Spam is a Perception- Mine

November 24, 2009 · Comments

spam I just unsubscribed to another six email marketing newsletters that I never subscribed to in the first place. Because I comment on a lot of marketing blogs, I seem to get signed up to a lot of their newsletters, without my consent and without my opting in. I’m not sure (I’d have to ask my personal email marketing pros, D.J. Waldow or Christopher S. Penn), but I’d imagine that’s illegal. And if it’s not, it just plain sucks.

I don’t get a break from spam on social sites. No, not at all. I got about 20 Direct Messages in Twitter this morning from some automation software site (I’m not giving them a link or any kind of love). I immediately set to unfollowing all the users who had used the service to stuff my direct message box full of useless messages. This, to me, is spam.

In Facebook, if I choose not to join your group or fan page, please stop sending it to me over and over again. It’s not that I didn’t see it. I wasn’t interested in joining. More than twice, to me, is spam.

Spam is a Perception- Mine

If you push unwanted messages into my face over and over again, you’re the enemy. And I don’t mean ME specifically, I mean people. I’m showing you the receiving end of what some of us call marketing.

Here’s how I delineate. (Feel free to send this to marketers everywhere)

You May Be Spamming Me If:

  • You’ve signed me up to your email newsletter when I didn’t sign myself up.
  • You’ve violated my Twitter inbox with your automated message.
  • You’ve invited me repeatedly to participate on your Facebook Fan Page or Group.
  • Your software automates repeat messages to my inbox with no options to throttle that.
  • You flood me with @replies on Twitter to your product/service.

I bet there are more we could add to this list, if we felt so inclined.

Want to share your spam stories?

Photo credit jbcurio

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  • There's a distinction between legal and illegal that CAN-SPAM created. Basically, if you didn't read the site's privacy policy before submitting a form (even a blog comment), ANYTHING could be in that site's policy. As long as a checked box exists that says you opt into the privacy policy on submit, you're giving consent, however unwilling. The privacy policy, for all you know, may say we're going to spam the living daylights out of you because you clicked yes.

    Here are the strict rules of CAN-SPAM:

    1. Don’t use false or misleading header information.
    2. Don’t use deceptive subject lines.
    3. Identify the message as an ad.
    4. Tell recipients where you’re located.
    5. Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you.
    6. Honor opt-out requests promptly.
    7. Monitor what others are doing on your behalf.

    (FTC.gov)

    I can legally add Chris Brogan to nearly any list as long as I comply with the letter of the law. You can thank Congress for naming an act truthfully for once: compliance with CAN-SPAM means you can spam indeed.
  • My personal spam favorite, becoming friends with someone on Facebook and the first thing they do is say hi on your wall and then put up a link to their website. Dude, you just graffitied my wall! Then, when I call them on it they unfriend me.
  • That is my second worst pet peeve on Facebook. My first was the people on chat where the conversation is hi, are u there, and a link to their brand new shiny never driven before business opportunity that will make us both as rich as King Solomon. I finally just turned Facebook chat off completely and use Skype.
  • Wow, you've got me beat. Never had anyone use chat to spam me. Unbelievable that someone would think that would be an effective way to market their whatever. Cheers!
  • I can sooo relate to this. Some people seem to think that if they speak to you at an event or communicate with you online you are fair game to be on their list.

    I have never understood why people thought there was any value in having people who aren't interested on an email list.
  • tracibrowne
    I wish people would understand that just because I give you my business card when we meet at an event does not give you permission to put me on your newsletter list. Because this is so widely practiced I just don't hand out my business card to anyone unless we've had an intriguing conversation and I even say now when handing it over...this means you can e-mail me...not put me on your mailing list.
  • I too am totally annoyed by automatic DMs on Twitter. But recently I've decided to look at the positives of auto DMs. Auto DMs make it easier to figure out who to unfollow, they also make it easier to figure out who to report as spam, and it makes it easier to figure out who actually cares about their followers and who is just trying to increase their follower count.
  • prosperitygal
    Oh great redirect, thanks for the perspective change.
  • Amanda Changuris
    I am so tired of the @reply spam on Twitter where the avatar is obscene! I know I'm not getting nearly as much of it as some other (more popular) people, but I really don't like looking up to find male genitalia in my stream.
  • briandonnelly
    I couldn't agree more with this.

