Jul 18 2008
Spamming Facebook ‘Friends’ with Affiliate Links
I fought Facebook for a long time before peer pressure won me over and I joined the throngs as a Facebook follower. Now I love it. It’s great for keeping in touch without actually having to keep in touch.
I know many people have started to use Facebook as a marketing tool but I haven’t really explored that area at all. I’m not a master marketer and tend to try to focus on building quality websites rather than searching out new ways to attract readers. But I certainly think that Facebook and others like it have lots of marketing potential.
I got a friend request last week from some guy who I vaguely remember as a friend of a friend from high school. I had no idea who he was at first so accepted the friend request to investigate. I realised I was never really a friend of his and have absolutely no interest in what the guy is doing with his life so was going to delete him. But for some reason I didn’t and this afternoon I was surprised to get a message from him. When I opened it up, I was even more surprised to see that he was suggesting a poker site to me, complete with an affiliate link.
If the guy had sent me the message saying that he thinks I might like the site and then mentioned that if I click on his link, he’ll get a few bucks I might not have found the whole thing so offensive. But I think spamming so-called friends through Facebook with affiliate links is pretty low and not being up front about it is even worse.
I think it’s sneaky and I don’t like it and I’ve deleted his sorry ass.
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I've been travelling since January 2008 living off earnings from the web. Follow me as I bum around Asia and beyond, getting up to mischief and working online as I go.
Do you think it’s possible his account was hijacked or he really was just a shill for some dotcom?
I whole heartedly agree. Spamming via Facebook, MySpace, or any social network for that matter is pretty sleazy. Especially Facebook because they do a far better job of blocking spam.
One problem, at least for MySpace is that there are a ton of zombie accounts that are created via phishing schemes. Say you click on a video and for some reason you are asked to sign in again and didn’t notice that you are actually an rnyspace.com (RNyspace) or some alternative… BAM your account is now a zombie spamming all your friends in your name… haven’t heard of this on facebook though. (the solution to this type of zombie account is to change your password frequently and inform your friends when they have been had - and of course to take spam with a grain of salt… which kinda sucks.)
I think a lot of folks forget that an essential element of viral and social marketing is the level of trust that is assumed from being part of a ‘closed’ network.
–
Gustafson
http://www.getmesomeflowers.com - MY florist directory!
First there was myspace and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out the appeal…it’s without question the cesspool of the internet (yes, I have an account but I hate it)…then facebook came along and it is better about filtering spam out but…the drawback is that you have to go through the whole add as a friend thing before you can even browse someone’s profile…I suppose it works ok for the 16 year old girls who don’t wish to escape their mother’s prying eyes…but I have no time for it.
I guess the appeal, in short, is that social sites make it easy for….well, like you said, to keep in touch without keeping in touch. My myspace and facebook profiles just list a link to my blogspot blog so that anyone interested can keep up with what I’m doing the spam free way and any spam sent to me on those sites is pretty much lost cuz I just don’t check ‘em.
Good on ya for deleting his sorry, spamming ass.
There’s a right way and a wrong way to use Facebook/MySpace/Twitter/Etc. to promote your affiliate links.
Right would have been to send out a link to a post on his blog that talks about his life and includes an affiliate link that’s relevant. Plus then he would have gotten traffic to his blog. Much more productive in the long run.
Wrong is whoring your friends for money *grin*- other wise known as pretending that they won’t notice that you sent them a spam link.
Really, folks are smarter than that.
-Suz