There were a few scenarios I saw this week where various businesses used social gathering platforms as a way to advertise its business with a lot of success. Now what these normally are for is say hobbyists that want to arrange gatherings for like-minded people to do various fun activities together. Example, you might be looking for running partners and this way you can find a bunch of people who share the same passion as you to participate together.
I have noticed more and more recently that people have been using it for business purposes. Example, marketers creating a group where their events are basically advertisements for their fee based seminars. So while they are looking for like-minded people to a certain extent, it’s to specifically make a profit such as selling tickets. Would you be inclined to care if a business does that for example?
For me personally I always feel things like this is a little tacky if the person or organization is straight up using it as an advertising platform on these kinds of sites. It must work to a certain extent too. I would imagine it would be more effective to run these kinds group in a way where you are participating like a hobbyist and if you demonstrate your valuable knowledge or passion about something then people will naturally want to know what your business is all about too.
I would think it would be like selling a book. If you go charging in trying to sell people your product people will probably go the other direction. If you joined or made a group more for fun and socializing where you then demonstrate your knowledge and passion for a certain topic I would think people would then ask you where they can buy your book.