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If I am following an affiliate and I ask for a recommendation for a specific product, I really would not care if the link was an affiliate link. I had a need and my need was met.
However, scanning keywords and answering questions while pretending to be a “new friend” just to pass affiliate links; well that bothers me big time. It devalues your connection with everyone you’ve connected with on twitter; it’s like you are only connecting to sell product via PRETENSE.
I don't like this approach at all - to me, it's cool if somebody I follow responds to a question I have with an affiliate link, but if somebody trolls keywords and @ replies me without any prior relationship for the purpose of monetizing me, I don't want to hear from them.
The line here, to me, is that I assign a level of trust and respect to somebody I follow, and I value their input. If not, I would unfollow them.
So when a stranger pops in to say they love some product and I can buy through their link, my BS detector goes off. I don't trust them, I don't know them, and I don't value their "suggestion."
Ugh .. remind me to never state "looking to buy" in my tweets.
We were all so insistent that the unfollow capability in Twitter was the great protector (I know I did) .. but you've pointed out a much bigger problem that could flood the stream. This might be where the Twitter guys will need to look at detecting this sort of activity ..
A lot of what Shawn already said. I think the one with the coffee grinder was fine. But what I saw today with Adams, went too far. I'm guessing as an affiliate marketer, most of the people on your Twitter list are involved in the business as well and can go thru their own links, if they're affiliates. It's just tacky and I don't usually use that word :)
Just to add on to what's already been well said... a major problem is that even if you unfollow and block a person, their @ replies still show up on 3rd party apps like TweetDeck. So, I could block Jangro's hypothetical (please stay hypothetical) bot or Adam and they would still show up in TweetDeck.
This goes beyond experimentation into something like flinging poo at the walls to see what sticks, not caring that it stinks up the room for the rest of us.
<disallows <Jangrobot> in robots.txt>
Two distinct issues here, IMHO.
Twitter is a human interaction tool. You're going to get that kind of thing from time to time. I think it's spammy, but hey, to each their own.
Your "logical extension" is another matter all together. Twitter has enough problems without those creepy crawlies entering the mix.
It has happened before (but in this case it was due to a guy who was self-admittedly going after the Twitter-ati who had Tracks set up to get replies in the good old days): http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/topics/is_panopticons_abusing_the_terms_of_service" target="blank">
http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/topics/ispano...
It was me. I started writing a whole long comment about it, but IntenseDebate wouldn't let me post it, said it was too long. So I posted my reply on my blog, Wiseaff.com - http://www.wiseaff.com/2009/02/affiliate-marketing-on-twitter-oh-my.html" target="_blank">
http://www.wiseaff.com/2009/02/affiliate-marketin...
Adam
I think that someone posting a question on Twitter is soliciting a response. If someone doesn't want to receive recommendations that might be of a commercial nature, they shouldn't pose it in the Twitter-verse. Think about this same situation "offline." I'm at a well attended public event, mostly surrounded by friends and friends of friends. I shout out loud enough for a lot of people to hear: I need to replace my coffee grinder--any suggestions? It has to be a burr grinder and grind for both espresso and French Press. Can I honestly expect that an unknown passerby (that happens to be a sales rep for a Coffee Equipment company) won't hand me a coupon and an opinion? The onus is on the person doing the asking.
great point Lisa. If someone poses a deliberate question, that's definitely solicited. I can't see them being bothered by someone giving a good response to that question.
Your example is certainly asking for anyone to respond.
But some are more personal looking discussions, like the computer example above.
Or if someone just mentions that they're shopping for a computer, does that mean they're soiciting deals? How about if someone says they like Ray Ban sunglasses and want to buy a pair. Is that open season from all Sunglasses vendors?
Adam actually gave us some great examples that demonstrate that there are varying degrees of soliciting. There's a line in there somewhere.
If someone says they like Ray Ban's and want to buy a pair, and you shoot them a coupon code for $10 off a purchase or Ray Bans, I would think that would be a perfect opportunity to close the sale. In fact, using twitterhawk, a smart affiliate or ray ban themselves might be able to automate that.
On my way out to Vegas for Affiliate Summit, I twittered that I was flying out of IAD, and I got a twitter from @taxinow telling me that I could DM them when I returned if I needed a cap in the DC area. Was I offended? No, I thought it was brilliant!!!
Selling is all about presenting an offer when people are ready to buy, a network like Twitter gives you plenty of opportunities to sell someone something that they need by being open to listening to what they are asking for.
In my opinion this is just good common sense marketing.
Remember, in the early internet days, the Internet elitists didn't think you should use the Internet for marketing at all, purely research.
Adam
You were not annoyed with the taxi tweet and I don't think I would be either. If I had said I like Ray Bans and want to buy a pair and Ray Ban shot me an offer, I think that would be cool. If you sent me a coupon for $10 off from Dealzam, I'd probably think that's cool too, as long as it is relevant.
