special thanks to @factoryjoe a.k.a. Chris Messina, for pointing this out. The image speaks for itself but I wanted to open this for discussion to see what you think.
People have been using adwords ads to drive traffic to affiliate sites for years, so why not drive traffic to a site where you can build relationships with people? Heck, he’s got the money. Gary is being transparent, he’s not selling anything in the ad and he’s not promissing anything extraordinary so is there anything wrong with what he is doing, either ethically or strategically?
Your thoughts?
I don't think that the is anything ethically wrong with it. It just seems dirty and falls in the same category with buying friends, buying links for SEO, or paying for reviews. The sad thing is that people are following him. He is being transparent. I will give him that. But that's not the way I want to gain friends and followers. It should be done the old fashioned way. One person at a time, through communication and participation. And if he had to pay to get them to follow him, they can't have much trust in him. And he will never have as much influence over them as if he hard earned them the right way. Waste of money.
Erm did you actually follow the link…seen plenty of adwords that say one thing and go elsewhere
I don't think there's anything wrong with it and I don't see why he would necessarily have less influence over him. Yes, he's paying to get 'friends', but he's not paying people to be his friends… I think that's a big distinction to be made here.
From what I can see, it's ads for the keyword 'twitter', which makes it incredibly risky in that it is completely un-targeted traffic, but quite frankly, like mentioned, he has the money. Personally I don't see a positive ROI in this though – Of course, I don't know what his cost per click and his conversion rates is, much less the lifetime value of his twitter followers, so I could be completely wrong here.
It seems weird and I wouldn't do it, but he has always promoted himself as 'a brand' so I don't really see the difference between useing adwords for a person as using adwords for a product or service. He obviously has some goal in mind with what he's trying to achieve in the social media thing and is experimenting to get there…
It doesn't have to be 'dirty' or look like 'buying friends', it's just something we haven't seen yet. But than again, what things haven't we seen 365 days ago and are we seeing right now?
Well, if twitter is a tool for marketing it's the same thing as adding people to a email list. as i'm typing he has 36,937 follower , so he's surely knows what he's doing.
I agree with LJ in that I don't see anything morally or ethically wrong about using Adwords to boost your profile on Twitter. I don't agree that it's necessarily 'buying friends' in the same sense that giveaways or contests are. Remember, whomever clicks on the ad must still deem Gary and his ideas relevant to their social network. Unlike a contest or giveaway, a clicker doesn't gain anything extra by following Gary.
Of course, Gary doesn't need to do this, he's immensely popular for all the right reasons. Like others have said, he's transparent with his efforts, so you can't fault him there. Maybe he's experimenting with this tactic?
I think it's also important to consider the audience these ads are reaching. If it's reaching those unfamiliar to the big SM personalities, then I think this really works. It's these newer folks that should be influenced by someone like Gary from the beginning.
I say good for Gary. I'd love to know how successful he feels this effort is in the end.
without paying for leads, i offered a page in several traffic exchanges that was called “followmeontwitter” and it was simply a redirected link to my profile on twitter. after 18 months of being on twitter i only had 150 followers. NOW i tripled my twitter followers in 30 days for free, have 2 joint ventures, made a sale in my amazon store and have an offer to present Twitter to the local chamber of commerce. Guess its all about getting the word out. Tweet Tweet
Hey guys, not a tactic for me, a project I did to show a frien something, THANK YOU for “calling it out” not that I really think its the worst thing ever either but agree w/ most on all fronts 🙂 stat well guys and thnx for the awesome discussion and I REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY hope you guys know i am smarter then that, I mean go into twitter and spend 10 minutes talking and u will get more return!
shhh don't tell anyone allison, i didn't follow the link actually
hey gary, not meant to really “call it out” but just show as an example. didn't do anything wrong and you're right it's not the worst thing ever, far from it. just goes to show that there are multiple creative ways out there to build relationships with people. what kw's did you target by the way?
thanks for the comment man
hi eric,
great example of using twitter. the relationships you can build in there are worth quite a bit and as you mentioned it's about getting the word out.
hey lj, you do make a good point. a lot of people look at the number of twitter followers you have as an authority/influence rank, however if you are buying your twitter followers you lose credibility.
not that your statements don't make sense on a macro level, but:
have you met Gary or seen him online? He's definitely not lacking in communication, participation, or trust!
I wasn't really meaning to “call you out” either. One thing I think that is great about social media, is that if you are trustworthy and people follow and like you, they will vouch for you, as many of your supporters have done here and else where. And you have obviously built trust through hard work and personal relationships. This tactic just seems to fall outside that. I would wonder the difference in influence between people who follow you on twitter because of the one to one interaction and people who followed you because they saw the Adwords ad. I would love to hear more details about the project that started this discussion and the results of what you were trying to show your friend.
i think, as long as he have money to spend for – why not ?
there's many ways to make friends network, he just did what he thought easy, find friend with money.
i will not do that, i can't pay someone to build a network – no money for doing so.
this is what i want to do to build my twitter folowers – make a comment.
can you please follow me on twitter , i will auto follow you.
https://twitter.com/Blood_Pressure
it helped me alot.