Understanding what spam is

Many of us know the different forms spam can take. I will give some examples we see at APSense:

1. Posting a comment in article with a link.
2. Advertising about something unrelated to the article, even without a link.
3. Sending an unsolicited link in a PM ( Private Message ).

Points 1 and 2, we can react in a comment, saying to the person it's not right to act like that, or we can simply click the "repoer abuse" link that we see beside each comment.

For point no. 3, I always respond this way:

"Please don't send me an unsolicited link. Thank you."

The different reactions I get are:

1. The person ignores it. To me, it means they might not send me any more of those kinds of messages, but they probably will continue to send them to other people.
   
2. The person blocks me. I don't mind, cause if it happens, I would not want to do business with that person anyway.
   
3. The person responds saying it is not spam, their friends don't mind. In some cases, I explain further my position, and they understand. Once, someone said, "I understand what you mean. Please block me, cause I will block you." That was funny. :)
4. In some cases, people say they are new to online marketing and thank me for letting them know. That doesn't happen often enough.

Let me compare online spam to all the publicity bags we receive in our homes each week. Yes, those bags are unsolicited, but the understanding is, if we don't to receive them anymore, we stick a message on our door saying so.

The rest of the advertising goes through the proper channels: TV, radio, ads on websites or blogs, newspapers, signs on the road, the bus, the public bathrooms, etc...

Here, at APSense, the proper channels are:

• When we write an article or RevPage ( not comment on it )
  
• Ads, like those when we see "ads by the user"
• Campaigns
• The APSense.Me Live Stream
• Augine
• APSense Traffx, the traffic exchange
• APSense Talents
• Groups

As we can see, we have plenty of choice. Of course, it asks for work, and credits in the case of campaigns. But that's the name of the game.

Let me conclude the article with this little story that I saw once and I find it's the best example of what spam is.

You are in a party. You are with some friends talking. This guy arrives, interrupts the conversation, gives business cards to everyobe and talks about this latest lighting gadget that is perfect for any party. You tell him that you are not interested and want to go on with with what you were saying, but the guy insists, saying you don't understand, you will save money, it's a great deal, yadda yadda yadda. You repeat that you are not interested. After 2 more times, he finally turns around. You then see him behave the same way with another group of people, then another and another. Within 5 minutes, the guy is thrown out of the house.

The guy was invited to the party, but the way he acted was an intrusion. Worse, he didn't understand his attitude was wrong in the first place.

The first thing we ought to do when joining a group or social network is build relationships. Let other people get to know AND trust you. The rest will come naturally.


See this article trying to steal the spotlight is an abuse too


Here are comments from Cheryl, I felt the need to edit the article and add them, to get a complete picture:

"Let's not forget the bump and flood spam. There are some people who will post 10 separate articles all about the same thing just to knock everyone else posts or comments into the back ground. There's no need for one person to post more than one article about sports jerseys, shoes or any other topic.

The whole point is to deny exposure to other members, nothing else. "

"yes it does and on the group feed less often when people join groups simply to paste a spam post.

I needed to add one point-bumping by itself is not necessarily spam. A lot of great older articles get brought to the attention of new members by someone stumbling across and using a comment to bump it into the newsfeed. that fine. "