What do you think about affiliate marketing on Twitter?
Lately I’ve noticed more and more affiliate marketers getting onto twitter. There’s been a real buzz about it actually in many internet marketing circles – almost like it’s the latest ‘new’ thing (I guess it is relatively new).
The unfortunate thing is that the model I’m seeing some internet marketers use on Twitter is quite spammy. Some have spammed Twitter so much directly that they’ve been booted off.
Today I got an email from Joel Comm. I’m one of his affiliates and have promoted some of his books and ebooks previously. We’ve met in person and I admire his knowledge of internet marketing greatly. However todays email didn’t really sit that well with me and I’d love to hear your opinion on it.
Joel is currently promoting an AdSense Secrets ebook. I actually like his writing on AdSense and some of what he teaches helped me a lot in the early days of getting into blogging.
I’ve promoted his AdSense stuff before and would probably do it again – but not in the way he’s asking his affiliates to do it this time.
The promotion he’s asking people to do is to Tweet a link to his book. Not only has he asked us to tweet about it (something I wouldn’t be anti doing to some extend) he’s given his affiliates a link to make the whole process automated.
All you have to do is click the link and it sets up a tweet in your own twitter account (if you’re logged in) and it embeds an affiliate link into the tweet automatically for you so you can earn money if people make a purchase of one of Joels products as a result of clicking on your link ($10 a month for each month they stay in his program).
Looking at Twitter Search just now it seems that his tactic is working – to some extent.
I wouldn’t call it a raging success (yet) but with 30 or so people tweeting about it (largely using the automated script Joel’s provided) there’s been some take up of it.
Now on some levels I don’t have a problem with Joel’s campaign. I am not against affiliate marketing, I’m not against promoting products in new media – however there’s something that has been playing on my mind about this all day.
To be honest I’m not completely sure why I don’t like it (as I say above I don’t have a problem with some of the principles behind it) but there’s something that doesn’t sit well with me about this.
Risky Behavior and Spam
I think one of my main problems with it is that it almost seems like Joels asking others to engage in a little risky behavior for him and putting them a little at risk. Twitter is pretty anti spam and while he’s not done it directly the search results do look quite spammy when you line them all up and see the exact same message over and over and over again. I wonder how Twitter will respond to this and who will suffer? Joel or those who tweet it?
Impersonal Marketing
Another thing that I am reacting against with this strategy is that the tweets Joel is suggesting seem very impersonal.
“Download Joel Comm’s Adsense Secrets For FREE! “
This just doesn’t resonate with me as the type of message that would do well on Twitter. A message out of the blue about someone encouraging a download. I’m not sure it’s where affiliate marketing is going online either.
My own experimenting with affiliate marketing over the last few years is that it works best out of relationship and trust with those that you recommend products to. I find that promoting products do best when you are able to give an honest review of them, when you’re able to tell people who they are best suited for etc
This is actually why I think blogging is an ideal message for affiliate marketing. It’s a great place to build trust, fully review a product and give a balanced recommendation – 140 or so characters just doesn’t seem enough to do much to do most of that.
I guess what I’m coming to is that a tweet like this doesn’t really sit comfortably with my style of affiliate marketing.
What do you Think about Affiliate Marketing on Twitter?
But that is just me – what about you? Does affiliate marketing belong on Twitter? If so – how would you do it?
To be clear – I’m not wanting to start an anti Joel Comm thread of discussion here – like I say, I like the guy and don’t have anything against his products, but I am interested to hear what you think about the topic of affiliate marketing on twitter (and other forms of social media). Over to you….
How Affiliate Marketers Should Use Twitter?
It’s pretty easy to say you don’t like affiliate links on Twitter and not say anything constructive. So tomorrow I’d like to attempt to put forward some ideas on how Twitter (and other social media sites) could be used by affiliate marketers appropriately and effectively. Keep an eye on my RSS feed over the next 24 hours to see when the post goes live.
I think ads, like a virus, eventually spread to all facets of the Internet (with some exceptions of course). It would seem that Twitter may be headed down this road, like so many other forms of social media, but I hope not.
I think Twitter is such a great way to share bits and pieces of your life and your blogging and it would be a shame if you had to weed through the ‘junk tweets’ just to get to the real content. We will see what happens. Eric.
Joel Comm is a stand up guy and very smart. I suspect he has considered the various aspects of your post. I see nothing wrong with it but do appreciate your concern.
Rich
I saw this twittered several times this morning and thought instantly: “Spam.”