    I get hit with so many "pornotweets" lately that I've been thinking of putting more privacy filters on my account...but then again I like keeping my content public. Really hate that the creeps are starting to make it onto the Twittersphere.
  • I keep getting that same one. I use seismic at work and just seeing it there in the reply column is very offensive to me. I can't even delete it. All I end up doing is blocking the person and marking it as spam for those at twitter.
  • sue_anne
    I got hit with two obscene spams in a row last night - using the same photo. I know that Twitter doesn't have the resources to monitor userpics, but something needs to be done.
  • Me either, especially at the moment my wife walks into my office with coffee. She used to go off on her redheaded rampages, but she is starting to understand that I cannot control what some people choose to use as an avatar.
  • I think the Twitter spam is sending me over the edge for spam in general.

    As for email newsletters, I subscribe to only a few (yours and Jason Calacanis' are two of them. Years ago, I nuked all of my newsletter subs and relied on RSS except for the few exceptions I built back into my list. I haven't had the experience lately of getting newsletters I don't recall signing up for.

    The complicated part of the Twitter spam is some of them are from legitimate followers who got phished- I try to distinguish between phishing victims and spammers in unfollowing, but not sure I succeed 100%.
  • Lately, I have been getting Spam Comments which are just quoting back portions of my own text back at me.

    I am my own worst Spam Enemy!
  • erikdeckers
    I've been getting that on my WordPress blog, because it records Pingbacks. I can't tell if those sites are spam sites, or they're trying to create links. I delete most of them as spam. There's one called uberVU, which seems to be a sort of link tracking service, like Radian6 or ScoutLabs. I kind of like that one though.
  • I'm getting UberVu and Topsy, but those aren't it.

    This offenders include conversion-hub DOT com, and a guy pimping the domain of his email address AT marlboroDASHezDASHcigarettes DOT com
  • mikewilkerson
    What a great post. For those trying to imagine my annual horror, try having a business with the word STALK in it ;) (2GuysTalking Podcast Network). It's a never-ending adventure from needing to hear the "you realize that your business name looks like 2 Guy Stalking, don't you?", to contacting every mail server under the sun to green-light contacts for customers.

    It's a great, memorable introduction, but becomes a burden sometimes. Even Gmail, after telling it several hundred times, continues to toss it into the barrel.

    Oy.
  • Today I posted a tweet about my pregnant wife sleeping in the room next to my work from home office, and within 2 minutes I got a tweet from a spam account inviting me to check out some of Britney's better XXX work. Coincidence? If not, it is sophisticated spam, as my tweet was in Dutch, spam came from an English site.

    Sad, sad world...
  • I think I got spammed just for following you on twitter chris ;-) lol ya its such a nasty problem people think if they spam a million people they're bound to get 3-4 people to buy into their product they have no social regard care ugh whatever they're people of a nasty creed!
  • Ed
    Amen!

    2) People - before you use ANY random 3rd party app with your Twitter account,
    stop - think - don't. You're slitting your own throat.
    [I don't mean the legitimate apps such as Tweetdeck, Seesmic, Tweetstats, etc ]

    3) NEVER mark email "spam" when you just want to unsubscribe from
    a list YOU signed up for.
    Why? It matters. People constantly do this out of laziness, or
    forget that they subscribed.
    It blurs the line all email companies, and ISP's (internet service providers)
    use to delineate the real spam from legitimate mailings, and
    we ALL suffer.

    By all means, if you get email you know you didn't ever request,
    mark it spam.

    Chris is trying to be 'everyman' by following back any human who
    gives him the time to follow and read him.
    But is it sustainable?
    Only if it's humans and not shitty 3rd party apps.

    Check first - does that app you're considering send auto-dm's?
    If so and you choose to use it, you not only deserve to be unfollowed,
    you deserve to be blocked.

