Are You Unintentionally Spamming or Marking Spam?

By definition (thanks to webopedia) SPAM is electronic junk mail that is unrequested.  We all get junk mail, yet one man’s junk is another man’s treasure, right?  You may immediately toss that catalog in the trash, while your next door neighbor may be inside pouring over it and making her order.  Spam is a relative term depending on how the recipient feels about it, and something is only classified as spam if it is unwanted AND unrequested.

From a website owner’s perspective:
Spam is: posting a comment on a website or fanpage asking them to come visit or like yours back.
Instead: leave an appropriate comment for the article you are commenting on, with your website as- and linked to-your title.  Saying “new fan from the hop” is completely acceptable, we want to know that you’ve stopped by!

Spam is: using another site/fanpage to post a link to your website to share a deal.
Instead: simply state what the deal is.  If you are wanting to run some traffic to your site, the appropriate thing to do is e-mail the deal to the website owner and ask for a link back.  It is, after all, their website/fanpage and what is placed on it is at their discretion.  Trust me, you’ll get much more traffic from the blog owner posting and recommending your site. 

Spam is: using another site/fanpage to post a deal with your referral link in it.
Instead: post a direct link to the deal, or e-mail it to the website owner and let them decide if they want  to post it. Or, better yet, post the link on your own personal FB page or website to your own friends and readers. 


Spam is: any inappropriate comment or illegitimate deal, aka- a scam.
I don’t think any explanation is necessary here.

You may be asking why it should matter who posts a deal or what site it’s on, if the blogger truly wants to help their readers?  12 months ago I had the same thoughts.  Think about your intent when posting to another site or fanpage.  If you are truly wanting to share a good deal, what is the need to send someone else’s readers to your own blog?  If you are truly wanting to share a good deal, is there any need to use your referral link?  If you’re following a page that you want to follow, is it necessary to ask for a visit back?  If your intent with the post or comment is to get more readers, you are spamming another page.  Bloggers work harder than most people realize.  I spend 20+ hours a week on my site and teaching couponing (just one of many behind the scenes aspects of being a blogger), and I’m not even a deal blogger.  Imagine the time it would take to bring you 10, 15, or 20 posts a day with the best deals. I don’t post a lot of online deals, because I don’t think they are a good deal (whether because of time or money) and I don’t want my wall cluttered with them, causing my readers to see something they don’t need that’s not a good deal yet they feel that since it’s on my wall they should go look into it.  I am after all a frugal living blogger and not a deals blogger.

I do realize however, that what I see as junk someone else may think is a fabulous deal.  By e-mailing first before posting a deal, you may just find that I think it’s worth posting. I may even ask to use your referral or affiliate link because I don’t have one for that company.  I’ve posted many deals using another person’s link.  If the deal is for something that I have a referral link for, I’m going to use my own link, since it’s my readership that I’ve worked for nearly a year to build up.  Most of us aren’t salaried bloggers.  We’re moms that are at home with out children trying to find time during the day to post good deals and information that will help you be more efficient in all aspects of your home. There are a few subscription deals sites out there, but most of us want this to be a free service to you.  By using our referral links that’s one way that you can thank us for the time we spend.  If you’re going to buy that item or order that freebie anyway, it’s not costing you anything extra to use our link. (We also really love to hear/read the words “thank you” just as much!)

Your newsfeed on FB will only show you posts from people or pages that you have friended or liked.  This means that 99.9% of what you see on FB is not SPAM because you requested it.  There are a few things that float around FB when people get hacked, but those are pretty easy to distinguish. (My 65 yr old aunt is not going to share a video link about a big baby being born)  You can click on the small X at the upper right of the post.  This will hide it and mark it as SPAM.  If a friend is constantly posting things you don’t want to see, remember that you requested to see their status updates by friending them-either hide all of their posts by clicking the X and selecting “hide all by (friend)”, or unfriend them (but maybe send a message first and let them know why) The same goes for all those fanpages that you’ve liked.  You requested to get those status updates, so they’re not SPAM. If you change your mind and don’t want the updates,  you can hide all the posts from that page so they don’t come across your newsfeed, or you can unlike the page.  By marking a deal in your newsfeed as SPAM because you think it’s junk, you’re preventing that fanpage from posting any links whatsoever.  This means that the deals you do want to see won’t be there, or will be much harder to see, distinguish and access. 

SPAM is junk that is unrequested.  If you fan a page or friend someone on FB, it’s your responsibility to accept their status updates as is, or unlike/unfriend.  Likewise, it’s your responsibility to only post to your own wall or website when you have personal gain in mind, otherwise you’ll soon be labelled as SPAM by someone else.  Please be respectful of website owners and the work they put into sharing with you, as well as be responsible with the pages you like and follow, so that they will still be around next year for you to learn from.