It’s very far from being a secret that we have been plugging our entry for Bullying UK in the CBS Outdoor bus side competition. If, by some freak of nature, you’ve missed it go and vote for us immediately (please). It’s a slightly odd voting system – you can vote every day, not just once. Trying to keep our percentage of the vote has been like running a mini-general election where polling day stretches into polling month. We have used Facebook, Twitter, email and even the telephone to persuade friends, acquaintances and total strangers to lend us their support. It is, after all, in a good cause. Not just good, vital. A little boy of only 11 killed himself recently in total despair – a result of bullying he received at school. Bullying UK is a tiny charity doing a massive job. It really needs the oxygen of publicity that some free bus sides could bring.

In our haste to support a cause we care deeply about, we have upset some. One recipient of regular tweets urging him to vote finally protested. “This is e-chugging. Stop it.” Hmmm. He’s right of course. As someone who regularly ducks and dives chuggers, like an ageing rugby winger, I know how he feels.

So, should we stop? Should we just rely on people to remember to vote? Unfortunately, I don’t think we can. So, in this instance, we just have to accept that we risk upsetting some of the people. If one of those people is you – I’m truly sorry.

The overall point is a good one. It’s too easy to to fall into robot mode and keep pushing out messages like commands. This isn’t the way to make social media work. It’s a conversational medium. One where you need to be interesting to get people’s attention. Repetition just gets duller by the minute. As one of the Apprentices fired by Alan Sugar last night said, “Thank you for your input. I will try and take it with me and be a better person.”

This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.