It’s said, “There is a fine line between love and hate”.  Love and hate are not opposites, they are two sides of the same coin, the opposite of love is indifference. The opposite of being a spammer is not being one, but on the other  side of the spamming coin, is being a publisher.  How can you as a publisher avoid the spam label?

What is Spam?  (Not Shoulder Parts and Meat)

Spam has many definitions (type define:spam into Google and see for yourself) the most common is unsolicited information, unwanted repeated calls to action, and sometime letters from your long lost Nigerian cousin who happens to be a prince and is desperate to give you millions of dollars. The best part is that spam is something different for everyone, but the one things that is universal is that no one wants spam.  In the good ol days of teh interweb we only had to deal with a Russian picking up your email address that you posted online somewhere. You knew that you’d been found when your emails in-box would start to fill up with offers of cheap (but real) pills.

In an age of “Opt-in” what is spam?

First, why do I say that we live in an age of opt-in?  We have all grown accustom to giving out our email address to receive an offer, or if you don’t – do you follow people on Twitter?  The process of following, is a form of granting permission for them to send you messages – the purest from of opt-in.  So when we follow the wrong person, do we have right to shake our fists at our lcd(s) rip our garments and cry out, “STOOOPPP  SPAMMMMING MEEEEEE”.  No, we just un-follow – in some cases, we block – or report them as spam.

Dude, you opened the door to their sales message, you have to be responsible and slam it shut!

But, What If  YOU are Labeled a Spammer?

There are a number of Twitter Cleaner services out there (TwitCleaner & TweetBlocker to name a few) these services take a look at your following list and let you know at what level a twitter user that you are following is a spammer.  So what are some of the things that they are looking for, things that in moderation are fine, but if you’re doing it non-stop you’re going to start looking following due to spam filters on twitter!

Top Three thing that if you do, you might be a spammer

1.) Do you bomb your twitter stream with @replies

Once a week (for #FollowFriday) is okay — well not really, but it’s not going to label you as a Twitter Spammer.  Sending constant @Replies is a tactic that some bots use to gain following, they send you a message (often with a link) to a person that they are not following, and have had no interaction with, and these bots typically send the same message to hundreds of users, who never asked for their message. This activity (sending repeated messages to people who were not expecting and did not ask for them – IS SPAM.

So of you send 300 @replies to people on #FollowFriday – you might be a Spammer.

2.) Do you use spammy speech in your tweets?

What is “Spammy Speech?” You’ve been to those sites that will sell you this snake oil system that will cause you to want to quit your job because in 4 hours a day Google and Bill Gates will just start sending you cash!  These get rich on the internet sites are loaded with what I call “Spammy Speech”. They make stupid claims and often have ridiculous headlines, don’t follow these broken patterns, the era of mile long sales pages is over, I would even venture to bet that sales letters on the net are dead altogether!  If you make hyped up claims and send people to a unrelated or irrelevant link – IT IS SPAM.

If your message is clouded in a vail of hype – you might be a Spammer.

3.) Do you send nothing but links?

This is a real gray area for me, but none the less it will get you registered as a spammer quickly.  If every message that you send on twitter is going out with a link, it’s bad form.  Some times we just have to make statements and that be the final word.  It can be bad form if every message that you send is targeted to get them to click a link.

If your twitter steam look more like a RSS with “Read More” links, you might be a Spammer!

Are these hard and fast rules, NO, not at all – and as twitter goes, and more people figure out how to exploit new features the rules that will label you as a spammer are going to change.  The best way to not be labeled as a spammer is to treat others as you would want to be treated, would you want to be bombarded with a list of names telling you to follow these people? Would you want to be told about a new system for getting hundreds of followers, non-stop?  If you wouldn’t want those things sent to you, why send those kinds of messages into the world?

Oh – also note, don’t publicly spar with a person who might be a spammer, as you can be labeled as one too!