#211: Are You A Social Media Spammer? - Tash Corbin, Heart-Centred Business Podcast

We all know how yucky it feels to be spammed... but are you accidentally a spammer yourself? In today's episode, we're going to figure it out. You might not even know that you're being spammy, so I want to share my experience of social media etiquette, and how I ensure I don't create a spammy feel. Want to learn more? Watch on below! What makes for spam on social media? First and foremost, what is spam? At its core, spam is unwanted marketing. In most cases, when we think of spam, we think about unwanted emails. The first iterations of spam were all of the unrequested emails promoting products and services straight into our inbox. When I first started my business, most businesses didn't even ask for permission in order to send you emails. You could actually buy lists of email addresses from companies and just cold spam a bunch of people. We've come a long way when it comes to protecting our inboxes from unwanted marketing emails and protecting them from spam! We also have a really great filters these days (sometimes they’re even a little too good at their job). But these filters take what looks like spam or unwanted marketing material and puts it into a separate space for us to go and check it out if we want to, without cluttering things up. Whilst email is so much more protected and looked after these days, we can also be quite spammy on social media. Social media is another space where you can unintentionally be putting your marketing material in front of a bunch of people who didn't ask for it. And that can feel really spammy. We want to be mindful that on social media channels, we have the appropriate permissions to send people information, and that we're not coming across as spamming the internet with unwanted marketing materials. How do you know how much is too much? Well, lucky for you, I've got four key things for you to look out for! Be mindful of the space you’re in. The posts you put on your Facebook page are quite different to promoting your products and services in Facebook groups, and still quite different to reaching out and private messaging someone to tell them about your products and services. Just be mindful of the permission level you have for promoting your products and services in that space. For example, on your Facebook business page, it is entirely reasonable for you to promote your products and services quite consistently. In fact, for most women in business, I would say they under-promote their products and services in that space.  Your Facebook business page is one place where you have a free ticket to promote as you like. When it comes to understanding what's too much, and what's unsolicited, think about the space.  I like to keep a ratio of five non-promo posts to every one promo post for my audience so that there's a great balance between promoting things and giving tips, advice and information for free. That's the ratio that I like to keep, but you can 100% have just promos on your Facebook page if you want to.  It's your space. It's your decision. The second space to be mindful of is when you're in other people's Facebook groups. In most cases, they have guidelines around how often you can promote products and services.  For example, in my Facebook community, the Heart-Centred Soul Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook Community, we have "market day" for promoting paid offers, and on "freebie day" you can promote free offers. We actually have two out of seven days where you are encouraged and asked to promote into that space. The thing I find a little troubling which can make you look quite spammy without you even realizing, is that on the other five days of the week, a lot of peopleLet me know your thoughts via our Text FanMail!Join us in Noosa at the Heart-Centred Business Conference in September!Find out more and secure your ticket at: tashcorbin.com/conference