[audio:http://geekcast.fm/podpress_trac/web/687/0/affiliatething-021709.mp3]
This week on the Affiliate Thing podcast, Shawn Collins and Lisa Picarille talk about Snuggies, posting affiliate links on Twitter, new Facebook TOS, the Elite Retreat, and Peter Shankman on the O’Reilly Factor.
Also, the breakup of LinkShare and Overstock, the LinkShare bookmarklet, ShareASale’s proposed toolbar policy, Twitter Power by Joel Comm, and the passing of Andy Bourland.
Show Links
- Fatblogging in a Snuggie
- Damn Marketers. Affiliate Links in Twitter
- On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information
- Please Don’t Follow @shawncollins on Twitter
- Elite Retreat
- Ten Golden Rules Internet Marketing Podcast – Episode 34
- Affiliate Summit Keynote Peter Shankman on O’Reilly Factor
- Overstock and LinkShare Part Ways: Insights into the Split
- LinkShare Deep Linking Bookmarklet
- Proposed Toolbar Policy from ShareASale
- Twitter Power
- ClickZ Cofounder Andrew Bourland Dies
- Andrew Rhodes Bourland (1955 – 2009)
Subscribe to the Affiliate Thing RSS feed or listen on iTunes. You can also send a blank e-mail to affiliatething@aweber.com to get each podcast delivered by e-mail.
{ 7 comments }
Your Message@karl:
It’s not a matter of trying to get inbound links – more abut whether it’s appropriate to post affiliate links in Twitter.
Your MessageI must be missing something. Isn’t this all a moot point now that Twitter is using the :”=nofollow” tags on links now ??
Your Message@brettbum:
If people abuse it, their followers will unfollow.
If I ask a question about a digital camera or whatever to buy, I have no problem with somebody responding to me with a helpful answer and affiliate link.
That is assuming it is somebody I am following, and thereby have some level of respect and trust.
If I get an answer from somebody that is trolling for people asking questions, and I have no relationship with that person, I’ll probably dismiss their advice.
—
As far as the comment box, I don’t see a setting to change it. Is this something you haven’t seen elsewhere?
Your Message @Sachin Agarwal:
I think people don’t like being sold – nothing to do with affiliate links, but the way they are presented.
If somebody if responding to a question and providing a useful answer, I don’t see a problem with including an affiliate link.
Your Message@brettbum:
fyi I like the latest upgraded look of the site, but found it very difficult to edit my own comment due to the small text box.
There seem to be several schools of thought on this topic that are all evolving/devolving out of various different internet microcosms.
There’s the school of thought that ‘important’ people on twitter should not do this because people that follow them en mass will no long be able to trust the twitterings they make.
There’s the school of thought that says it is perfectly OK to promote people and websites all day long (for free) but not OK to drop an affiliate link or some other form of direct advertising. This one seems ludicrous to me due to the hypocrisy.
There is the disclosure camp that says that an important person (not possible to define) should disclose that they are or might make a buck from dropping the link. How you do that within 140 characters is unknown.
There’s the people also that want to protect the purity of the essence of twitter as well. This would almost be a valid argument but again assumes that twitter was pure in the first place.
Then finally there is the people that are looking to earn money because they have recently learned that there is a depression going on in the world. For them, its far more important to put food on the table than worry over the ethics of link dropping on twitter or the P.O.E. of twitter or whether or not 3 people will unfollow them because someone happened to see a link get dropped in the stream.
My own thoughts are that if the advertising is effective people will use it, and everything else will have to work itself out from there.
At AffSum Social Media, I suggested that someone start sharing affiliate links via Twitter because the use of URL shortening services masked them. I got smacked down – hard – because I suggested that people don’t like clicking affiliate links. The counter-argument was that publishers were providing value (although you see disclaimers on sites like MetaFilter, Daring Fireball, etc). So what’s changed? Why is this even an issue if I was wrong?
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