Affiliate Marketing Tips… Web 2.0 and the Naked Truth about Transparency

Welcome to the new world of Web 2.0 Affiliate Marketing where Web 2.0 technology is making it more powerful than ever.  Online reviews are fast becoming among the most credible ways to promote a product. Web 2.0 is gaining tremendous ground when it comes to the credibility of products? What can affiliate marketers do to harness the power of Web 2.0?

Affiliate Marketing… Web 2.0 and the Naked Truth about Transparency

Important Point: Web 2.0 + Slight of Hand Affiliate Marketing = Problems.

In a Web 2.0 world personal information is pervasive, and with the instant communication that is available a bad name travels much faster than a good one.  Transparency is key to success in Web 2.0, and with affiliate marketing it is no different.  If you use these or other affiliate strategies with combined trickery or manipulation, people won’t take to it very kindly, and it has the potential to damage your reputation online.  That said, if done correctly, Affiliate marketing is more powerful in a Web 2.0 world.

Affiliate Marketing Tip 1: Get on Myspace.com

The creators of Myspace never envisioned it taking off the way it has. Today, while now overshadowed by the more elegant Facebook, there over 100 million users promoting every product under the sun. When you create a Myspace account, you put up your profile and use your affiliate links within it discuss the product as you would with a good friend. When someone clicks the link, it’s up to the merchant to finish the sale.

Affiliate Marketing Tip 2: Get on Facebook.com

Facebook is another powerful social networking site for affiliate marketers. When you sign up for a Facebook account, you’ll be able to create a stronger web presence for yourself and/or your company. This begins the process of social proof. This means that people will begin to look to you as an authority on your topic. By using Facebook, you’ll be able to write about and recommend your various affiliate marketing products.

Affiliate Marketing Tip 3: Twitter.com

Twitter is one of the best (and most often misunderstood) social networking applications. Essentially, you sign up and then “follow” people, and as they provide status updates, you learn what they’re doing. Twitter operates by text messaging. You type in not more than 140 characters and your followers see your update. As an affiliate marketer, you could type something like, “just bought the Canon X40 Z from canonxyz.com” and this could be your affiliate link with a re-direct.  However, some find that too brash. Instead you could say “just bought the Canon X40 Z from canonxyz.com, here’s my experience thus far — anyone else considering it, have a look.” and include a link to your written review with video, etc.

Affiliate Marketing Tip 4: Blogger.com

Blogging is one of, if not the, most important action you can take as an affiliate marketer. With a blog you can write about what’s going on in your life, your industry, your products, the world, etc. and you simply add your affiliate program links within the context of your blog. Blogger.com is Google’s service for those wishing to setup a blog quickly and get started.

Over the long haul, this has the potential for to generate a lot of traffic, and is far better than trying to run a Pay Per Click campaign that has thousands of competitors. Pay Per Click can get instant traffic, but why pay for traffic when you can get it from the search engines for much less?! Remember, the search engines are content hungry, and blogging is one of the best ways you can add relevant, and unique content to your site, while building a following as an affiliate marketer.

Enter the Conversation: Of course, this is not a comprehensive list of techniques, rather an overview of how they might be used. How are you leveraging Web 2.0 websites and technologies to engage your affiliate marketing?  As always, leave your comments here on the blog.

*Image credits to Luis Villa

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