    PS- Follow @Spam and hit the Block/Report Spam' button. They couldn't have made it easier. @Delbius is a terrific Head of Trust & Safety and Twitter has given her the budget to go from 1 part time, to 7 full time spam/abuse agents, (and growing).
    But- if we all chip in, it's much more effective.
    I hold the all time record for nuking scum.
    That's been a huge time investment for the good of ALL.
    Help? :)
  • Amanda, right with you about finding male genitalia in my stream. It is just wrong!

    Chris, thanks for the post, if only we could control spam...
  • janegoodwin
    I agree with you, but would like to add this: sometimes spam happens and we don't even know it. An innocent click on a message that "came from an actual friend," and suddenly someone is a pariah! I say, give people one chance; anyone can screw up once. Lesson learned, etc. I would not dump someone who just made an innocent mistake, but that's WAY different from a pimp who isn't remotely interested in conversation. Lesson not learned, however. . . . dump.
  • I always check the past tweets of someone to see if the spam actually came from them or from someone who has hacked into their account. Often, it is a hacked spam, so I do not unfollow them, but let them know what is happening.

    Chris, you are so right about the Facebook annoyances. I keep getting an invitiation from the same person to join his group and I do not want to. I am also getting a lot of porn bots hitting me in the Mentions area of Twitter, but that comes with the territory.
  • Randy
    Spam was, Spam is, and Spam will be - as long as the Internet is an open, borderless frontier where the rules are invented and reinvented by its users. Closed systems such as AOL or Facebook can demand rules that define the social contract in place that users agree to follow - and can boot out those that don't follow. Where freedom reigns, opportunity blossoms - and with it various sources of intolerable behavior. Thankfully we have the Delete key and filtering software.
  • janegoodwin
    I agree with you, but would like to add this: sometimes spam happens and we don't even know it. An innocent click on a message that "came from an actual friend," and suddenly someone is a pariah! I say, give people one chance; anyone can screw up once. Lesson learned, etc. I would not dump someone who just made an innocent mistake, but that's WAY different from a pimp who isn't remotely interested in conversation. Lesson not learned, however. . . . dump.
  • johnrossharvey
    I've had about 4,000,000 Viagra ads, 2,000,000 Microsoft will pay you if you forward this email,1,000,000 Nigerian dictators, 500,000 Russian brides, 250,000 Exporting opportunities, 125,000 Aveno cleanser ads, 67,500 invitations to join a survey group, 33,750 Britney sex video followers added on Twitter (blocked all) 16,875 marketing professionals on Twitter (blocked all).

    Spewed
    Pathetic
    Accosting
    Manipulation

    Did I mention I write comedy? You can find my site on my Twitter
  • johnrossharvey
    big surprise someone reading this was a britsexvideo Twit
    less of a surprise they have been blocked and reported as SPAM
  • My spam stories don't lie soley in Twitter or Facebook but also on LinkedIn. On the LinkedIn answers section, I always hate when either me or someone else asks a question and instead of answering the question, an individual pitches their product or service. Annoying.
  • addytseng
    Exactly!
  • heatherwhaling
    This post couldn't have been timed more perfectly, since I just received another spammy e-newsletter. I reached out to a blogger for a client of mine. The blog was a great fit for what we were pitching. Instead of responding to my pitch, said blogger tried to add me to his LinkedIn network (without even taking two seconds to customize the "invite" language) and added me to his e-newsletter list. So, now I get useless e-newsletters from him selling his marketing services. Uggh.

    And, I'm off my soapbox now. I realize this happens to everyone. It's just annoying. Thanks for providing the "venting outlet" for today. :)

    @prtini
  • If I give you my business card or agree to help you, and then you start forwarding me e-mails (CC: to everyone) that are not personally directed to me and that I didn't request, YOU ARE SPAMMING ME.
  • hugoguzman
    Today happens to be my birthday, so when I saw an email telling me that I had a Hallmark e-card waiting for me, I figured it was from a friend or family member. I thought it was kind of weird that the person's name wasn't included (first red alert) and also noticed that it automatically went into my spam box (second red alert). Sure enough, it was a fake.

    Oh well, happy birthday to me, right?

    At least it didn't get a chance to screw up my computer.

