The always-interesting Jeremiah Owyang (analyst for Forrester Research) over at Web Strategy has a fascinating post today titled, It's About Intent: Affiliate Links in Twitter, that looks at how some people on Twitter are using affiliate links in their Twitter stream to make a couple of bucks.
Did you just throw up a little bit in your mouth? I did.
Owyang offers up these four tips to make it work (it should be noted that he does not condone this type of activity):
- Make sure it lines up editorially with your personal brand, promoting a product that people don't associate you with will raise eyebrows.
- Disclose it's an affiliate link, perhaps with a hashtag #affilliatelink.
- Be sincere about your recommendation. If you truly love that product you're promoting, perhaps write a review on a blog first, explaining why.
- Be fully transparent before people follow you: Create a link from your Twitter profile page that is up front about how you use Twitter, and explain your intentions when it comes to product recommendations and affiliate links.
Here are my four tips on how to make affiliate links in Twitter work:
- Don't do it.
- Don't even think about doing it.
- If you think about doing, forget that you thought about doing it.
- Slap yourself if you're still thinking about doing it.
This goes back to my whole personal revolt about pay-per-post Blogging (see here: This Space (Is Not) For Sale).
These are bad Marketing ideas.
They are short term tactics that generate very small and inconsequential overall revenues and growth, but have huge ramifications against your personal and corporate brand in terms of credibility, influence and professional stature in the long run. Of course disclosure and transparency are critical, but that has little to do with the bigger issue: if we turn Social Media into this penny-for-your-action shill game against our personal online social networks, there will quickly be a revolt against this channel. The sad part will be that these social channels were created, grown and fostered on the premise that these "conversations" were authentic - real interactions between real human beings - not a conversation "brought to you by the good people at Ford" (Ford does not do this, it's just an example).
The more people keep trying to monetize their online social networks instead of using these channels to communicate, build, share and grow trust for themselves and the brands they represent, the faster we'll see this channel get the same kind of marketing credibility as Spam and telemarketing.
By
I'm still on the fence about Pay Per Posting if it's done very legitimately (ala the way Brogan does it), but I'm 100% with you on Twitter affiliate links.
I get added my 'attractive women' trying to get me to sign up for so-and-so adult dating, etc. every single day. Eventually all of these spammers are going to ruin the medium, and the influencers will go elsewhere. I see it trending that way.
What can we do to stop it?
There's a big difference between spam and telemarketing though. With Twitter, you choose who you follow. If you're following the kinds of people who are flooding their streams with affiliate links, that's your choice. Most people will choose not to (though the perpetrators may amass some volume of followers just by only following those who auto-follow in return).
It's the same thing as blogs. Yes, there's a lot of blog spam out there. Sometimes search engines treat it legitimately and it comes up in search results. But generally, most of the blog content people are exposed to is what they choose to read. The fact that blog spammers (and other various degrees of shills) exist does not dilute the fact that this blog and thousands of others are incredible resources for others.
Great post. Couldn't agree with you more.
Reminds me of a very nice presentation by Faris Yakob - "Be nice or leave" - over at:
http://farisyakob.typepad.com/blog/2009/04/be-nice-or-leave-slight-refrain.html
If you invite me to a BBQ party with friends, only to toss in a Tupperware/Amway/Primerica sales pitch, I'll be upset and my percerption of you will be changed, for sure.
However, not everyone I follow on Twitter are personal acquaintances, or people I have ever met. They are not necessarily friends, but in fact people with whom I may share a similar interest.
If I follow, say, Mitch Joel, and he posts a link to a newly released Seth Godin book, I might buy it. I may or may not be pissed that Mitch made 35 cents with his affiliate link. it goes into the grey area.
Tough to take a black-or-white position
on this... There is a slight malaise when it comes to people making money in general, which is why it is difficult to do business with friends.
I think it boils down to – trust, disclosure and genuine interest. If the person has disclosed that this is an affiliate pitch then I wouldn’t mind at all. People visit coupon sites because they know they would be able to find a bargain. Likewise I’d follow someone on twitter who I know is promoting something I’m genuinely interested in or who I trust.
In some ways I totally agree with you...
But please allow me a moment to challenge your ideas. Well before Chris started writing paid reviews, I was writing 3000 word reviews for relative peanuts with editorial links and still being clonked by Google because of it.
First of all you have to think about the target destination.
I would agree that affiliate links to sales pages might not be effective for most, but woot seem to be looked on with high regard, as do many coupon affiliate feeds.
Imagine Amazon had the ability for me to link to their corporate blog with an affiliate link.
Amazon announce something, and it is newsworthy for my audience.
I have the choice of a plain link, or one that might earn me a few dollars if one of my referrals buys something from Amazon as they are "in the area" and see a special offer.
If it is money Amazon want to pay me, did using an affiliate link change anything?