I’ve actually bought Joel’s book in the past and I do think he has a lot of useful things to say. But this latest venture seems to be pushing credibility a step too far. I’ve actually noticed an upswing in twam (twitter spam!) in the last couple of weeks as marketing folks start to explore the space.
I do think Twitter can be a useful place for businesses to topic-track customers and their brand, but direct affiliate marketing like this sucks.
I don’t know Joel Comm and if all of a sudden one spam turned into thirty… I probably would drop him quickly.
I don’t like it, if I saw something like that chances are I’d unfollow the person. If it’s a blogger, I get their stuff via RSS anyway so it’s a minor loss. I would be interested to find out the followership numbers after one of these stunts… do people look past it or what?
Also, with all the URL obfuscators, it’s hard to tell where things are going. You can’t tell an aff link as easily as you could before so this could play into the trust factor as well.
The tweet actually popped into my radar because it looked like an odd tweet to see… so that’s what it was. Interesting idea, but I don’t think twitter is going to look too favorably on it and the last thing I want is to have to be suspicious of people’s underlying intentions when I am just trying to connect with others.
The great thing about Twitter is it is pull marketing. If I don’t like what someone is pushing (political rhetoric, obvious marketing ads, etc.) I can always block them.
I think if people took a different approach, like wrote a blog post about a product with their aff link in it, and then tweeted it, that’s okay. Because they’re putting forth an effort to be different than the others who are using the “auto tweet” thing.
I know, passive income, blah blah blah. But I think this format is just flat out lazy, and since spammers are lazy (using bots, etc)… well, if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, you know?
Then again, Joel’s specialty is AdSense. Not social media. He might’ve made a serious boo-boo here and just not realize it yet. Hopefully he will.
I don’t like the fact that the tweet is misleading/deceiving. It says : “Download Joel Comm’s Adsense Secrets For FREE! ” but it doesn’t say it’s free ONLY if you buy some of Joel’s other product. So you click that link just to end up on his sale page where you see that it’s not actually free.
I guess I’m a little on the fence about it. Don’t like the automated tweet, which as you mentioned doesn’t sound personal at all, and when you see multiple people tweeting the same thing, it’d turn me off.
However, in another sense it’s a good use of the medium, I suppose if it were more of a “If you like my book, please consider tweeting about it” message I’d be fine with it.
I remember seeing those links last night on twitter, but It didn’t even cross my mind that they were affiliate links.
Twitterers, link to things they enjoy so often that I didn’t even think anything about it.
It seems like the only way someone would really know compared to all of the other links on twitter would be if you were actually one of the affiliates.
I don’t see anything wrong with it, unless you continually plug it over and over and over again.
Hey thanks for the mug shot ;)
I think that the way Joel had offered it as a link to tweet a blurb of text promoting the product along with an affiliate link is a great innovation on using the twitter API as an advantage.
Although I agree with you on the point that it could be considered ‘spam’, However I believe that if everyone uses twitter responsibly (like anything else) there should not be a huge problem, because Twitter is really about getting great, new, and relevant content based on who you follow, and actually I found that Adsense offer to be relevant lol, thats why I chose to be an affiliate of it in the first place :).
Good post! Thanks again!
Darren – great post. I was expecting this evolution of internet marketers using twitter for affiliate marketing purposes. Its the perfect marriage.
Twitter allows the posting of links and many use it to deliver quality stories and news via cloaked shortened URLs from TinyURL, Bit.ly, etc. So an ‘affiliate link’ is more than acceptable. since an affiliate link in many cases is a cloaked link already!
In anycase, my only fear is now that Joel Comm has introduced this (at least got recognition by you blogging about it) as with anything else within the internet marketing circle, he will try to ‘monetize’ his experience and others will follow suit.
if internet marketers than abuse the affiliate links by spamming auto generated tweets, next thing you know they will become synonymous with spam links (same as when Internet Marketers invaded eBay).
It will be interesting to see how it evolves.
Darren, this is like so many things in this world, such as letting your dog poop in the park without cleaning up after it: if one person does it, there’s little harm, but if a lot of people start doing it, a terrible mess is created.
The purpose of Twitter is to allow people to share brief, interesting little tidbits with their friends. Sometimes that will be a link, and sometimes it will be self-serving, e.g. a link back to a blog post one is promoting, but genuinely feels is of interest to one’s friends. At least in theory, such a link could also be an affiliate link.
However, encouraging people to put spammy tweets on twitter (“Yadda yadda yadda is FREE!”) in exchange for money is essentially paying them to spam Twitter. Add the fact that an automatic app has been created to do this, and you have the recipe for disaster.