    Damn spammers...
  • ellenrossano
    I agree that Spam is annoying, even more than the actual pink stuff in the blue can. My latest pet peeve is spam showing up as a "mention" in the Twitter stream. It's bad enough when it's a sales pitchy thing, but horrible when it's graphic - especially when one is showing a potential client what Twitter looks like.
    I know you can block and report as spam, but that's after the fact. What a pain in the neck for you with the volume of stuff you get!
  • The spam DM we dislike most; people asking us to look at their website. Been there, done that. If we followed you, we checked out your site. Chances are if you asked us to look again, we're not following now. We find the best way to avoid spam on Twitter is not to follow people associated with spam. Here on the Authentic Seacoast we have a simple philosophy: you are the company you keep.
  • The same can be said for social networks like eCademy and a few others. They bombard you after you 'ignore' the invitation. Not using any engines to obtain followers or retweet content, I can imaging that part of the setup is doing various 'activities' with potential followers that is obnoxious.

    Like with email, the spam mechanism is set up to disrupt us. With the integration that is going on (Blogs->FB->Twitter->Twitter/Blog tools in LinkedIn, etc) this is only going to become more commonplace.

    It feels at times that the quantity of spam will continue to exceed the good stuff exponentially. Just like the creators of viruses, trojan horses and the like, the spammers will stay ahead of the crowd.
  • pamelastpeter
    the ones I got this morning were mentions with porn image and info (like Amanda). Wow - that's not what I expected to see - hit the block and report spam button real quick.. Oh and another is a friend that DM's - asks if we work an area and then tries to sell me their service... Am I a friend or a just another prospect?
  • Mark
    Twitter SPAM has become much more of a pain and it's starting to flood my twitter account just like it once did my inbox. However, there are very limited tools I can use to prevent it from reaching me in Twitter, unlike my inbox.
  • DrV
    Thanks, Chris. We need a post on the appropriate way to enroll people in email marketing. It seems that whenever my business card goes to someone I wind up on their email newsletter. Personally, I used to use a double opt in but now directly ask permission to my patients before listing. Hope you can help.
  • Sam
    You've been flying too much, Chris! Plain, not plane ;-)

    speaking of spam, i just got another mention about britney and...inappropriate things.
  • shhh don't bring up Britney, haven't had one of those in ...a while... must not be holding my mouth,,i mean mouse right..jus sayin
  • Hi Chris-
    I completely agree with you about the annoyance of spam. I can't believe how many newsletters I'm getting that I never signed up for. Most are coming from people that I've never heard of and they are using one of my older email addresses, which is a mystery to me. Some are from fellow coaches (who I am peripherally acquainted with), who also signed me up to their newsletter without my consent. The fact that I've heard of them doesn't give them permission to spam me.
    I wonder if you or any of your readers have thoughts on whether or not to unsubscribe to newsletters from people you know? Should we just suck it up and hit delete 20 time a day so as not to offend?
    Social Media and Social Marketing are great in their own little way, but there are a lot of pitfalls, aren't there?
    Pamela
  • leegallagher
    Chris, a new report from the CMO Council validates your hunch. Some interesting points were made:
    Of the 91 percent of consumers who opt out or unsubscribe to emails, 46 percent are driven to brand defection because the messages are simply not relevant.
    The threat of customer churn and disconnection intensifies as 41 percent of consumers say they would consider ending a brand relationship due to irrelevant promotions, and an additional 22 percent say they would definitely defect from the brand.

    you can check out the whole report at www.precisionpromotion.org
  • goddessjaz
    This is right on time! This morning I'm getting these Britney Spears porn spams on Twitter, and every day I get annoying newsletters in my inbox that I didn't sign up for. I also tried blocking some people from sending me emails on FB but that hasn't worked. I get message after message about parties and events nowhere near where I live. It's becoming a huge time suck and invasive. How do we curb it?
  • Hi Chris-
    I completely agree with you about the annoyance of spam. I can't believe how many newsletters I'm getting that I never signed up for. Most are coming from people that I've never heard of and they are using one of my older email addresses, which is a mystery to me. Some are from fellow coaches (who I am peripherally acquainted with), who also signed me up to their newsletter without my consent. The fact that I've heard of them doesn't give them permission to spam me.
    I wonder if you or any of your readers have thoughts on whether or not to unsubscribe to newsletters from people you know? Should we just suck it up and hit delete 20 time a day so as not to offend?
    Social Media and Social Marketing are great in their own little way, but there are a lot of pitfalls, aren't there?
    Pamela
  • Sadly, it is not illegal. The only legal requirement is an opt out. That part really does suck. My biggest complaint is when someone tries to hide the opt out option. I use to read a really well known design magazine until they signed me up for their email newsletter without asking and hid their unsubscribe link as black on black text.

