Part 5 of a series

Writing a series of posts on Twitter scams has been pretty depressing.

I found there is a thriving subculture of deceivers that is bizarre and disturbing. The scammers exploit the elderly, the vulnerable, the under-educated, and the desperate.  This is typical: A Twitter page of a friendly looking man who is a “Husband, Dad, Blogger and Entrepreneur” peddling this product: From Food Stamps To 7 Figures Online Free Video.

The scam sub-culture blogs about dodging regulations and adjusting tactics to capitalize on loopholes.  “Best practices” spread at the speed of light and the pyramid schemes can vanish behind the social web’s cloak of anonymity, free access and fake accounts. The scum has become more powerful through the recession, persistent unemployment and evolving technology that feeds their need to deceive.

The mere fact that I wrote articles containing the words “MLM” attracted automated spammers that nearly snowed me under with deceitful tweets.   I am sickened by the vast resources devoted to tricking us into clicking.

What can be done about it?

On a macro-level, very little.   Most regulations or policies could also hurt legitimate enterprises.  We have to take the fight to the streets.

Here are some ideas to help you fight back and at least take control in your part of the blogosphere.

Use Twitter “report for spam” option.  Any time I am spammed by porn-peddling, teeth-whitening, Trump Network sludge, I hit the report for spam button. Twitter seems to be processing at least some of these requests manually to avoid mob-rule against legitimate but unpopular tweeters, so I don’t really know what it takes to get people kicked out.  Just do your part. If enough people take the time to do it, it is in Twitter’s best interest to figure out a way to handle it.

There’s an app for that? — There is a new app called Stop Tweet that may provide hope to the idea of automatically blocking some spammers.  This utility allows you to tweak your personal settings to block and report people based on two tell-tale characteristics – no or low number of tweets and a high following-to-follower ratio.  It can also show you who among your followers who is a known spammer.  I tried this app out and unfortunately it did block several legitimate small businesses just starting Twitter accounts.  Play around with the settings and let me know what you think.

Separate email addresses — I have one email address I try to keep “pure” for correspondence with real people and another one I use for ANY app, service, or website. I even use my “spam” address when posting comments. Face it, it is only a matter of time before a database is hacked and all your identification and passwords violated. Minimize this inevitable risk by containing it to one account.

Mind the basics — You know the routine. Use strong passwords that are long, a mixture of letters and numbers, and nonsense words unrelated to any personal information. I just did research for a client project that showed the number one password for elderly people is “password.”  Help educate your loved ones, too.

Ignore them — Don’t be tempted to do what I did and explore the spam underworld. Don’t visit their sites or ask for more information, even in fun. If you respond to their spam, you’re encouraging them to continue, and they only need a tiny response to be profitable. Take my advice based on experience — ignore them completely!

What are YOUR strategies for dealing with the spam tsunamai?  What could Twitter do to step-up to the problem?

Part 1 in the series on Twitter’s Biggest Scams: Multi-level marketing

Part 2:  The teeth whiteners

Part 3: The Twitter follower scam

Part 4: The Trump Network

Part 4 of a series

Yes, it’s THAT Trump.  “The Donald” is actually behind this Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) program.  A key difference between this and the other MLM programs explained this week is that there is an actual product exchanging hands – nutritional aids.

The Trump Network was launched in the fall of 2009 — actually a re-branding of a pre-existing 12-year-old company — apparently endorsed by Trump himself.

They sell vitamins and supplements, which are popular with many other recruiting MLM companies. It costs $48 to join the program, and then you buy a marketing kit for $497 to start selling. Trump pitches it as a “gift” to the recession-wounded America, and says it is geared toward making Americans healthier.

Like a lot of MLM companies, it’s light on product information and heavy on buzzwords (the recession, the national debate over healthcare, green/organic product popularity). The actual product being sold is an afterthought on the website, highlighting opportunities in the “explosive health and wellness wave” instead.

Becauset they sell vitamins, The Trump Network can skirt being called a ”pyramid scheme” but it still looks that way in practice.  People who join the network earn most of their money from enrollment fees and maintenance costs. The independent “distributors” are then pushed to recruit more distributors of their own. In many schemes of this kind, they are required to buy more inventory than they can probably ever sell, shifting focus toward recruitment as a means of re-couping their investment, which is unlikely.

One MLM resource website did a “review” of the Trump network and explained the “get rich” process:

“You call your sponsor, and they tell you what they were told, which is basically useless, and so you fall for the most gullible, stupid strategies that you could possible engage in – depending on your friends, neighbors, and relatives to make you rich.”