In short, I don't hold the position that there is no place for marketing in twitter. It's just another platform with eyeballs and good marketing can work anywhere.
But this is a dangerous game, because like anywhere, people aren't always in the mindset to be marketed to. And the company or person doing the marketing needs to be able to distinguish and be smart about it. I think you hit a few people with your tests yesterday that probably were not interested in being marketed to. Is that ok?
If you're smart about it, you're offering a great service. If you're not smart about it, you're a DB. And there's a fine line there that you should cross as little as possible.
And if you don't care and keep doing stuff that creep people out or piss them off, you're shitting in your own yard.
See the big giant red "report spam" button on twitterhawk? Why do you think they had to put it there? Because of DBs.
If you search something in Google, you will be shown 10+ automated (yet, relevant) results -- some of which are from affiliates. Typically, there'd be no complaints.
If you ask for something on Twitter, and you get a Tweet by an automated responder (yet, it's relevant) -- there is absolutely nothing wrong with that -- even if they profit.
This tactic is rampant on Yahoo! Answers, Ask.com, Craigslist and a number of other question and answer type sites.
Is it going to be "polluting" twitter, or even making it's way to FB status updates? You bet.
I have a little belief in karma too. If you do bad stuff on the internet, it is going to come back and bite you in the ass sometime.
So when's part 3 coming out?
As Adam said above, and I agreed, I think there are some ok examples of this "anti-social" behavior.
But looking at any single example, it's not too difficult to determine whether it's good or not. If marketers always made that assessment and made the right decision (and holding back when it's questionable) I don't think there would be a problem.
There's certainly fodder for a part 3. Let's let this cook over the weekend. Plenty more discussion to be had on this one.
Really interesting analogy.
When someone goes to google, they're expecting this answer from the googlebot. And btw, there are complains. There are idiot affiliates and marketers with crappy stuff in google too. But that's a different discussion.
It comes down to really what the person doing the asking is intending. If someone posts, "OMG! Where can I get a freakin' latte in Kalamazoo?" I think they'd appreciate a response, no matter from whom.
Clearly there's some of that in twitter, even a lot of that. And for literally any stranger to reply to those, even a bot with a relevant response, I think that'd be a good thing. And if someone can make money off those, I think that's ok too. As long as it is relevant.
These are tweets that people make where they're not deliberately and specifically broadcasting to the world (even though they are). And if a stranger jumps in, that's potentially rude or even creepy. And if the stranger is doing it because they're marketing and trolling for these conversations. That's just shitty, IMO.
I sitll am not so sure I agree, that sending out a suggesting to a question is a DB response. I saw someone the other day twitter a question in an @response to someone asking about buying some medical equipment and I sent them a link to allheart.com and thay replied, thank you very much. I think they appreciated a quick solution to their problem, somthing twitter is uniquelly able to help with. And on my part it took a bit of research to identify a company that sold what they wanted and create the link, so it's not like it was burn and churn.
Still too early to tell if this is working, but with the millions of tweets out there, I really doubt giving someone an answer to a question they have clearly posed online is wrong. IMHO.
Adam
Using bots to scrape questions and feeding back affiliate links IS crossing the line. That's tantamount to spamming IMO. I'm fine with conservative methods of posting aff links. There is a risk turning off your followers. It's like pitching Amway to all your friends and relatives. They'll begin to avoid you if you continually promote.
I tested a link from one of my followers (a very high profile affiliate marketer) this morning. Sure enough, it was an affiliate link in a general tweet not directed at anyone. That user does provide a lot of useful informational tweets, so I was ok with it.
Great post and idea of an auto search/responder, but if everybody was doing it.....? I use Twitter to keep up to date on current news and market relevant information and having that interupted by someone trying to sell me something would annoy me. But then again I wouldn't use “looking to buy" in my posts - it's a thin line between targeted marketing and spam.
i think there are two dynamics going on here: intent of the responder and/or relevance of the responder to the inquirer.
on intent: if i ask a random question to my followers, i would expect they would be the first responders. if say one of my followers were to reply with something useful and it turns out to be an aff link, great whatever as long as it is relevant and addresses my problem. i mean, i'm the one who asked in the first place. if the intent of the responder is to help then i see nothing wrong with it.
