Anti-promotionalism in Social Media - Strong Feelings from Digg Comments

With all the emphasis latley in the SEO world on the benefit of social media sites (Like digg) for link building, traffic and general brand awareness, it makes sense that VERY strong anti-promotional sentiments are springing up in heated debates (or insult exchanges depending on the maturity of the commenter) on the ethics involved in authors submitting stories themselves from which they will in some way gain from the promotion.

For a GREAT example of this check out the comments on this article “187 Amazingly designed sites to see before you die.” The author made an ok very long list of all the sites he thought looked the best. He submitted this list and on other pages of his site he sells text links.

I didn’t digg the article and I say ok, because although most of the sites on the list are very pretty their usability is so terrible (meaning it’s difficult to tell how they are, what they do and navigate around) I consider most of them failures as anything more then GREAT eye candy and perharps valuable fodder for a viral marketing (or the new term link bait) campagin from people saying “Woah look at this.”

The article nevertheless recieved a lot of diggs and people in the comments blasted him, why? Because he submitted the site himself and he may / will financially gain for the exposure it recieves on digg. Other people came to his defense saying it didn’t matter if he makes money or not, it’s all about where the users like the content. I tend to agree with that atitude, but I expect to see even harsher examples of “anti promotionalism.” springing up as more and more people attempt to “abuse” the system.

What the future of social media and it’s effect on advertisers is still up for debate.

Technorati Tags: social media, digg, anti-promotionalism