Imagine walking into a room and shouting how awesome you are and how awesome your product is. Or walking past a total stranger, jumping out right in front of them and yelling at them to buy your product.

In both instances, it’s pretty douchey right?

People hate to be “marketed to.” Period.

And yet when you scour the web reading blogs, looking at Twitter streams or checking out people’s Facebook pages, that’s all you see “me, me, me” and “buy, buy, buy.”

Every now and then you find something useful amongst all the noise but for the most part (unfortunately), it seems companies lead with their product first. If you have big numbers and it’s working for you, great (more power to you). But personally, I find that the one’s that win out best are the one’s that lead with something useful to solve consumer problems. @Zappos, @Zendesk, @Ramon_DeLeon (Domino’s Pizza in Chicago) and @Blueskyfactory are just a few that come to mind (they’re engaging, they’re helpful, they inspire they’re fans to talk about them).

Buzz does not create evangelists; evangelists create buzz. – John Moore, Brand Autopsy

Think about some of the products/brands/services that you engage with via social media. Are they helpful first, or are they “salesy”? Do they genuinely engage in back-and-forth dialogue amongst their fan-base or is it all one-way broadcast?

Do you subscribe to blogs that are all “me, me, me” and follow Twitter accounts that broadcast 24/7? (I know I don’t).

Now, take a look at how you manage your own social channels…are you wearing your marketing hat? And what are you going to do to change it?