    If you have to sneak and scam me that hard to sell your product/service/brand one of two things is going on... There is no value in your product. Or you are ignoring the value of your product.

    Solve my problems, don't give me new ones.
  • Jason is 100% correct. Believe it or not sending unsolicited email - where you did not get consent is NOT illegal. Short version is that the CAN-SPAM Act requires you to provide a mechanism to opt-out/unsubscribe but does not require permission. There is more to the law, but that's a key part that is often misunderstood.

    That being said, the law is a pretty low standard. Best practices and strategic sound email marketing is an entirely different story. My mantra for email marketing is simple: send timely, targeted, relevant email to subscribers who have asked for them.

    Thank for shout out, Chris. Hoping my blog didn't crash. Ha ha.

    DJ Waldow
    Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
    @djwaldow
  • Two absolute rules:
    1) (someone already said) BE CAREFUL when you go look at apps that request your Twitter login. They are quite likely to Tweet the result which is already lame "Look My Genitals are xxx!" ok, number of followers, same thing - but also they may DM Chris and all of your followers.
    2) Spam in general: NEVER CC a bunch of people who don't know each other. You are putting MY email on that many machines, one of which will sooner or later be compromised and my email winds up in a spam database. Teach your friends, too, to use email "responsibly". TJis is why we all end up with 20 email addresses.
  • I met with the president of a company, to assist my work on developing a social media strategy, etc.

    Next thing you know, I'm automatically signed up for their company newsletter, which I didn't sign up for. That's what I call SPAM! You'd think a company that understands social media etc, would know better. The kicker is, that when I unsubscribed, the president of the company called me and had the gall to ask me why I did it.

    Just because I meet with you, doesn't give you the right to sign me up for your newsletter.

    Just for the record, this wasn't New Marketing Labs.
  • Don't forget offline spam! Cold calling (even when I'm on the DNC list), knocking on my door, credit card offer mail, cable/phone/internet company offers (even from the company I'm already signed up with)...
  • Oh I so agree. I don't give anyone my home phone, only cell, so I can stop answering the phone and not have to explain I don't need new carpeting, windows or... whatever.
  • I get tons of "wanna good joke?" spam comments on my blog. Out of dozens only one was any good imo.

    Never say anything sucks on twitter. "Britney" is stalking "sucks" :)
  • Jeni Tate
    Sometimes the spam is good…where else do you hear that you are smart enuf to take a quiz! Wow! How did they know I'm brilliant.

    Okay, spam away if you must and do give me an easy option out. It makes me livid when I can't get out…against everything that is good about social media…it's a conversation dudes.
  • erikdeckers
    So what is the threshold for spam? Is it ONE unwanted message? Or does there have to be more than one? And what constitutes unwanted? Is it that message you never wanted from the person you didn't want it from, or is it a message you originally signed up for (and forgot), and they keep sending you their monthly newsletter?
  • beley
    I completely agree! Here's a tip/trick to help you really reduce email spam from this type of thing...

    I use Google Apps (Gmail) for all my email accounts and when I comment on a blog that I am not really familiar with I usually add a +blogname to the email address. So my email would be brandoneley+chrisbrogan [at] gmail.com. It still gets to you just fine, but adds a little flag in Gmail that you can use later.

    If I start getting a lot of spam in the future going to any particular email account, I can just create a rule to deliver all emails to that address to my spam folder. Problem solved.

