One thing that amazes is me is how so many people are not adjusting to the way Social Media works.
We all know that the best way to treat social media is to engage. I see so many people still broadcasting. There is a fine line, as I certainly use Social media to tell people about certain events and even on this occassion (by no means all) I have let my Twitter ‘followers’ know about this article.
My problem is when someone sends you an encoded link ( I do this ) and that link is an affiliate link (I do not do that). In other words people are just tell selling – i.e. they are not talking to you, they are not bothering to engage, they are just promoting an affiliate link.
Just in case there is any doubt: The way to do it is to invite people to do something that sounds like it may, if even in small fraction have some good, valuable, useful content in it.
The essence of social media is to extend a hand to help people out, to share information, to educate, to enable a two way communication. Not ‘tell sell’.
I appreciate that my way may be more time consuming. For my part, reaching, through engagement I have made genuine friends and developed some serious business relationships this way. I would love to hear from people who have succeeded both ways. Maybe both is correct???
It always makes me think when I see ‘tell selling’ in action – “there goes someone who does not know what they are doing”. Or is it me? Have I got something to learn. I would love to hear of your results because I bet there is something I am missing here. I am always willing to learn. In pursuit of success, glad to be wrong even.
This is an area that I really do not fancy testing, as it just feels wrong. Tell me your experiences?
For more top tips in Affiliate Marketing, come visit Affiliate Top Tips.com
3 Responses
to “The problem with affiliate marketing and Social Media”
1 Trackback(s)
- May 13, 2010: Tweets that mention The problem with affiliate marketing and Social Media -- Topsy.com
Really pisses me off when someone repeatedly spams me with the same DM over and then I get superpissed when I find they ain’t even following me! I have over 20,000 followers in a little over one year – http://twitter.com/jjjinvesting – I NEVER SPAM and never will – if people want my investing book they can email me.
Jeff
Hi David, great article and whilst I think you have finally answered one of my questions that I have been pondering on for a couple of weeks I’m not entirely sure that I have understood fully! Being someone who is relatively new to Twitter I have often received 3rd party links from my contacts is this what you mean by affiliate links? I have thought about promoting other contacts by tweeting their links to my contacts but hesitated for the very reason you explain in your article your comments are very welcome and if I have misunderstood completely I apologise for my ignorance!