I find no harm in promoting businesses on social media. Truth be told, we live in an economy that's hurting and as Robert Kiyosaki put it from his "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" series: We no longer live in the Industrial Age, but the Information Age. Everything we do has pretty much converted online...banking, shopping, stock trading, dating (lol, love the post Juday), it's an inevitable process that businesses too need to keep up to speed with their audiences. It's not to say that we should close every actual bank and shop, and stop interacting with the outside world. This Information Age is a process of evolution.
Plus, the economy has come to a painful drop, and this Bear Market plunge has shattered people's confidence and ultimately their sense of financial security. Also, traditional advertising has become less effective [everybody DVRs through commercials and cycles through mail] and thinking about most of the things I've bought or considered, it was pretty much reliance more or less [most of the time] on friends' word-of-mouth.
As for people promoting their businesses to their loved ones and friends, I say, 'That's wonderful!' If I had people telling me about their products or services or businesses, I'd be more than willing to check it out and look into it. Plus, why wouldn't friends help friends out? Isn't it funny when you hear someone tell you: "People don't like to be sold" but then for example you have a friend who puts out an invite for a party...and I RSVP, well funny enough I guess you can say I was easily sold! Or a friend tells me that this movie this past weekend was wonderful, and I consider the offer to go see it... well that's advertising for ya! Pretty much everything we do and say is a form of advertising... whether it be advertising in the form of love/sex (e.g. flirting or nonverbal communication that hints "I'm single. Would you like to keep seeing me" or "I'm interested. Are you?"), charity (e.g. "Hey would you help me move this couch out into the U-Haul?"), or any other form of communication that promotes some form of effect to occur. If we advertise on a daily basis around our friends, why should business be treated any differently?
The hardest thing that's becoming apparent is lack of open-mindedness. No promotion, product marketing, services marketing, or business on social media has ever hurt me physically, mentally, or emotionally just by looking at it.
All-in-all, in this day and age, I really feel we should stop disconnecting from everyone, and start looking out for everyone. I know we're all trying to do well in this world, so why not have everybody support one another in their businesses or other causes, and if what they advertise not for you (yet or ever), at least keep eyes and ears out for people that would be able to help your friends with their businesses and other causes.
I don't intend to keep going on like this, but it's times like these when the "Law of Reciprocity" and helping friends out or even being open-minded to them and their causes is surely something we can do in this unstable economy.
I've read many different forms of success, business, and finance-related literature, and I must say I really believe in Zig Ziglar's "Golden Rule" philosophy: "You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want" I do my best to apply that rule, especially for my friends. I leave it up to them at this point.
For those, who've gotten this far, I greatly appreciate it.
