Tweeting affiliate links is wrong

21st November 2009 14:00

So I used to follow a person on Twitter who posted a link with an affiliate code in it. I felt annoyed, so unfollowed them and then twittered...

"Hawking affiliate links on your Twitter just makes you look silly"

digijoe (Joe Stepniewski, co-founder of affiliate tool company Skimlinks) then replied...

"what if it's something you truly like and want to share? Is it discourteous to add an affiliate link?"

This is a fair question, but even in this scenario I think my point still stands. I tried and failed to reply to Joe within 140 characters, so decided to write this instead.

A follow on Twitter is one of the more personal connections I think I can make online. Like everyone else I've got hundreds of Facebook friends, most of which I have almost zero interest in. Also like everyone else I've got more email than I can deal with, so I don't read all of it. Facebook and email 'friends' are generally of a very, very low value.

Twitter is different - I read almost every tweet I receive, so rather than skip tweets I'll cull my friend list. As such, I'd regard Twitter as being one of the best ways of getting my attention. The information in tweets I read is relevant, timely, and more often than not interesting and fun.

As a consequence of following people, and the tweets I've sent and received I've gone to see bands I'd never heard of before, found people jobs, found employees, setup business relationships and kept in contact with influential people, like Joe himself! The direct and indirect monetary value of all this is exponentially greater than the matter of a few pence or even pounds someone may make from an affiliate link.

This is why I regard any of my followees abusing the relationship and twittering an affiliate link (more often than not hidden in a shortened URL) as an abuse of the power they have been given, and a sign they don't 'get' what an opportunity Twitter represents, don't know how to exploit it, or don't value their followers.

Jason Cartwright RSS Feed

About

Jason is a founder of Potato, a web application development agency in London.

I also co-own Ferrago Ltd, who publish videogames content to around 7m consumers monthly.

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