    I do definitely think people shouldn't sign you up for lists without your permission, but alas, they do. This helps me manage without pulling my hair out.
  • Stacey
    I'm tired of following people to seem legitimate and the start sending adds or tweeting about teeth whitening tricks that a stay at home mom discovered. Really? I hate spam but to violate people by subjecting them to pictures of rotten teeth and stretch marks is in my opinion the most heinous. It's not only annoying but it's disgusting.
  • I'd add to this applications such as FourSquare. I dont participate and dont care that you are now Mayor of Downtown Crossing. Then again, I'm guilty of Blip.fm music alerts so I guess it is all in your own perception. It'd be nice if you could opt out of certain product announcements such as this via Twitter.

    As for email, I deleted every email newsletter/announcement received recently. They just arent adding any value to my inbox and more often than not I automatically, and unconsciously, recognize them as unimportant clutter and delete to get to the good stuff. For my information consumption: if there isnt a Twitter or RSS feed, where I can read, share and respond out in the open, its not important. Email doesnt let me do that, really.
  • Love the post! The issue I had recently was with mutual fund salesmen - meet one at a networking event, and let them get your card in their hands, and suddenly I'm receiving dozens of e-mails about financial products I'm not interested in. They're not personalized (not even including my name), they're not wanted, and I can't seem to get rid of them.

    Here's my revenge. Mark the sender as SPAM. But also set up a filter that forwards all SPAM messages to a list of people, and add their name to that distribution list. That way, when they stop sending me their crap, I'll stop sending them mine.
  • Well put. With the Facebook Fan Page recommendations I wonder, are those automated requests? They seem to come in multiples every time.
  • Signing me up for a newsletter that I didn't subscribe to is the most frustrating for me. This happened to me when I met someone I follow on Twitter at a social media event. We exchanged cards, and all of a sudden I had her e-newsletter in my inbox the next day. I wouldn't have been AS annoyed if the content she writes was relevant to my job in the PR industry, but it definitely wasn't. I hope she realizes that type of spamming will only hurt her efforts to increase readership.
  • Amen!
  • It's been a constant battle trying to teach GMail this is spam and this is not. Hmm. I just shared your perception! That's one of the reasons instead of having different folders under the same account, I have different aliases for each account. Good luck chopping it up! --Paul
  • Chris,

    I couldn't agree more; I'm sure you not on your own with your feelings. I for one get totally fed up with people encroaching on 'my space' (not the socail media platform). Eveyday a constant stream of uninvited messages from spammers.

    I guess it's one of the downsides of social networking!

    Regards

    Paul
  • sue_anne
    Even though I run several pages and Causes for our non-profit, I'm very careful about who I send those messages to. I have Facebook friends from all over the country, and our non-profit is very California specific, so I rarely send messages out to my whole friends list.
  • Can we stop grown men from wanting me to join farmville and sending me hugs? lol This is soo annoying and wrong. When has it become a great idea to do this as part of your social marketing?

    Twitter is hit with a spam issue daily. this week has been the IQ Me crap, and DM's it's to bad that I have to skim thru them all to reply to "real" messages.

    But like everything else, anything good is quickly used for bad.
  • Speak of the devil...just got an unsolicited/unsubscribed email from a U.S. Senator here in Colorado. If there is a law against it, then he obviously feels he's above the law. Was a pitch justifying the current health care package debated in the Senate.
  • luissandovaljr
    Spam, well for starters your pictures made me hungry. When do we eat?

    I'm constantly bombarded with spammers when I mention keywords in my posts, like a few others on here, get my blog posts requoted to me with an advertisement for me to click on, and the automation is insane. Most recently Twitter has been a real unhappy place for me, only because of the amount of bots and spammers out there.

    Not sure if there's really a 100% solution to this problem, I mean we've not been able to stop spam in our regular mail, but I think you bring a lot of good concepts with things that even we may not perceive as spam.
  • murrayrossnewlands
    I recently wrote this
    Email and Social Media Heaven or Email and Social Media Hell http://www.murraynewlands.com/2009/08/email-and...

    The better connected you are the more you are targeted = FAIL
  • Spam is yummie! Shame I am off porc nowadays :-(
  • I think that the worst spam comments that flood my DM's and Facebook are notifications that say.. "I just took this survey and my score was this..." Most of the the time I don't care how other people scored on them.. and the suggestions to try Farmville...
  • And what about when someone follows you on Twitter, then unfollows (if you don't reciprocate) and follows again. I end up getting a bunch of notifications in my e-mail about the same person following me. Very annoying!

