With a rapidly increasing number of prominent social media platforms in our daily lives –Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr just to name several –also means growing opportunities for various organizations and individuals to directly reach their potential target markets through such mediums. Not only are there multiple advertisements along the sidebars of our social media accounts and blogs but in creating our personal accounts on these platforms we are also giving out personal contact information –most commonly our e-mail addresses.

How often is it that we feel frustrated or bothered by frequent e-mails we receive from these social media platforms or organizations to which our personal information has been distributed?

Think about the times you could not find the unsubscribe button to a newsletter/updates that you no longer want to receive. While repetition is a good strategy to send specific messages to a target audience, high volumes of spam mail to which the consumer has no desire follow. Not only does the unethical social media marketing practice of spamming lose the audience but also frames the organization doing so in a negative light.

While most of the advertisements we view everyday may not be targeted towards ourselves, it is still important for marketers to consider ethical strategies for sending various messages out to a public audience. We often recommend products or services we recognize and believe our loved ones will enjoy to them or purchased them as gifts. Thus, in my opinion, positive impressions left by organizations will travel a great deal farther and reach target consumers.

To a degree, reducing spam to enhance the image of a product/service not only keeps us happy as consumers, but also saves the unnecessary efforts of spamming and may in turn allow the organization or individual to redistribute their investments to better meet consumer needs in market research.