SPAM-A-LOT: It’s going to get worse…

Posted by Kevin Spidel on Aug 6th, 2009 | Comments

… before it gets better. We are talking about social spam on Twitter.  Other social networks suffer from this problem as well, however recent changes to Twitter this last month has made the issue worse. We feel the worst is yet to come.

This last month, Twitter launched its new front page / logon screen. This gave us insight into their revenue model, which includes trending data and analytics. Many companies  understand that their brands need to be in this space, but they don’t understand how to use social networks.

The proven models are about volume and numbers, not about engagement or advocacy on the social web. Therefore are many semantic bots that have been created and are now spaming the Twitterverse with hashtags and links. Volume, not authenticity, is the focus.

Businesses understand Pay-Per-Clicks and numbers more than they understand brand equity, authentic fellowship and brand advocates on the social web. We at Activating Word of Mouth use a metric that measures a brand’s Social Web Impact. This measures how influential your following is and how authentic.

The reality is, that brands still focus on volume and not engagement. Thus, new strategies like pay-per-tweet and celebrity endorsements are moving forward. This type of marketing will inevitably trend high on the twitter feeds and consequently land on the front page.

Is this good?

Many would say of course. Eyeballs and numbers prove it.

We feel that this is going to cause social media spam to get more out of hand before the community in mass responds or abandons this space. Currently, new Twitter users are being automatically followed by porn bots, semantic marketing accounts, etc.  Tools such as authentic verifiers are starting to creep up and block the very thing that makes Twitter a great social space… engagement without the walls.

Social spam is going to get worse before it get’s better. It is up to the community, and brands who respect engagement, to focus on authentic word of mouth conversations. At the end of the day, we are the ones that will counteract the culture of social spam.

If you find a social spammer online, please report the account to www.twitter.com/spam. The folks at Twitter are staffing up their spam response represents in an effort to stay on top of these bots and artificial trending tactics. It is up to us to report it.

Keep this space authentic. Report the spam.