads after I already
have batteries.

And more amusingly they now consider the rapper and "parks and rec" actor from
the commercial to be part of their brand. Not sure what that even means but
they are on the login screen now. Makes no sense

------
xefer
If an account is blocked they shouldn’t be able to see or interact with your
Twitter feed.

Twitter allows for the mass importation of block lists.

Is there an active project to create a master list of corporate accounts to
block?

~~~
tragic
Apparently somebody tried this to get rid of Alex Jones[0]

[0] [https://www.adweek.com/digital/twitter-users-are-blocking-
hu...](https://www.adweek.com/digital/twitter-users-are-blocking-hundreds-of-
brands-in-the-hopes-of-pressuring-the-platform-to-remove-alex-jones/)

------
skilled
I think the creepy part here is that many people are using Twitter simply to
express their in-the-moment state of mind. Okay, maybe you let one of these
marketing tweets slide and don't think twice on it.

But what if you start getting 10 of these 'offers' per every tweet you send?
That sounds like terrible user experience and something Twitter would need to
address internally.

In marketing circles, this is an encouraged marketing technique to generate
more sales/leads. I know a lot of hosting companies who employ similar
tactics.

------
FiddlerClamp
A brand cannot pester you on social media. An employee at a company who owns
or represents the brand can.

What's creepy is when an employee acts like they have no autonomy or
personality beyond the brand.

------
robryan
It would be more authentic if the person sending the Tweet from Sky could
actually sign you up to the service. In reality they are probably just passing
you straight into the normal systems and couldn't don't anything if you had
issues.

All social media support from big companies tends to feel like that. Social
media people who don't have access to accounts or no nothing about the product
and are essentially a thin wrapper to forward your query on.

~~~
morpheuskafka
The T-Mobile social media support, as a counterexample, has full access to all
account systems, never has to transfer you, and is way easier than the regular
support.

------
spondyl
Yes, and it is infinitely more enjoyable to pester government department
social media accounts, who probably don't get much excitement day to day.

In particular, I'm quite fond of our Film & Lit Classification Office:
[https://twitter.com/NZOFLC/status/1096147661390995456](https://twitter.com/NZOFLC/status/1096147661390995456)

------
gnicholas
Lots of opinions here! Would love to know what people think about:

1: Size of company — does it matter if the company engaging with a random
tweet is big or small? If it’s the founder/creator who is doing the outreach,
versus some member of the marketing team?

2: Is it OK for a company’s twitter account to “like” a tweet that complains
about a competitor or voiced a problem that the company’s products are aimed
to solve?

~~~
yoz-y
An opinion of one, but I think it really depends more on whether your service
really is an answer for a specific problem. If you complain about an ISP,
chances are than any other ISP will have the same problems. However if you
complain about something that you currently can’t do (e.g.: ask Twitter
followers for a solution for X) then a comment from a company actually having
a solution might be very welcome.

~~~
OJFord
Oh yeah, that'd be a great use for BrandsEye (which though it facilitates this
annoying behaviour, and seems to be a pretty trivial implementation, is a
pretty good B2B idea) - startup with a fairly straightforward/keywordy problem
X that it solves finds people complaining about X, and tells them that it can
fix it.

Of course any technical startup could and would probably spend half a day -
not $$$ - on a simple script to do what BrandsEye does, minus the UI that Sky
only needs because it's putting it in the hands of marketing/social media
dept.

------
JCFalkenberg
Creep? not to me. Obnoxious? Oh yes. My default reply is usually to stress
test my vocabulary of profanities.

------
alkonaut
A bit - but it’s less creepy than just a regular instagram ad targeted at me
for whatever reason. If I see an ad for something I googled, shopped for or
commented - that’s 10x as creepy as being pinged by a bot or human in a
conversation I initiated myself.

------
mhuffman
Louis CK (before his troubles!) did a great job at this.

He reached out a couple of times a year, put time into the email to make it
entertaining, and only tried to pitch items that were of high quality.

Now compare that to the shit you get from Amazon, Ebay, and your phone
company.

------
scottlocklin
I thought it was hilarious they were paying Zuck to show me dishwasher soap
and basketball ads when I didn't own a dishwasher and don't care about sports.
Then I quit, because facebook is evil garbage which wastes my time.

------
solarkraft
I have to admit that this is one of the forms of advertising I like the most:
Very on topic and something I might actually want. Provided, of course, they
can actually provide a better service.

------
drefanzor
Seriously though, the guy is VERIFIED. Literally should tell you that everyone
is going to want to be in your mentions, especially businesses. You're like an
advertising magnet.

------
egypturnash
I think there has been exactly one time a brand has slid into a conversation
that it wasn't creepy.

Said brand was "the two-person studio who made the game I tweeted a screenshot
of".

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woolvalley
To the company, it's just an extension of customer support for the most part.
Usually if you avoid mentioning their keyword they will leave you alone.

------
echevil
No. I found almost all ads annoying and just want to block them. If they get
to know me better, they have a chance of being less annoying.

------
scarejunba
That's because this isn't me and my mates at the pub. This is you yelling
"Hear ye! Hear ye! Virgin Media's internet connection is down! And so is the
status page!"

------
mrccc
Yes.

------
dwighttk
Yes.

------
baybal2
> Is it creepy when brands pester you on social media?

Used to be, but now I got used to it

------
everly
Hey, a rare exception to Betteridge's law of headlines.

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wjnc
Nobody on the GDPR angle yet. It's illegal. They are building profiles without
consent. Companies using that info are targeting you specifically obviously
using both the profile and what often is your name. That's it. Illegal. Wonder
what happens if you talk about being a diabetic or a homosexual. That would
mean profiling sensitive data. Good luck with the massive fines on your
illegally built profiles. That this is based on public information is not
relevant. If you take pictures of people exiting a gay bar it's not OK to
spread their profile for gay targeting.

~~~
groestl
I get your sentiment, but that is not how any of the GDPR or Twitter works.
Apart from the obvious problems (e.g. applicability of the GDPR), see GDPR
Art. 9, 2 (e). A Twitter feed is not the entrance of a gay bar.

~~~
wjnc
Actually it does. The only lawful base for processing in this case is
legitimate interest. The working paper (WP251) specifically states "it would
be difficult for controllers to justify using legitimate interests as a lawful
basis for intrusive profiling". Regarding the "manifestly made public" I was
under the impression that a laymans twitter feed with 10 followers would not
fall under "manifestly made public". As soon as the profiling starts inferring
from data (say homosexuality) you definitively go off the rails.

I do have some professional exposure to GDPR and the way compliance lawyers
treat GDPR, profiling etc. So if I'm really of the charts, please point it
out, but these firms behaviour would be behaviour I would warn against
internally. I wouldn't touch externally built profiles with a 10ft pole.

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EastSmith
No.

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pexaizix
It would be creepy if they did that in a private conversation. In a public,
easily searchable medium like Twitter, no.

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redmattred
Yes.

