Dubious marketing techniques
No doubt you’ve heard of Twitter – this year’s big internet phenomenon. Since the back-end of last year a lot of companies have realised its value as a marketing tool: it makes it really simple to get your message out there. Of course the trouble with “really simple” is that it can be abused.
Just to fill you in on how Twitter works: Twitter is basically a short message service which lets you broadcast messages to your “followers” or indeed anyone who might be searching for keywords like “Christian Dating”. There are a couple of ways to abuse the system: open lots of accounts and just keep on resending your Tweets (messages); follow lots of people (expecting that a large number will follow you back) to spam their accounts with your messages.
Clearly the technique is not sustainable and it irritates people – erm, like me 
grr!
So what’s all this got to do with Christian Dating? Well, I’ve noticed lots of such messages on Twitter for BigChurch that do exactly this. At first glance they seem to be legitimate people, but when you look a little closer you see exactly the same messages from dozens of different “people”. These “people” follow thousands of people but tend to just have a few hundred followers.
There is nothing that I have seen that links these Twitterers directly with BigChurch other than they have hundreds of messages with links to their website. I mentioned in a previous post that not all Christian dating websites are run by Christians – in fact BC is run by Penthouse – and if this is a marketing technique being employed by them then it clearly demonstrates why Christians shouldn’t use their service as this kind of behaviour does nothing for our reputation.
I sometimes find Twitterers asking “why are Christian Dating sites spamming me?” It’s a good question, and clearly it’s a practice Christians shouldn’t be using.
On a slightly different tack, I just found a post on “A little Leaven” which shows a rather inappropriate photo in an advert for ChristiansTogether. @PirateChristian suggests “The church sold its soul to lucifer.”
As with anything you buy or any service you use, you need to decide for yourself whether you’re happy to promote it by buying or using it. If you care that the people who pick the beans for your coffee are paid a living wage you buy FairTrade. If you care for your reputation as a Christian perhaps you should use websites that also value that.
I thought I’d post a few examples of the Tweets here:
mary65378 take a look,free dating for church members,christian dating,find love,its great,its free signups all week http://tinyurl.com/cmpxzx
mary65378 couldn’t sleep.so back on the christian dating site,join 4 free,follow me & follow my link http://linkbee.com/UHMP
sara738495 couldn’t sleep.so back on the christian dating site,join 4 free,follow me & follow my link http://linkbee.com/UHMP
mary65378 im getting so much attention,i love this christian dating site free to join,http://tinyurl.com/cmpxzx
sara738495 im getting so much attention,i love this christian dating site free to join,http://tinyurl.com/cmpxzx
Are social networks the place to find love?
It used to be that websites were fairly static places: you look up a company and they present to you their product and services. Many still are static, but interaction is now the thing on the internet. That’s what the so-called Web 2.0 is all about – user interaction through websites.
In a limited way, this is what dating websites are all about too – they allow you to interact, not with the website owners but with other users of the site. But you can do that on Facebook, Bebo, Myspace and Twitter (and a plethora of others – there’s even a site where you are set up with an online chat session with another random user).
Can you use these social network sites for dating? Do you use these sites for dating? I was talking to a dating expert yesterday, and she says that Facebook is definitely being used by some to find a partner – she said that even she was hit on on Facebook. I tend to use Facebook for friends only, so accepting “friend” status with a stranger on Facebook seems a little wierd to me. But the expert tells me that many Facebook users want to have a huge friend list because it positively confirms that they are liked, and taking it one step further, receiving approaches from strangers online also confirms your attractiveness.
Twitter also is a very interesting place. Unlike Facebook you can “follow” someone, but it doesn’t need to be reciprocated, so there is no presupposition that you know each other, or even have anything particularly in common, other than perhaps that you might be interested in similar topics. I started writing about linguistical things on Twitter and suddenly found that I had a handful of followers, complete strangers, purely on the basis of one or two “tweets”.
So with all the social possibilities that these sites bring, do Dating websites still have a place?
All the benefits of anonymity are there – you don’t have to reveal your real name on sites like Twitter, and you don’t have to reveal your email address or even your location. So you can make “friends” with someone and let a relationship develop naturally, pretty much as you would meeting with people for real, but without the worry of bumping into them if it goes pear-shaped.
I wonder though, if the same rules for real life meeting also apply to these sites? i.e. if you’re shy, will it still be as difficult to take a friendship to romantic relationship? If you’re socially confident online/offline it’s probably all the same; you’ll easily develop romantic relationships.
One of the things I like about dating websites, is that it’s unambiguous. You know that you and others are there for the same reason. Perhaps you feel like you have enough friends, but you want a partner. A dating site lets you do that.
In the end, it’s all about niche. The reason you’re interesting in a Christian dating website, is because you don’t want to wade through profiles you have no interest at all. By using a niche site you make your search simpler, and it gives you more confidence because you know you’ll identify at some level with most if not all the people on the site.
So for me, I think there is still a place for dating websites, and especially Christian dating websites – they meet the need.