    Here's what else I consider spam - you go to a networking event, hand out your business cards (with your e-mail on them) and next thing you know, you're signed up for a bunch of newsletters, alerts, autoresponders, etc.
  • andreacarusoonline
    You are so right about this. I find that so many companies do everything completely wrong when it comes to email marketing -- either they "opt you in" without permission, don't provide an obvious way to opt-out, or they overcommunicate. I wrote a blog post about a week and a half ago about ways that email newsletters annoy me. I was half-hoping I'd get an unsolicited spam message from that because it would have been really ironic.
  • Paul
    I get very disappointed sometimes seeing people I respect using unethical marketing tactics. Giving you my business card means I anticipate direct, personal contact from *you*, not to be signed up to your PR mailing list.

    Two email marketers shared their own thoughts on spam with me in an article I wrote for an anti-spam website recently. It reassures me that there are more ethical marketers out there than unethical, so I'm still willing to give most people a go and sign up for their lists.

    Here is that article btw:
    http://www.allspammedup.com/2009/06/using-email...
  • I keep getting hit with the same spam on Twitter from "undesirables". I wish there was a way to delete them for good. I block them and they just come back as another name. Very annoying.

    Yes, spam is annoying and I will treat you as my enemy. Just like Chris said, I didn't want to do anything with it before and I won't again.
  • Here's a thought - is social media basically spam anyway? Think about it - you follow someone on Twitter or are friends on Facebook (or both).

    Now, you "signed up" to receive their "emails", but not that of their non-shared friends. So any RT or shared link/wall post, etc, on Facebook is immediately spam by default.

    "Ah, but you signed up for that when you friended them."

    No, I signed up for their "emails" (so, their tweets). The RT's? That's a third-party I didn't sign up for, but now have to see.

    Just a thought... :)
  • First, I love how every post I see about spam includes a picture of canned Spam. The company that makes spam should really create an affiliate program of some sort for Spam of the month club. C'mon that's got awesome gag gift written all over it.

    I couldn't agree more with the auto enrollment into people's newsletters which have no opt out option. I personally don't mind if someone puts me on their mailing list but make it easy for me to get off it.

    The same is true of DM spam. If you DM me something I don't like I see it as a reflection of my choice to follow you in the first place. Should I have been more selective? Did I really know you well enough to create that connection? I never get offended I just reassess whether I need to continue granting this person permission to send me direct messages.

    The repeated requests to join a fan page do drive me nuts. I wish Facebook had a "No Means No" button. Or at a minimum they should inform the person sending the request that I said no once before.
  • Great post.It made sense really, waiting for some new ones...spam has been proved as a way of dissiminating information by the terrorist organizations...Thanks for sharing such a great post here...
    christmas shopping
  • I think everyone(including spammers themselves) hates spams . Regarding the DM spams, there might be a possibility that the accounts who DM you were hacked by spams, and they even did not know they DM you.
  • A major difference between Canadian and American opt-ins is the face that Canadian users have to physically click the "Yes" box to opting in. In America, it's already checked off, which would lead me to belive increases the propensity of spamming. Totally annoying.
  • In my experience, Canadians are more polite than Americans (on the whole - there are, of course, exceptions.) I like that way of doing it though - if I find myself creating any sites including options to opt-in for something, I'll try to use that method.
  • Ha, that's too funny.

    Many Canadian clients want us to pre-populate the opt-in box to Yes, but it's against the law up here. I suppose they feel if I already check the box off for the consumer, it's convenient for them. I say no way - you have to earn my opt-in through compelling content and experiences before I trust you to opt-in. It's way too easy to "dupe" the consumer into opt-in.
  • Site / business owners may think tell themselves they're "making it more convenient for the customer" - but in actuality, they're just trying to "capture" as many new emails as they can (a concept which is understandable - when you look at it from their perception). You're totally right though - sites should have to earn your opt-in by quality of content. Like this one did for me :)
  • addytseng
    I created a website for a friend who has terminal liver disease. I welcome folks to leave messages for him.

    I have been getting tons of drug ads (particularly Viagra) posted by people with random alpha-numbers as their email. Annoys the heck out of me!

