Affiliate Marketing on Facebook and Twitter

Two of the ripest social media sites for affiliate marketing are Facebook and Twitter.  They’re among the top ranking social websites on Alexa, and they’re both catch words in every home.  In fact, phone companies have “there’s an app for that” as a slogan, which includes stuff you can use on Facebook and Twitter.

Posting Affiliate Links on Twitter and Facebook

One of the greatest things about Twitter and Facebook is that you can post your affiliate links directly in your posts. The trick of it is that you have to remove the HTML part.  Many people think that you have to have a Twitter or Facebook tool to post your affiliate link, but it’s not necessary or even desirable.

You want your links to look like anyone else linking to a website.  The only way this works is to do it “as if” you’re merely linking to a cool site you’ve found.  Just look at the script in your affiliate link, select the URL part, paste it, and there you go.

This is, of course, assuming that you’re not affiliating with a vendor that is already aware of the fact that Facebook and Twitter don’t use HTML in their messages.  Some vendors have disposed of using HTML in their affiliate links to make life easier for their affiliates.

Listbuilding on Facebook and Twitter

Listbuilding has been made easier than ever on these two sites.  All you have to do is build a large friends’ list.  The quickest way to do this is to find out who the top users are, friend them and their entire friend lists.

The great thing about listbuilding this way is that the people on your list are less aware that they’re on a marketer’s list.  I guess the main reason they don’t think that way is that they’re not receiving promotional e-mails from you.  As far as they’re concerned, you’re just a guy that likes these different products.

Keeping Your List on Facebook and Twitter

With that in mind, you do have to be careful about keeping your list on these websites.  They can leave your list more easily than they can an e-mail list.  If you’re seemingly providing clutter on their feeds, they can ignore you or unfriend you altogether without giving you a chance to motivate them to stay.

Consequently, you don’t want to post anything but affiliate links.  If you keep them mixed in with informative posts – a joke you heard that day, a YouTube video, stuff other than your affiliate link – they’re not going to think that you’re just a marketer.  Most people don’t think marketers are “real people,” and being a real person is the key to keep your list robust.

With these ideas in mind, affiliate marketing on Facebook and Twitter isn’t just another day at the office.  It becomes more of an amusement and a game.  It also keeps you in touch with the wants and desires of your potential customer base.  Pay attention to their posts that are complaining about problems and wishing for something more convenient.  Who knows?  You may just have a product for that.