on relevance: if in my question i ask something relating to a company, service, product etc and the responder is not someone in my followers list, and they represent or are affiliated directly with that company, service, product etc and are making an effort to reach out an help me resolve my issue, then great whatever as long as it helps me solve the problem. FOR EXAMPLE, today i tweeted on how i was scammed by a company through an offer on drugstore.com. @drugstoredotcom immediately tweeted back for me to contact them so they could help me look into what happened. WOW! talk about awesome. are they then trolling (i know it doesn't apply to aff links but the principle of relevance is the same). i call it QA
on trolling: now, if someone is neither a follower nor a relevant party to the tweet, and sends me an aff link i would be suspect. their intention may solely be to make a sale. looking at their tweet patterns it would be easy to tell. at that point i would most likely not click the link even if it may be helpful. BUT that's only because im a marketer and can spot pretty quickly these things. if a user can't spot it's an aff link, but they still find it useful then it may be ok to them while in PRINCIPLE the troll is just looking to make money and it may be on the shady side. but i wouldn't say it's wrong. spam by definition is unsolicited. by asking for a recommendation you are inviting referrals in a public platform. so at what point does it cross from being an annoying suggestion to spam? i'm not sure... but being the shady troll dude won't do much for reputation or branding (if you care about that).
i have no opinion yet on disclosure, not that any of you care :) sorry for the long response. this is how my mind works... that is my seven hundred cents ;)
Thanks for your 700 cents, Danielle.
Great points about intent and relevance.
I think that there's another dynamic, which is how much of a question the person is really asking and whether they are actually hoping for a response from friends, or the whole twitterverse, or at all. It comes down to the definition of solicited, I suppose and mapping the infinite degrees of language and intent.
Maybe a human "troller" with a good sense of when someone will appreciate a response could do this effectively without being invasive.
"I wouldn't say it is "pretenting to be a new freind", when you enter something into twitter, unless your tweets are protected, anyone can see them and offer up a response, not just your followers."
I see tweets and all sorts of stuff on Twitter showing up in Google now. Saw some of Shawn's tweets about Aff Summit ranking in Google pretty high up. So I can see affiliates jamming up Twitter with affiliate postings for products that then get indexed and ranked...
The problem with affiliate links like with everything on the tubes is that when taken too far (i.e. bots, whole companies dedicated to it) it gets really annoying and can destroy some sites or at least make them less fun. It's like thanks to bots now we have to read those annoying captchas everywhere.
I agree with Shawn. For me, it's Ok if somebody replied to my questions with an affiliate link as long as I know the person who's sharing me that affiliate link and as long as he give me a relevant answer. However, if a stranger just popped in his answer with an affiliate link, I will just ignore him.
I just found this post and can see you certainly got a good discussion going. I'm totally with Shawn on this one, it just seems to make more sense to only send aff links to someone you are directly in a dialogue with. I know for sure if someone who was not following me or I was not following sent me a link in answer to my question I would not be clicking on it!
Thanks for posting and providing an entertaining read!
Karl
Twitter is fast-growing community. It will overcome digg in a few weeks probably therefore it's a good way to promote a business. It's an opportunity for affiliate marketers so why wouldn't they use it? If you don't want to get "spammed" then don't look for something to buy on Twitter. Just use google or yahoo.
This is a great article. I'm finding that it's harder to find out what are real information links and just spam links on Twitter. Since all links are truncated, you have to click them to know what they are, and often the descriptions are false just to get you to click. I hope they bring in some sort of rating system....
© 2012 http://www.jangro.com/
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Earlier this week, we had one of the best discussions ever had on this blog. Here's a quick recap:
My friend Geno asked about coffee grinders. I responded with a link to the coffee grinder that I own and love. That link was an affiliate link.
My question was simply, is that cool to do? Read the full discussion here.
The consensus amongs the readers of this blog (who are mostly affiliate marketers) was pretty much that it was ok. But this was mostly because I own the grinder, I know the person I replied to, and he specifically asked for a recommendation. Some felt that I should have disclosed. One or two didn't like it at all.
Fast forward a few days, and we see another example of similar activity. Funnily enough, it's the same guy who commented on my activity.
Here are three tweets from him today...
I followed the Oakley one and it appeared to be an affiliate link. I think it's pretty safe to assume that they all are, but for the sake of discussion, we certainly can.
From what I can observe, it appears that he searched for terms like "looking to buy", "looking for" and found posts like this
and
and responded with some helpful recommendations.
So was THIS cool?
I didn't write this to single out this person who I will not name (though of course that's not really hiding him) and I don't want this to turn into a judge and jury. (Though some of that's been happening on twitter already.)
We're all feeling out the limits of what's acceptible behavior on the interwebs. I think it's important to consider what we're doing and the impact that it has on a platform like twitter, as well as the public reputation of online marketers.
The thing that stands out to me the most is that what he's doing cannot be addressed with the "unfollow" button. These people he's replying to are not following him from what I can tell. If they watch their replies, they cannot avoid this sort of thing. And what if there were 10 people doing this.
What do you think?
Now consider this
The logical next step is for someone to set up a twitter bot, that nobody necessarily follows, that watches for keywords like "looking to buy" and "laptop" or "television" (or whatever). It automatically replies with a helpful post on where to buy an item like that.
Oh, did I say that out loud?