Jeremiah Owyang Dictates Rules for Affiliates on Twitter

by Shawn Collins on May 11, 2009

This week on the Affiliate Thing podcast, Shawn Collins and Lisa Picarille discuss the role of Twitter in affiliate networks, former Affiliate Summit keynote Cory Booker getting real in social media, and a lecture on affiliate marketing at NYU.

Also, they talked about books for Internet marketers, Jeremiah Owyang’s affiliate rules and giant suggested hashtag, and an update on the advertising tax.

Jeremiah Owyang Discovers Linkbait Gold

Lastly, an interesting affiliate stat from Zappos, growth for interactive marketing, and the definition of geek.

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  • http://web-strategist.com/blog Jeremiah Owyang

    Oh come on, my tweet never said "breaking news" get your facts right ;)

    What may be breaking news to affiliate professionals (like you fine folks) isn't close to mainstream adoption, so the timing is right.

    Thanks for the mention, here's the post
    http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2009/05/09/its…

    Lisa, Scott, name calling aside, let's setup a call and discuss it, I'm happy to "see the light".

    Jeremiah Owyang

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/affiliatetip Shawn Collins

      Sorry, that was added by me for dramatic effect.

      3-way chat tomorrow? Not sure about Lisa, but I'm open except for mid-day ET.

  • http://web-strategist.com/blog Jeremiah Owyang

    Ok, no worries Shawn, you're a gentleman, thanks.

    I'm on travel to Europe, headed to airport today actually. Send me an email, jowyang@forrester .com and I'll propose some times. Maybe Wed or Friday, I'll skype in.

    Thanks for helping me learn more about your space, and how it connects with the social space –lots of interesting intersections.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/ChipGherghescu ChipGherghescu

    what do you guys think, is it ok to tweet with affiliate links if you disclosed it? here's my example: http://twitter.com/affiliateMKT

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/affiliatetip Shawn Collins

      I think you're wasting valuable space in your bio with that "disclosure".

      Personally, I am not a proponent of a hashtag or other method to indicate an affiliate link.

      Rather, I think affiliate links are fine if they serve a purpose, such as answering the question from somebody you follow about a product or service.

      But simply broadcasting one after the other doesn't add anything to the food chain IMHO,

      I don't get why anybody would follow those Tweets.

      • http://intensedebate.com/people/samharrelson Sam Harrelson

        The Great Molander was right… affiliate marketing doesn't "scale." :)

      • http://intensedebate.com/people/Missyward Missyward

        I'm on the same page as Shawn. Twitter isn’t about conveying complex theory. It’s simply a conversation enabler. There’s nothing wrong with including an affiliate link to a product or service in a tweet about something that you’re already talking about. But spewing random affiliate links is simply just another unneeded interruption that doesn’t provide any value and will likely cause a barrage of unfollows.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/BillMasson BillMasson

    What's the big deal about using affiliate links, if you use them to often then you won't have a lot of followers. I don't see any problem as long as you don't over do it.

    Twitter has various limits after 2000 followers so perhaps they will start coming down on the spammers more often. it's all about choice.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/TriciaMeyer TriciaMeyer

    I don't tend to include the affiliate links in my tweets because it works better to send the people to my landing pages (in most cases), but I don't see any problem with the links being included. Affiliate marketing is so integrated into websites, blogs, Facebook, etc. that it only makes sense to integrate it into Twitter as well. And I agree with Missy–if you are doing nothing but throwing affiliate links out there without any value, no one is going to follow you anymore.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/samharrelson Sam Harrelson

    All links are affiliate links. Some end up generating immediate monetary compensation for the referrer and some end up generating long term compensation via attention, gained reputation or other trust.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/affiliatetip Shawn Collins

      I agree 100% – the currency may vary, but everybody is selling something.

  • http://web-strategist.com/blog Jeremiah Owyang

    Shawn, I agree, everyone is selling something at some point.

  • http://web-strategist.com/blog Jeremiah Owyang

    Shawn thanks for taking the time to chat with me this afternoon. Learned a bit more how social and affiliate marketing lines are coming together, exciting opportunity.

    I'm going to explore more at your request how we at Forrester can start to watch how this space evolves. Often, our demand for coverage is based upon what brands tell us they're using. A great deal of o them are focusing on social now, so it's likely affiliate marketing will see a lift as these streams cross.

    Thanks for keeping me educated.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/affiliatetip Shawn Collins

      Thanks for lending your ear, Jeremiah.

      As far as the prevalence of affiliate programs with retailers, see http://blog.affiliatetip.com/archives/majority-of… – I tallied the retailers in the Internet Retailer Hot 100 Retail Web Sites this year and 75% had affiliate programs.

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