As more and more people look for the “easy solution to making money”, they find themselves exploiting affiliate links on their favorite social networking sites. Unfortunately these social networking sites are also yours and my favorite social networking sites. It’s sad to see the fruit of the web rotting in front of my eyes and, unfortunately, there is little I can do about it. CAN-SPAMM laws only protect us from e-mail spam (or try to), but will there be a move to protect your favorite social media site? One can only hope. If the educational fiber of sites like Plaxo, Facebook, etc gets permanently tarnished to the point where you can’t weed out the legitimate from illegitimate posts, then i might have to resort back to books :0 (god forbid).
What kills me is that affiliate marketers that exploit social networks don’t believe they are spammers. Well, I would let that slide if I wasn’t getting links shoved in my face for “Air Conditioners” inside a “Help Zimbabwe” group. Others try and say that the community “will benefit from these products”. Well, honestly, I think the marketer is the only one that benefits from these products and I guarantee you I could find a cheaper, better quality product than whatever your getting paid to promote.
So please keep your spam *cough* I mean affiliate links on your own websites and out of my networks. And, to all of the innocent, none the wiser, social media participants who DO want to purify they’re network groups, don’t be afraid to speak up.
*Note: For all the Plaxo members who have fallen victim to these links all you need to do is click the ‘hide’ button under the users link which you believe to be spam. Hopefully over time the spam will go down and we can clean up our community.
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Hey nice blog my friend. Affiliate marketing is the fastest growing business in world. However its not that easy as it looks. Obviously you need advanced knowledge about
affiliate marketing . If you are dead and broke , you can learn most of the startup tricks via marketing forums.
If it is the “fastest growing business in world” then i hope some regulations get passed soon to help protect our last grains of untainted informational sources. Sphinn, Digg, Plaxo, Facebook, Myspace, MyBlogLog and BlogCatelog have all already fallen victim to affiliate marketers looking for the “easy solution”.
On a side note, I have no problem with affiliate marketing as it stands, its just the spamming of social networks i have a problem with.
I am given much hope by Inside Affiliates Marketing comment. Any business that allows a dead person to engage in commerce sounds great to me. What dead person wouldn’t want to know “Start-up Tricks” If I was dead, I sure would. Hell, “Start-up anything” would be great, I imagine, to a dead fellow. Thanks for that!