In February, we made a post on why 2013 is the year to get into affiliate marketing. However, any individual looking to get into affiliate marketing business should first know the importance of social media. Without going social, it’s quite difficult to actually gain success in this field.
Here are few reasons why social media is important for affiliate marketing;
1. Search engines are unreliable for traffic
Search engines don’t provide a reliable source of traffic for affiliate marketers. It takes a single algorithm hit and boom! All the hard earned work to build organic traffic is gone overnight. Search engines aren’t too kind to affiliate links as well, and the algorithms can mark the web pages with affiliate links as of low quality.
The website may even be de-indexed for placing affiliate links in web pages, similar to what John Chow suffered. He did come back in Google Search after giving out a considering request to Matt Cutts (Google Search engineer), but it’s not easy for those who live outside U.S or who are not as popular as the Chinese money making machine (Chances are most reading this post aren’t). Social media, therefore, provides a reliable and alternative way to build traffic without worrying about algorithms.
2. Reputation points
Social media presence is important as it’s going to give reputation points to an affiliate marketer. The earning of reputation points is an ongoing process until the marketer reaches a respectable level where he/she has achieved something.
Consider yourself; would you follow someone selling gadgets with 100,000 followers or someone with 10 followers? The marketer with 100,000 followers is more trusted, offers more, and has a lot of hard-earned reputation points over the years; so you’re likely to see what he/she has to offer compared to the other with 10 followers.
3. It’s where the action is
Are there any discounts on that product? How much does that phone cost? Oh No, don’t buy that, this is better; most of the discussions regarding products and services of a particular brand or company now takes place over social media, as it’s easy for people to communicate and connect with each other to take part in discussions and give their thoughts and opinions. Affiliate marketers, therefore, need to come up with consumer-driven market campaigns.
The focus should be on all social media channels and marketers need to think beyond Facebook and Twitter in order to be successful. There are many other social media sites that are growing at an astonishing rate such as Pinterest and Google+. It shouldn’t be a problem for most marketers to stay updated on social media as they can even do so on the go with smartphone and tablet apps wherever there is a good internet network nearby such as www.clearwirelessinternet.net.
4. Big boys see social presence
When applying to become an affiliate marketer for a top-notch company, they’re going to see the social media presence of a marketer before granting him/her the rights to sell the products and services of the company.
Strong social presence should be the ultimate aim for any affiliate marketer. They should connect with their fans/followers, leave comments, ask questions and do whatever they can to create excitement, communication and buzz.
In 2013 and the upcoming years, affiliate marketers need to go social if they need to be successful and make a name for themselves.