What is corporate spam on social?

We’ve all been there: something happens internally at your organization that gets everyone genuinely buzzed

Maybe it’s a product launch, a new hire, or, as I saw recently on LinkedIn, a procurement company landing in the top right-hand corner of the Gartner Magic Quadrant

I can practically hear the internal meeting that followed

Marketing leans in and says, "We need to talk about this on social!"

Then rather than having a sales team empowered to talk on social in their own authentic voice, being able to add a vertical market or account spin

Talking in a human voice that buyers would connect with 

But of course, the inevitable happens

Post after post starts flooding my timeline

Same wording, same graphic, same "we are so excited" sentiment

Look, I get it

I know you’re excited; that job pays the mortgage and puts food on the table

The first time I saw it, I was happy for you. By the fifth time? I was bored, very bored

I started unfollowing people, I don't need this in my timeline

Marketing will argue it’s about "visibility," but as the saying goes: if you’re going to shoot yourself in the foot, don't reload the gun."

More Isn’t Better, It’s Noise

This is the classic corporate trap: the belief that volume equals value

In reality, posting the same canned script over and over isn't "brand awareness", it’s corporate spam

We have to remember that LinkedIn is a social network. People log on to:

• Find fresh insights

• Be educated

• Be entertained

• Start actual conversations

When a salesperson posts nothing but company-mandated "rah-rah" content, the audience smells a "threat." 

We all know the game: if I like that post, that salesperson is going to call me thirty seconds later to try and close a deal

That’s why these posts usually end up in an echo chamber

It’s just employees liking other employees' posts. Yawn

The Buyer’s Reality

From a buyer’s perspective, a Gartner Magic Quadrant is just a checkbox

Back when I was at Capgemini working on buyer advisory projects, we used the quadrant for one thing: helping the client build a shortlist

But who actually wins the business?

It’s rarely the person with the "best" coordinate on a graph

It’s the company that has built the best relationship and the most trust

Simple as