Jilted

Truth be told – I’m feeling a little jilted. So bear with me, the following story isn’t meant for me to vent, it’s a good set up for my advice to you.
Back in July a good friend of mine, aware of my love (obsession?) with rompers, told me about a fun giveaway. A fairly famous TV personality was giving away 10 items from her closet to her Facebook fans that left a comment on the photo of the item they wanted to win. Fabulous idea! You know those celebs can’t be photographed in the same item twice anyway. My odds were decent, so I tried for the romper and SURPRISE! I won! Well so I thought. Day 1 – my name was posted in a list of winners (hooray!) Day 2 – a comment was left on the item to let me know that I’d won and a message had been sent to me (YES!) When I hadn’t seen a message nearly a week later, I left a comment back on the item politely asking if the message had been sent – I hadn’t seen it, maybe I overlooked it? Well kids, that was over 2 weeks ago and I’ve received ZERO response. I checked out other winner’s comments and saw another fan that said she hadn’t received a message. So I sent her a private message through Facebook to see what her outcome was, but I’m still waiting on a reply. Talk about a bad experience. I’m an optimist, so I’ll hold out a bit longer. Maybe there was a miscommunication and the romper will eventually land in my arms. However I’m still disappointed, even if it was “only” a giveaway.
The key here is expectations. When setting up social media or email messaging to interact with your audience, you should make sure expectations are set and then met! If I had been told it’d take a month before the romper in question was sent – no biggie! I know what I’m in for. So if your goal is to tell funny stories, hold contests, provide news articles or whatever else it is that works for you company – let your audience know! Then make sure to deliver the goods. When your readers expect and anticipate something from you (like new Groupon deals every day), response rates for those emails and Facebook posts will improve since your audience is already keeping an eye out for it.
I’ve mentioned before that I love the feeling when people, especially celebrities, take time to interact with their fans online. I’m definitely not leaving this experience with that same feeling. To me it just seems impersonal and to be honest, quite fake.