If Twitter allows this, I predict it will spread like a cancer, since the lure of easy money is hard to resist. Soon 8 out of 10 tweets will be affiliate spam. Then reading Twitter will be like looking at your e-mail inbox, only without the delete button handy. A dismal prospect that could bring Twitter down.
Spamming social sites always has negative consequences because of the nature of the beast. Social sites depend upon people who are contributing members of the community and have an interest in developing good communication with the members.
On the other hand using Twitter for affiliate marketing when the marketers are already invested in Twitter but the comment isn’t the same for all tweets might be a more accurate way of using the system. Encouraging people who don’t use Twitter consistently to add a tweet just for marketing purposes is a good way to get the marketers name ignored.
Gail
If you forget, alot of people are using automated tweets to tweet about their newest blog posts.
I think it’s the exact same thing.
Darren, I actually replied to your tweet jokingly:
“That’s example for twitter usage at it best ;)”
Actually I wouldn’t mind if these people promote in their own words. Everyone saying the same thing is spam in my opinion.
I, personally, wouldn’t send tweets like especially if many people are doing that. To be honest, if it is really a FREE resource ‘no strings attached’, I will recommend. But these are hard to find.
I’m sure the ones who have tweeted that message would have lost a few loyal followers.
Just my opinion though.
its nice to see how concerned you are, you’ve done a good job of putting words to that concern. i share your concern but think thats like Eric said, nothing on the internet is immune to marketing..
In my view if you look at Joel Comm he has a big following and people trust him and when he does something people will know who Joel is.
But are the people who are promoting his free ebook promoting it to there people who trust them or everybody
Yes I believe it to be spammy by promoting it to everyone , but if they instead had a big following who trusted them , and they then messaged their list and said hey I just got a great free ebook from Joel Comm you must take a look
that would work better
to me these people are not following Joels advice , because Joel has built a following some others are just broadcasting to everyone
I see your point. I don’t have a problem with affiliate links in Twitter per se, but think that personally written tweets by each affiliate, instead of canned copy, would appear less spammy.
If you have built a relationship with your Twitter followers, then do them the courtesy of a personalize tweet with your affiliate offer and affiliate link.
Personalization is the key. If Twitter is SOCIALMedia, then be social and interact for more than just self-promotion.
The concept was good. The execution flawed.
Social networking sites work well when you stay with the basic assumption that It’s all about developing relationships.
The brilliance of Joel’s campaign is its viral nature. The failure is that there is nothing personal about automated content.
As with live off-line, you need to develop a relationship before you try to ‘sell’ someone.
Marlene
IMHO, using an example of BAD affiliate marketing on Twitter obviously done by people who don’t understand Twitter in a real capacity and then asking if affiliate marketing as a whole belongs on Twitter isn’t exactly posing the question objectively.
@Steven-Sanders I don’t think it’s the exact thing like automated tweeting. If tweeting is somehow about sharing what you do then if you just published a blog post it seems normal to tweet about it.
The tweet is not the same as some other 30-100 people’s tweets and it doesn’t try to sell you anything.
It’s about you, or what you do. It doesn’t matter you wrote it into your twitter client on wordpress did it for you.
It may not seem buts this is SPAM (or close to that), in my opinion.
Twitter will soon have to act on this if it spreads.
I believe that Twitter only adds value to our life if the content its useful. If this goes on it will became like email.
And the people that will be punished it won’t be the ones making the money with this.
I see this more and more. I usually so a ratio of 10-1 in regards to following/followers. When I see these ratios and anything in the Twitter account associated with blatant marketing I instantly block them. The major attractions of tweeter are one of two things. A “personal” connection with the writer or news of some sort. I am fine with my local newspaper having a tweeter feed or a podcaster saying they are getting ready to record a show and invite people to call in but using Twitter to to this is as bad as leaving comments on a blog that are nothing but self promotion of one’s own web site.
I think the thing about Twitter is that you choose to follow other people. If the people you follow start doing things you don’t like then unfollow them, or use it as a reason to start a discussion with them. “@affiliate_linker I like your normal posts but what’s with the spammy links?”
If enough people pull them up on it or unsubscribe they’ll get the message.
I think it would simply muck up the system and drive users away from twitter. Therefore twitter should ban this sort of thing.
People trying to make a quick buck on twitter are only ruining their reputation. Twitter isn’t for “making sales” imo it’s for the priceless networking that the space allows which makes it awesome.
The only people I’ve unfollowed are ones that have done similar practices. It’s too bad!
I’ll admit that I was one of the people who sent this particular spam message. I thought what the heck, why not give it a shot and see. However, I am NOT one of those people whose every tweet is about selling this and linking that.
