"I’m a frequent reader of your blog and wanted to let you know that I just posted an article on my site that I thought you might find interesting, “NAME OF POST WITHHELD” (I withheld the post name to NOT promote her post). If you think your readers might like it, too, would you consider sharing or mentioning it on your blog? I’d appreciate it if you have time to check it out".
In the end, I could not share it, as it was an article that had bad advice, and was solely written (in my opinion) to be controversial to drive traffic to a site that was mostly a sales / spam site. I was lulled in by the "I am a frequent reader of your blog" statement, but in the end I felt that was not sincere.
I do not believe this person ever read my blog. I think I was found through a topic Google search by someone looking to drive traffic to their site. Every word in her post was against what I teach. She either did not know what I stand for, or she was baiting me to help get links to a blog that looked suspicious. I almost took the bait, and wrote a whole post here on "The Some Assembly Required Blog" going through each point... but in the end it just made me sad to realize that it was a set up.
Too often spammers pop in and leave comment that say things like "Great blog post. I read it all the time. You are a good writer. Here is a link to my post on getting forty advanced degrees from Nigerian Bank College" (you get the idea, just totally unrelated crap). I delete those types of comments, and wonder if these tactics really work for people.
Frauds undermine the power of social media and the communities that grow up around blogs and other online tools. Trying to pretend they are a regular reader for their own gain makes them nothing more than "icky fakers", and phony always hurts the greater good no matter what the setting.
It has to be real. If Erin had left comments on my blog for the last year, and had a personally branded blog, not a spammy looking site that is unrelated to the topics written about, I might have had a different feeling. If she had regularly promoted my blog, or referred me to speak at her company's annual meeting, I would gladly helped send traffic to her site. I would had known she was real. My take is that this was an attempt to beat the system. Social Media frauds do not get how it works. You have to be real.
In the end I make lots of mistakes, but I am always Thom Singer. Not perfect. Just Thom. But when I tell someone I read their blog, I really read it. When I ask them for their comments to promote a post, I am willing to do the same thing for them. Frauds do not understand how social media works, and they never will.
Have A Great Day.
thom singer
Good stuff Thom. Seems a lot of people are trying to take shortcuts to build an audience/traffic. I wrote a post a while back about all the comment bots out there that are becoming annoying.
ReplyDeleteFYI, I actually do read your blog.
Thom, you are right, this is just spam, cheap link fishing tactics.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I would say they DO understand social. They are paying lip service to the things that drive you, loyal readers that engage, and then hoping that you, like them, actually have a thin veneer. Because let's face it, many do.
Many blogs are filled with pretty useless drivel, and when they are just spamming, it isn't worth their effort to differentiate between your blog and a low quality one that may agree to a low quality link exchange.
Disclaimer: I don't read your blog, this is the first post of yours I have seen. I would tell you that I will be back, but that's another common spammer tactic. So just watch the comment section.