Let me walk you through my morning thus far. I come into the office, log on to Trillian, and start working. I receive an IM from an SEO who makes some small talk before getting to the point: he wants me to digg/reddit about four stories. I click on the links and (pay attention here) vote for the ones I thought were interesting. I keep working. I notice that I get several email notifications from Digg, that "so and so has sent you a shout!" I click on them and see that I received several shouts from two users for the same story. And the shouts keep coming, about thirty minutes apart (about as frequent and pleasant as a pregnant woman's contractions, I bet). At this point, I'm getting a bit irritated and disable the shout feature on my Digg profile.

The SEO who initially IM'd me IMs me again and asks me to vote for the stories if I haven't already, and now he asks me to comment on the stories, see if any of my friends will vote for the content, and instructs me to vote for other stories in between the votes for his stories so my activity doesn't seem suspicious. Okay, so apparently now I'm being treated like an employee and am given specific instructions on how to vote. The last time I checked, I wasn't getting paid by these SEOs to vote and promote their stories. My vote counts as one, not one + comments + 12 other votes from my friends. If you ask me to look at your story, expect one vote, if that, nothing more.

That SEO's employee then IMs me and asks me to vote on the exact same story the other SEO asked me to vote on (and it's the same story I kept getting shouts for). At this point I tell both him and his employer that I've already received repeated requests to vote for this story, and that it's getting downright spammy and inconsiderate. They apologize and tell me that they'll coordinate with their team to avoid asking the same person for repeated votes. I'm left alone, until...

Another SEO IMs me and asks me to look at a video on YouTube. He initially asks me if the video loads properly. I say yes and close the video tab because it looks lame and I don't want to watch it. After a couple minutes, the SEO asks me to favorite the video and give it five stars. My exact response is, "No, it's lame." He fires back with "Tuesdays and Thursdays are social days." [Note from Jeff: "You know what? Tuesdays and Thursdays are also work days!"]

Okay, now I'm really getting angry. You know what? I don't care if Tuesdays and Thursdays are unofficially dubbed "social days" in the SEO/internet marketing industry--that doesn't mean you should send me 32 IMs asking me to digg/reddit/propeller/sphinn/youtube rate/del.icio.us bookmark the same stinkin' story, or that you should guilt me into voting because today's the day that people ask for votes, so I should play nice and vote up anything that gets sent my way. This is getting ridiculous.

The SEO then says "don't make me beg." I respond by saying that I only vote for something if I think it's interesting, and that I'm not voting for the video because I think it's lame. He then says "SMM etiquette, you know? You do this for people who do SMM so they do it back for you." My response is less than professional:

Me: WTF! SMM etiquette, my ass! I get spammed with this [expletive] [expletive] all day. That's not etiquette. Begging for a vote isn't etiquette. Ask nicely ONCE, like [name of SEO redacted] does.
He takes the hint and stops bugging me.

Tamar wrote a similar post about not asking her to Sphinn your stories, and I couldn't agree more (note: I am also a Sphinn moderator, so think about that before you spam me for Sphinns). At this point, it looks like I'm slowly being driven to a) dread Tuesdays and Thursdays, b) block spammy SEOs from IMing me (which I don't necessarily want to do because some of these people are my friends), or c) stop logging into my chat programs because I don't want to get spammed.

Not all of my colleagues act this way. There are plenty who IM me with a link and say nothing more--they understand that I'll look at it and decide whether or not I want to award it with a vote, and they're fine with that. Some SEOs send me links to stories that I vote for every time, and do you know why? It's not because they're my BFFs, it's because the stuff they send me is interesting. That's the whole point of link bait and of viral marketing. People share things and vote for things that they find interesting, whether it's funny, informative, educational, inspiring, enraging, etc. If I like it, I'll vote it up. If I don't, I won't.

I don't want to sound like a jerk, but if you're requesting votes from people you need to understand that these people are doing you a favor by awarding your content with a vote. If you keep bugging them and badgering them and incessantly hounding them to vote up your content, they're not going to want to award you with a vote any more.

I'd like to close with some real SMM etiquette:
  • Keep in mind that not everyone will put up with your spammy requests for votes because not everyone adheres to "Social Day" or thinks of it as the day to pepper your colleagues with vote requests.
  • If you do send someone a link, send it ONCE and then leave that person alone. You've done your job of bringing his/her attention to your story, now let him decide if it's worth a vote.
  • If someone does not vote for your content, don't hold it against him or try to guilt him into voting ("Come on, we're friends!"). If even your friend doesn't think the content is worth his time, what chance does your piece have of being interesting to the mainstream?
People, please just be considerate. Just because you're my friend, that doesn't automatically mean you can take advantage of it and expect that I'm an automatic vote, no questions asked. I don't play that way, and I deserve a little more consideration than that.