Twitter affiliate spam - does this actually work?

[Chris Thompson]

Hey everyone,

Over the last two days I've been using Twitter more to gather followers. My strategy has been to type in a search term related to my niche (parenting) and follow people who fit my customer profile objective. Works pretty well for getting reciprocal follows.

Anyway - I noticed two people over the last two days who basically send out about 20 tweets per day (maybe more) and they are just headlines (well written) and cloaked affiliate links (tinyurl, etc).

It might be something like this:

Ever Want to Earn 6 Figures Working From Home? tinyurl.com/blahblah

My question is this: Does this actually work for anyone? It seems like just throwing sh*t at the wall and hoping some sticks. Hoping to get traffic via twitter searches I guess?

[kayelex]

If they are not sending out targeted stuff, then yes it is the throwing it at the wall approach. They may be getting some conversions, but they may also be burning through twitter accounts if they are not also sending out noncommercial types of tweets. It is more effective if they actually build a persona, send out some legitimate tweets and then sprinkle in some affiliate leads from time to time.

I think twitter is much better for traffic generation to your site or blog and list building. Also really good for establishing yourself as a reputable member of a niche.

[melanied]

If it wasn't profitable, they wouldn't be doing it. Ever since the earliest days of spam, it's worked. It doesn't make it right, it doesn't make it anything that most people in here would want to do - but, yeah, it makes money for those people.

[Michael Motley]

I'm pulling in a lot of traffing doing that from autoblogs. when the autoblog updates, tweets are sent

[tom100]

i have 2 twitter accounts. one is in english language the other not. those 2 accounts are not connected in any way. believe it or not i received request from a guy who claims to be a professor. he has 5000+ followers. i checked his twitter. all tweets are only ads to clickbank products... this is crazy. spammers discovered how to use twitter and if twitter guys dont find a cure thats dangerous...

[taberdude2]

md razimie,

check tweet my blog .com for the plugin

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by melanied

If it wasn't profitable, they wouldn't be doing it.

Respectfully, I don't agree at all, Melanie. I think these people are like (and include some of) the soon-to-fail network marketers who briefly repeat such patterns of behaviour imagining that they'll work, often because they've naively been told so by people as clueless as they are, and soon discover that it doesn't actually work at all. Then they're replaced by another generation of the similar people. With quite a lot of marketing, people come and go doing the same things all over again, and actually it doesn't necessarily indicate that they're working at all: you can only assume that when significant numbers of the same people stick with it long-term.

[Brad Gosse]

Originally Posted by alexa_s

Respectfully, I don't agree at all, Melanie. I think these people are like (and include some of) the soon-to-fail network marketers who briefly repeat such patterns of behaviour imagining that they'll work, often because they've naively been told so by people as clueless as they are, and soon discover that it doesn't actually work at all. Then they're replaced by another generation of the similar people. With quite a lot of marketing, people come and go doing the same things all over again, and actually it doesn't necessarily indicate that they're working at all: you can only assume that when significant numbers of the same people stick with it long-term.

Exactly. Well put

[melanied]

Feel free to disagree, but I guarantee you these disposable Twitter accounts are pulling leads. Just like Myspace, Craigslist, high traffic forums, and all the other myriad places that get hit with spam - it sucks for users, but it pays the spammers.

Think about social networks that DON'T get hit with spam. It's only because there's no good way to automate it or the ROI isn't there. If a web property is consistently innundated with spam, on a level that's larger than what could be engineered by a few misguided newbie spammers who haven't figured out yet that there's no payday...that means there's ROI there for the big boys.

[profitgenie]

I have a twitter account and I am unsure how people keep track of it, i mean how do you communicate and follow so many people at once, I post a tweet every so often but most people seem to give you a one liner and a link to a website. This is really annoying in my book but it must work as i have clicked on a link once or twice if i thought it was worth looking at.

Way to use twitter is to try and build a relationship up with some followers and if you do want to advertise after building that relationship send a direct message, for myself personally I'll always look at the direct messages and what they are offering as they took the time to send it and some random quote on twitter.

PG

[Troy_Phillips]

I have never actually tried to sell anything on twitter but I do give a lot of free stuff away to build a list .

There will be two or three days that I do not even send one link just interact back and forth. Then if the mood strikes I will send out freebie links for a while .

Some will say this is a good way to do things . Some will say I am a spammer .

I could care less.

In three hours of giving away freebies I will add 175 to 300 ppl to my list .

I will lose a few followers now and then but have a lot more coming in than I am losing . I do warn people in my profile that I am an internet marketer so it is a lot of marketers that follow me .

I give away stuff that helps marketers out . This probably explains why I don't lose a lot .

Targeting has a lot to do with it .

If I was giving away autoresponders to film buffs I would not be as successful.

Would be like standing in the side of the road and hoping someone would drive by that even knew what an autoresponder was .

A headline like No selling , no emailing , and no chasing traffic http://response2-0.com/ar/x/t.php/1318 does not get clicked by people that are not in the business .

So my two cents would be . No, direct sales from untargeted affiliate links will not make you a lot of money .

Used the right way it can build a list and the autoresponder can make a lot of sales if the correct trust is built first (but that is another subject )