I thought the message was quite impersonal too, so I doubt that it was very successful.
I think it was more of a test by Joel to see how many people would do it and how successful it was. He is working on a new Twitter book.
I got that tweet about his program from about 5 different people yesterday – and it was getting a little annoying. I don’t think those types of twitters add much to the twitterverse – but then again I think they may be a fact of life. You have to take the good with the bad I think.
If Twitter is going to become nothing but “commercials” then I’m dropping my account. Enough with ads already!
Personally I think affiliate marketing can work on Twitter – as long as it’s done naturally. For example if I decided to market the book you mention then I could post a tweet letting my followers know why it is worth signing up for and include my link.
Encouraging a large number of people to post an impersonal and identical post is just spam and I would ignore it if I saw it on twitter.
I think it will work for him, to some degree. I just don’t think it is the best route. Of course, I am new to all of this. However, I would rather have my blog advertised more organicly, by engaging the community and people slowly getting exposed to me. It will be slow and steady, but a little more satisfying to me.
Hey Darren et al,
Can’t help but see your tweets because of TweetBeep.com. As you might imagine, I saw my name pop up again and again. The Twitter marketing campaign was far more popular and effective than I imagined. But this is a great discussion and I am happy to have played a roll in firing it off.
You never know how people are going to respond to things and I’m pretty surprised at how this played out. Whenever you try something new there is bound to be controversy.
I use Twitter for everything from daily nonsense and political rants to surveying people and linking to new articles. Using Twitter to market is a new frontier. And it is a frontier that will be explored more and more often. Wherever you find an audience, there you will find people selling something.
Would it have been better for people to customize their message? Absolutely. The best tweets were by those who did.
So we tried something new. :-)
Observing and interested in seeing what others have to say…
Joel
I think it’s just one of those things that go big for a while and then soon die off…
Personally I think the danger here is not so much for Joel but for the affiliates promoting Joel using this technique.
I think Lara and a couple others hit the nail on the head in their comments above…
The best way for affiliates to promote products is to separate themselves by creating a unique promotion. By everyone having the exact same Tweet, it looks like spam and turns people off (as evidenced by the reaction above).
The same principles apply to affiliate email promotions. Joel did the right thing for his affiliates by making it easy for them to promote (just like creating an email template). At that point it’s up to the affiliate to take what was given and personalize it so that the promotion has meaning to their list/following.
Obviously that didn’t happen and that’s why we’re having this conversation.
If these same affiliates took 30 seconds to customize the tweet, give an opinion on the book or tailored it in some way, I think you would have a different reaction.
Twitter is an intimate and personal platform. The minute you start being “generic”, you’ll lose people.
That’s why it’s dangerous for the affiliates in this case because they stand the biggest risk of people selecting the “Remove” button after they see these generic tweets.
Marketing products on Twitter is fine (even as an affiliate) but the tweets still have to be personal – NO Generic Tweets!
Joel Comm is a complete hack.
Never has anyone abused my “permission to send me email” as much as he has.
When I was on his list (note the tense: *was*), he used to incessantly pummel me with emails every day about his blog posts, his own products, products he’s promoting, products from his “buddies” – PHEW!
‘Nuf was ‘nuf.
Completely “banned” Joel Comm out of my inbox a while ago. Haven’t missed a beat since.
Anyway, some morons like to take “advantage” of any opening they get to promote their affiliate links. It was only a matter of time before “Twitter-abuse” came along.
Twitter works great when you first build a relationship – and then try to “benefit” from it (in whatever way that is).
But the good news is that you can *stop following* morons like this who spam.
– Ravi Jayagopal
http://www.RavisRants.com
I’m not against someone recommending something (with an affliate tie naturally–or not), but automating it will certainly grow and crowd out the good stuff.
Question I would like to raise – what’s the difference between people posting a link to buy Joel Comm’s book and posting thier latest blog post using things like ping.fm? Both are fairly impersonal, and – knowing the kind of people that I follow on twitter – trying to sell me something!
recommand something is one but he uses a script…. automated sound to spam for …
he is a spammer because it is not natural
That’s a really good point Stu. In hindsight, I think providing people with the link only and saying “Fill in your own words to discuss or recommend the offer here” would have made more sense.
Of course then we would have seen tweets that looked like this…
“Fill in your own words to discuss or recommend the offer here http://infomedia.infusionsoft.com/go/as4/a324654”
;-)
I live in fear of the day that all my followers start sending out promotional links for this product and that product. I don’t mind occasional tweets by someone I trust with a product that is helpful. I would much prefer that people take the time to alter the tweet or write about it on their blog, just as Lara suggested. It gives credibility to the product.
