Affiliate Marketing, Pay-Per-Post Blogging, and the End of Social Networking?

Mitch Joel over at Six Pixels of Separation posted a great blog the other day discussing paid links and pay-per-post blogging in Twitter. In a nutshell, it's when companies pay avid bloggers or established social networking figures to post/blog/link to their product/site/whatever. Since social media sites thrive on accurate & credible word-of-mouth ("Oh, Joe thinks these sunglasses are cool and he's a pretty cool guy. Maybe I can get these sunglasses and be similarly awesome!"), these campaigns are much more effective without full and accurate disclosure on the part of the poster and/or advertiser.

In his post, Mitch pretty accurately sums up my feelings on the matter:



YES. I'm already weeping tears of joy that someone is with me on this, and then:



Awesome stuff, Mitch (the following is my comment on his blog).

One of the things I always attempt to pass on to clients is the genuine understanding and appreciation for XX Social Networking site (wherever they're trying to be). A lot of companies will assign the task to SOMEONE in-house in hopes that simply generating a presence on Facebook, Twitter, whatever, will help their company; of course, it DOESN'T, and sometimes ends up hurting the brand because of actions similar to the ones discussed in your post. There's NO overall strategy, NO matching of marketing objectives to the proper social media site (if there ARE any marketing objectives for the campaign), and ultimately, no understanding that for a social media effort to work, that company has to honestly contribute to and become part of the community.

As marketers, I really think we've got to be conscious of the personal effort people have put into constructing their social media personae and networks. To those folks, this ISN'T seeing a banner ad on CNN.com - affiliate linking (which, let's face it, is more credible/profitable if people think it's genuine and not a marketing campaign) and pay-per-post blogging is seen as an uninvited intrusion into the user's social network and personal life. I've heard dozens of stories of businesses diving headfirst into Facebook or blog networks and just RUINING their name by attempting some silly, heavy-handed traditional "push" campaign, or a poorly thought-out affiliate marketing design.

I don't think social networking will completely be destroyed by things like this, but it certainly will cause more user movement between different websites. Sites will build up buzz and momentum but ultimately, will be deserted as affiliate marketers, link farmers, what-have-you, follow the masses.

Great post Mitch, cheers.