Also titled: How not to develop Evangelists for your company: Chastise them for spreading the word!

A recent company that I had been blogging, twittering, and spreading the word about in various social media circles recently sent me what I referred to as a slap wrapped in a hug. I was rather stunned to see this in my inbox> the names have been removed to protect the innocent! And this has been abridged. I should add, you get perks for referrals…so this story makes sense.

I wanted to introduce myself to you, I am the Community Manager here at company x. I would like to welcome you! I hope that your experience thus far has been positive and useful.

I noticed you have referred many of your colleagues. This is great and we thank you for recommending our site to them. I wanted to let you know we monitor referrals very closely due to the fact that some do abuse this process. Please be sure that those you referred are your friends or colleagues in your network and are legit contacts, not from a mass email campaign. Thank you for your cooperation….blah blah blah more pleasantries.

Now, I understand brand control. I respect what they are trying to do–but if you give something away expecting people to spread the word, you can’t slap the on the wrist when they do!

Sidenote: My evangelism was entirely on the level and I was not out to game their system… I just had to scratch my head and laugh! It made for good conversation as my wife and I walked the dog around the park this evening.

At the end of the day we all kissed and made up and they’ve even sending me a tchotchky.