Excellent points by all, and my gut instinct, like yours Problogger, says “ewww.” (Not to Joel, but to the concept of affiliate marketing clogging up my tweetstream!)
My passion is “designing for users.” The problem with push marketing is that it is often not wanted. Twitter, as it is today, is so great because your pool of people can be as narrow (friends and family only) or as broad (companies I want to follow for product updates, random strangers who seem cool, etc.) as an individual wants it to be.
Say you post this affiliate-style message, personalized or not… if you kept doing that, I could choose to unfollow you. But what about the 6-8 others who see you doing it and want to cash in on this idea? Now I am potentially spending more time unfollowing and managing my followers than I’d like to, just to avoid being chased by marketing messages.
We market all the time on Twitter – a lot of us do, at least. But it’s fit into the natural ebb and flow of conversation, and hopefully is more akin to meeting a stranger at a party and telling them something cool you do because of something they’ve said, than getting a bunch of real mail in your mailbox, only to find out they’re all messages from someone trying to sell something to you.
If twitter works for affiliate, I think many will follow and the effectiveness will drop, as usual.
Still very hard to tell if this kind of promotion will last or not, but the credibility will decrease as they are here to promote something… but this is not the Golden Rule, I am sure there are some exception…
i guess that twitter is great to put that affiliate link into traffic ville if ones website is not really drawing the crowd, and to some degree everyone is selling something to these communities and there is always a commodity exchange, and probably joels people will get busted, and joel gets free publicity so sure but the people who won are the people who own the companies who are billionairs and dont care about anything because nothing matters. people like myself are just pawns so popping sleezy affiliate links on twitter is worth it. nothing is more exciting that seeing 20 dollar deposits into the account
It’s unfortunate but inevitable that twitter will be used for marketing. It’s the degree and how you market that makes the difference.
Not too long ago I quietly sat in on an Internet Marketing training call and actually heard the mentor talk about how twitter is better than email for marketing – yikes!
In any case, twitter is about telling people what you do. IMHO, if writing a book, writing a blogpost, creating a product, eating a meal, or whatever, is what you do and you can say it in140 characters or less . . . so be it. If you really consider most of the tweets, a good percentage is some form of promotion for something or other – person, product, fire sale, new post, etc.
For me, I look at the ratio of promo type tweets vs. real value and decide whether that person is worth the follow.
My understanding of the law in Europe (I am not a lawyer) is that for something that is business to consumer, you are really skating on thin ice even for your own products.
1. It is very hard if not impossible to provide full contact information on Twitter including company registration details for a Ltd company.
2. Tweets can end up in people’s email, so if they are marketing messages, it would probably require a declaration that it is a marketing message, and again contact info etc even for US law.
3. Do you have room for disclosure in a tweet?
Joel’s product is business to business, so the rules are a lot more murky, and if you have always used Twitter as a business channel, you might be in the clear in the US, though the first point for Ltd companies in Europe still applies.
I am interested in Twitter and other social media for affiliate marketing. It can be justified from a social contract with your audience perspective, though you might be better sending traffic to a pre-sell or review blog page first.
The legal side (again I am not a lawyer) seems to be very much a grey area.
I don’t mind people using affiliate links as long as it seems natural and doesn’t go to a squeeze page. I got a link yesterday but had something very useful that was free even if you didn’t buy what was promoted. Up front it didn’t seem spammy and I got something useful so I didn’t mind.
I haven’t seen this one yet but there’s a good chance I’ll unfollow whoever sends it.
I look at it like the affiliate campaigns that give you pre written emails. You MUST assume that people on your mailing list are on others, if you all send out the same “my friend just sent me this new product, he said I can give you a discount” type of letter…it shows no creativity and is sort of lazy in my opinion.
Like anything, I always try to change it up, so I agree, that if you do promote something like this, you should change it up so it matches your normal style of twitter messages.
From a marketing standpoint it was smart, because Joel, like many of us, know there will be many that just click and shoot because the want to try and get a quick sale or two.
Interesting topic, look forward to more insight on affiliate marketing and twitter, as I think it can be done, when done in the normal course of your regular twittering.
I agree that direct affiliate linking has no place on Twitter. First of all, it violates the trust that you build with your network, and second it makes you appear like you just don’t get it or are in for the quick buck. The real movers and shakers in twitter spend time doing more than just sending out affiliate links…they interact with people.
When I see tweets like that, I am instantly turned away and more often than not I stop following that person.