Now lets say I have multiple levels of membership to my blog, and my philosophy is "moving the free line" by publishing extremely good content on the front end.
My members who are automatically affiliates have tweet links automatically branded with lots of tracking data, including their affiliate link.
If I don't include the affiliate links, they might be less inclined to tweet a link, because they would prefer to write the occasional blog post, and for their audience to only hear about my content through a link on their blog where using affiliate links wouldn't be frowned upon.
I am not a robot - I follow people manually who I am interested in, and I respect their opinion, and just a couple of days ago I was trying to decide whose link to buy a product through, and I chose someone I knew needed the cashflow among my twitter followers.
I have unfollowed tons of people who didn't offer any value from their tweets, or who were "magpies" as a magpie link has no filtering.
If reading a blog post causes you to throw up in your mouth I might recommend pepto bismol (I do not get an affiliate commission for recommending this product). Your take on this topic baffles me. Half the blogs in the world run ads. There is no difference. We will always have to judge a "publishers" (tweeters) integrity, regardless of what they post. Free is nice but it doesn't pay bills. Let people make money where they can if they are willing to risk their reputation. I do, however, agree with you, that the sums involved are rarely worth the effort.
I posted the following comment on Jeremiah's Blog, so I will re-post it here as I think it will clarify my stance to the comments above:
"please don’t confuse content with advertising. If you want advertising (banners, search, affiliates, sponsorship, etc…) surrounding your Blog or Twitter feed to pay for the content/creator’s time - go for it. It’s when you start making that advertising 'look' like the regular content (or in the same stream) that all credibility is lost and we start venturing into dark waters. This is why newspapers clearly define what is advertising/advertorial/paid content vs. editorial/content."
I am 100% for commercializing all media. I am 100% for marketing, advertising and all of the many glorious things it brings (it's what I do for a living).
If you are an e-commerce play and you are tweeting out your specials, awesome. If you are a thought leader trying to promote the power of conversation but all the while using your community for affiliate marketing and pay-per-post... meh.
I agree The twitter affiliate thing is getting crazy and over done.
Based on my observation, the majority of the people following them back are robots.
Most are not following the fine rules offered above, thus, most likely receiving a large number of unfollows once people realized they have been scammed.
I think it will work it self out.
Rosh
Great post. I see a lot of affiliate stuff out there.
My feelings - if you're aim is to generate affiliate revenue at least link to an informative blog post about the product - then link from there..
Here is tweet from Avinash promoting the Yahoo! Web Analytics book -
New book: Yahoo! Web Analytics: Analyzing for Data-Driven Insights http://tr.im/l2Oo
The short url points to an Amazon Affiliate link
Awesome post..couldn't agree more.
One of the things I always attempt to pass on to clients is the genuine understanding and appreciation for XX Social Networking site (wherever they're trying to be). A lot of companies will assign the task to SOMEONE in-house in hopes that simply generating a presence on Facebook, Twitter, whatever, will help their company; of course, it DOESN'T, and sometimes ends up hurting the brand because of actions similar to the ones discussed in your post. There's NO overall strategy, NO matching of marketing objectives to the proper social media site (if there ARE any marketing objectives for the campaign), and ultimately, no understanding that for a social media effort to work, that company has to honestly contribute to and become part of the community.
As marketers, I really think we've got to be conscious of the personal effort people have put into constructing their social media personae and networks. To those folks, this ISN'T seeing a banner ad on CNN.com - affiliate linking (which, let's face it, is more credible/profitable if people think it's genuine and not a marketing campaign) and pay-per-post blogging is seen as an uninvited intrusion into the user's social network and personal life. I've heard dozens of stories of businesses diving headfirst into Facebook or blog networks and just RUINING their name by attempting some silly, heavy-handed traditional "push" campaign, or a poorly thought-out affiliate marketing design.
I don't think social networking will completely be destroyed by things like this, but it certainly will cause more user movement between different websites. Sites will build up buzz and momentum but ultimately, will be deserted as affiliate marketers, link farmers, what-have-you, follow the masses.
Great post Mitch, cheers.
I don't think that affiliate marketers should hide the fact they are getting money from these links. I was tweeted probably from a robot to meet a hot girl and her friends to sign up for a dating site. I think this kind of thing needs to stop.
There is nothing you can do with social networking that's worth the trouble. It's funny, in a sad sort of way, to see someone lamenting the addition of affiliate links to Twitter.
I don't think Twitter is against the idea of doing business on Twitter including Affiliate Marketing. They themselves are encouraging businesses to tweet to increase revenues.
http://business.twitter.com/twitter101
Every day, millions of people use Twitter to create, discover and share ideas with others. Now, people are turning to Twitter as an effective way to reach out to businesses, too. From local stores to big brands, and from brick-and-mortar to internet-based or service sector, people are finding great value in the connections they make with businesses on Twitter.
Whats the difference with the stars advertising themselves on twitter to businesses!!