Dear Giant Faceless Global Conglomerates,
Hi, I’m Goob. You may remember me from such internal memos as “this loser keeps making fun of our dog perfume” and “does anyone know if we still have that hitman on retainer?” I’m here to ask that you, for the sake of my sanity, please stop announcing future freebie giveaways. Why? Because you screw them up.
Here’s an idea: release a freebie then tip off a few bloggers. Seriously, it’s that easy. Hit me up. I’ll gladly put you in touch with two dozen of the biggest freebie bloggers who would love to share your offer with our combined billions of readers. ((margin of error: +/- a few billion.)) We’re all nice guys and gals who, myself excluded, ((I’m still going to mock you as long as you insist on botching these giveaways and branding your products with stupid names.)) would be happy to write about your freebies with nary a negative comment. Plus think how nice it would be if your site wasn’t constantly down thanks to a deluge of people sent all at once!
I’m sure my withered olive branch won’t be enough for some companies though. You want your giveaways to be “events!” You want to reward your Facebook fans for proclaiming to the world “I LOVE DEODORANT!” I get it. So how about this – give your IT guy a heads up. Take it from a fellow hunk poindexter, he won’t wet his pants and cry when you tell him there are going to be an extra 25,000 people on your site at noon tomorrow. He’ll beef up the system and, surprise surprise, your damn site won’t crash!
I had a company once ask if I’d like to help consult for their upcoming series of giveaways. I don’t think I best expressed my flattery when I laughed and said “just make sure you have enough #$@*ing servers to handle the surge of traffic.” Guess what they didn’t do. o_O
So, in conclusion, stop wasting my readers time and start listening to me.
Forever Yours,
Goob
