Why can’t the cash just appear in my account and automatically replenish itself? Oh yeah, that’s why we work.
Back in March, I asked you all how essential twitter was to your blog… and mentioned I had been doing some experimenting with affiliate links in twitter. At the time, I didn’t really think much about whether it was ethical to use affiliate links, because I only tweeted things that I really loved. In the end, the experiment got sidetracked as the IFB relaunch came closer, I was lucky to tweet that I was still breathing, on occasion.
I didn’t think about the ethics until I read some recent articles about an affiliate backlash in twitter, some have figured out how to script automatic affiliate tweets, others reprimanded for recommending products they personally own with affiliate links (that’s rather extreme…but it happened).
Because of the conversational nature of twitter, the people who really love twitter want to keep the conversation authentic, leaving the business out. Using twitter as a marketing tool only devalues the network making the users wary of spam and distrustful of the network in general. I know I’ve been inundated with spammy tweeps so much so, it makes me dread going through my new twitter followers, because it takes so much time figuring out whether to follow or not. And the abundance of spammy tweets makes it more difficult to find the tweets from the people I want to hear from. So indeed, there is a point where money and marketing devalues a network.
However, twitter gained the popularity, mostly because it’s usefulness as a marketing tool. For some, it may be a personal thing, not for everyone. I’m sure Oprah isn’t tweeting for personal reason, I’m not even sure it’s really her. Personally, only a small percentage of my followers are personal friends, as much as I love you all, the truth is, we know each other through the blog. Though I do make a great personal investment, my twitter presence isn’t necessarily personal, it’s more professional… though some of you may wonder about my professionalism after seeing tweet about the doggie washing machine.
Full article here: Hot or Not? Affiliate Links in Twitter | Independent Fashion Bloggers
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