Encountering the Black Hat: Why Slow and Steady is Better

Last night I attended a social. Open socials are not my strong point, especially if I'm in a room of unfamiliar faces. I gave it a shot though and had the opportunity to try a new product out. I won't name any names, because I believe it to be poor taste to name names when bringing up examples of what not to do.

Now the product itself was great, and it was wonderful that the Developer had it out for people to use and enjoy. It gave people a chance to try it out, there was even an opportunity to win a T shirt. The in-person engagement was spot-on. After I tried it out I had the opportunity to discuss social media with the Developer. We agreed that it is crucial to marketing, and agreed that Facebook's pay for play tactics were questionable particularly for small businesses/start ups. That's where it ended though.

He encouraged me to look into Black Hat tactic tools for building engagement. Some are quite pricey, but they can build your numbers via bots crawling social networks for you. Many of us have likely encountered bot use as users, how else do porn blogs follow Tumblr users minutes after posting something tagged #nsfw? Or when your tweet includes a key word that some company enters into a search and you find a new follower who is selling something you may have minute interest in?

In SEO, Black Hat incorporates many strategies that are both outdated and put into overkill. Keyword stuffing is a big one. Other tactics include hiding those stuffed key words, or human visitors going to a page different from the one that search engine crawlers are directed to. Things that will get your page taken off Google listings if Google finds out.

Real social media strategy takes time, patience, and a human touch. Manually combing for followers might be tedious, but you're more likely to find your brand advocates there. If you want to bring the followers to you, make yourself visible. This product developer could have easily Instagrammed photos from last night, added some key hash tags, and viola, new followers. If people check the tag for the event they attended and see themselves, they'll be happy to be acknowledged. This developer could tweet where the next product demo is going to be and tag the location to let fans of that location know. All it takes is some time and effort and you can build a good strategy.

In the short term Black Hat can lead to a quick boost in profit and numbers, but it won't last. The numbers you gain are more likely to be empty figures than customers who have an actual relationship with your brand. Social media is about building a relationship online, it's not just an numbers game. If you think it is, you're committing an indignity to your followers. Yes building your audience takes time, but those followers will be the ones who remember you and will remain loyal. They'll be the ones who tell their friends about your brand, and they'll be your promoters. Ultimately they'll be the ones who may be key to keeping your brand in business. Slow and steady definitely wins on this one.