    How do I report these people?
  • Hey Chris, if the SocialToo DM filtering isn't working for you please don't hesitate to e-mail me. You had mentioned on Twitter you were trying that and I want to be sure it's working to its fullest for you. I also welcome feedback. I just want to be sure you aren't having any issues.

    I agree with all your problems - that's why, at least from a Twitter/Facebook standpoint I'm hoping to fix this problem for those that want to.
  • I have a spam story - Someone connected to me on Linked In and then farmed my email addresses out to a million different newsletters. When I wrote back asking to opt-out he was wrote back, "But we're connected on Linked In, that means you want to help me." And I responded - "No, that means we're connected on Linked In. I didn't opt-in. What you're doing is spam."

    Someone doesn't get it, and it's not me.
  • Heh Chris, like you i dont like spam.. However since my decision to dramatically cull the people that I follow on Twitter, I get no dm spam at all. none, nada, nil.. So it was the best decision I have ever made. more time to focus on the peeps that I want to, more time to comment on other peoples blogs, more time to engage, more time to listen,

    why not give it a try?

    best

    Mark
  • I'm surprised you don't have a 'junk' email for this sort of stuff. I never use my personal or business email accounts for anything that is not directly related to one or the other. Like you, I grew tired of constantly emptying my inbox of junk and spam.
  • I don't get a lot of spam, but I also rarely interact with marketers. Maybe there's a connection.

    What I do get, as a journalist, is an amazing number of press releases. It can get overwhelming. I use a special e-mail address for sites that I think are likely to send me a lot of marketing spam, and I filter my work e-mail so I'm not getting dinged with press releases when I'm at the playground with my kids.
  • The idea that spam is defined by perception is very important. It shows what a fine line some marketers are walking, and it shows how essential it is for us to be engaging our readers on as personal a level as possible.
  • Realtormike
    This Spam problem is going to stay with us because that type of advertising and the ability to deliver it is in itself a big market. Spam is sold as the shortest way to riches because of the numbers being run, large quantities of requests produce enough sales to verify their own existence.
    I too, hates 'em.
  • A couple of spam stories for you:

    My brother had stopped using his Hotmail account, but he didn't tell anyone. So one day I open my email, and there's an email from him. It says he's traveling in the U.K. and lost his wallet and needed $3,000 wired to him immediately. My first reaction was that I didn't have that kind of money. Then I looked at the email and realized that he hadn't used my name or his, that the money was listed in foreign currency, then U.S. currency (being American, he would have listed U.S. currency only), and the grammar was poor in the way suggestive of a foreign speaker. As it turned out, he'd left his address book in the account when he stopped using. Someone hacked into it and sent out the same email to everyone on the list, including his boss and all the family. Since he really was traveling--but not overseas--I emailed as many people as I knew to tell them it was spam and my brother was okay.

    I'm a writer, and over the years I've been on a lot of message boards. One message board seemed to draw the self-published novelists. Invariably what they would do was realize that their book wasn't selling too well, head for this message board, and spam all the posters. So I would get emails from writers advertising their 80 page books fro $20 on Amazon. The strangest though was this one writer who emailed me out of the blue suggesting we exchange autographed books. Huh?

    I also ended up having to put any unassigned emails on my Web site go to into the null address. Spammers will take Sales@myDomain . com and send emails through it until they got caught. Since some of the emailing was set up as forwarding through my primary email, I came back one day to find one hundred rejected emails. My virus checker had spotted and virus and killed the email.
  • Van
    There is a lot of self-righteousness floating about this article.

    It seems most people are throwing the baby out with the bath water. Yes, spam is annoying, but to move to a situation where you cannot contact prospective clients under any circumstances (whether digitally or not), without first being given permission, is patently ridiculous. It is like political correctness gone beserk.

    Many of your commenters find themselves in sales positions, and I think they are being disingenuous. It is highly improbable that their customers happen to seek them out. The point is to find an acceptable balance.

    A point to ponder; I bet these same pious types, are quite happy to receive junk mail in their post boxes, which takes a larger effort to get rid of, and has an environmental impact to boot. So why the double standard?
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