Some of you readers have seen in my previous blogs how I have talked mostly positive about Glarry, the musical instrument company out of China that produces decent-quality guitars, basses, and violins at very affordable prices. Well, my most recent experience with the company’s PR end has changed my mind considerably about it, and not for the better.
Now, this negative reaction has nothing to do with the instruments themselves. I still feel that they are worth the money for beginner musicians. Moreover, what I am about to discuss is not only a reflection of Glarry, but of many companies promoting products by having contests.
During the past two weeks, Glarry had a contest in which they were giving away 15 instruments. The stipulation was that one had to take a photo of oneself holding his/her Glarry musical instrument, then post it on Facebook or Instagram.
Here’s my situation: I do not have a Facebook or Instagram account. In fact, I have very few accounts in the social media world. I refuse to have a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Tik Tok account (the four most popular) for two main reasons:
- I do not support these networks’ stifling the free speech of one side of the political spectrum
- I do not waste my time posting mundane and uninteresting news about myself or others
I have a LinkedIn account for my employment networking (which unfortunately has become a dumping ground for Facebook-like postings), a ReverbNation account for songwriting networking, a YouTube account to post songwriting clips (which is also becoming like Facebook and Twitter in its censorship; I’m considering moving to Rumble), and a rarely used Parler account, which is used even less after the whole take-down scandal.
We have seen in the news over the past year or two how these social media companies are controlling the thought process of much of the population by their censorship. I won’t get into that end of it here. I have my opinions, and do not feel like debating that with anyone.
What I do want to talk about is that Glarry, as well as many other companies out there, feel that their customers, especially the most loyal ones, MUST have a Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram account in order to be rewarded.
I contacted Glarry by email about this. I wanted to take a humorous photo of me with my Glarry guitar and bass strapped around my shoulders, as well as holding my Glarry violin. I was told that I could only enter the contest through Facebook or Instagram because that is how most of their customers communicate. Well, not ALL of your customers communicate that way. I am sure that any company that to enter a certain contest, one must wear a certain type of clothing or cut his/her hair a certain way, that company would be ostracized, boycotted, or taken to court.
But this is a trend among a lot of companies, and the masses are allowing it without recourse. The world is full of people that cannot live without a Facebook account. Everyone thinks that his/her voice must be heard, no matter how boring, dumb, or obnoxious the statement is. We don’t count the friends that we have around us, but instead count the amount of Likes we have on our last post. We destroy other people’s lives with the click of a mouse button, and have no remorse if we were wrong about the facts.
As for Glarry, when I wrote back stating that I did not have an account, would not open an account just to enter the contest, and would be dealing other companies in the future because of this, Glarry wrote back with a “have a nice day” reply. All right, so they won’t miss my future business, I am just one customer out of thousands. However, if more people would take a similar action, perhaps companies would take notice and make such contests available to all walks of life. Glarry is not the only company that handles its contests as such, and unfortunately, the social media world has become so popular that those who do not wish to be lemmings are treated as less important.
Chew on it and comment.
Luegra 