I think one of the most disturbing aspects of this initiative is the judgment of Donald Trump to lend his name to something that is built on such shaky ground. Here’s a guy whose brand is synonymous with the gold standard of quality – why jeopardize his brand by implying  riches are at hand to people who are probably suffering?

Note: some of the debate in the comment section of this post focuses on the real value of the Trump brand name. This is addressed in WSJ article on a court case on this topic: click for article

Part 1 in the series: Multi-level marketing

Part 2:  The teeth whiteners

Part 3: The Twitter follower scam

Part 5: What to do about Twitter scams

Part 3 of a series

“EXTREME traffic and EXTREME income!”  the tweets scream at you. How is anybody making money off of this ridiculous offer?  Let’s investigate the “Build Twitter Followers” scam:

There are many sites dedicated to this scheme, but the one I investigated was The MLM Mastermind System.

After submitting your name, email address, and phone number (we used fakes), you are redirected to one of the longest, strangest web pages I have ever seen. It goes on for miles! There are dozens of testimonials, anecdotes, and metaphors to explain why it’s imperative for you to expand your network, create new leads, and brand yourself to start earning money.

The spam-meisters explain that if you use their system, you can do all of these things on “COMPLETE AUTOPILOT” and start raking in the cash for free, with zero effort.  As you work your way through the page, there is not a single mention of a product of any kind. You grow your business by suckering other people into growing their business, which is growing more people to grow their business, ad infinitum.

There are all the telltale signs of a pyramid scheme—promises of get rich quick, low risk, high gain, work from home, etc. The system they describe for building this network consists of software tools that will perpetuate the type of spam Twitter messages we frequently receive. These are the terms to buy into the system:

“So here’s the thing, After your 7 day trial period for only $1, the ENTIRE system is still only a measly $49.77 a month. And you don’t even have to pay that until you’ve already started USING the system, and seeing how profitable it really is. After that, for literally a buck and a half a day you will be at THE cutting edge of this industry, and using technology to build your business easier than most could imagine.”

Unwilling to surrender my credit card or Twitter account information, I can only guess at what happens next. There are volumes of reports across the web about how companies like this use your information — charging exorbitant fees, signing you up for other similar services, and other types unsavory exploitation.

Since it’s all automated, as their network expands, they can tweet these messages every few seconds, and only a very small fraction of the people that receive the messages need to click through and sign up for it to become profitable very quickly. As it grows it creates a large, viral, financial ecosystem of its own.

Tomorrow: The Trump Network.

Part 1 in the series: Multi-level marketing

Part 2:  The teeth whiteners

Part 4: The Trump Network

Part 5: What to do about Twitter scams

Part 2 in a series

One of the most seemingly ludicrous, annoying, and pervasive Twitter scams is the promise of free teeth whitening.  So, what is this all about?

The teeth whitening scams work by creating fake websites that appear to be blogs with personal testimonials. An example would be www.karensteeth.com.  These sites advertise a “special combination” of two separate products, and give instructions for signing up for free trials. The combination of two products makes it seem less like advertising and more like an economical way to “beat the system,” but the products are almost always fake. Usually these fake blogs appear to have been created by an “ordinary mom” to provide an aura of home-spun credibility.

A Twitter search for “teeth whitening” delivers hundreds of tweets, all linking to similar  types of “mom blogs.” Cross-checking the link stats through bit.ly show that most of them get at least a few clicks.

The product websites purport to offer you a trial of the whitening treatment for the cost of shipping only, but they typically also charge mysterious, non-refundable fees without ever shipping any product. The web is filled with complaints from consumers who sent in money and received nothing in return.

Here’s what the Better Business Bureau says about this scam:

“Complaintants report being billed as much as $79 for the free trial and are charged for several other services—such as a weight loss program.”

These teeth-whitening spam sites frequently carry “endorsements” from ABC, CNN, FOX, USA TODAY at the tops of their websites.  But if you take a closer look, you’ll see that the actual testimonials are quotes touting the ease/benefits of teeth whitening treatments in general, not the specific products advertised. Often, these websites simply use these media logos without any testimonial at all.

It’s important to note that it’s always just the logos of these companies that appear, never the name of ABC, CNN, etc. in plain text. This would make it searchable, and these media outlets could find them to pursue legal action.

The Twitter accounts posting this scam update several times a minute, often using trending topic  hashtags or specific usernames to lure more interest.

Bottom line, there does not seem to be anything legitimate about this scheme at all.  If you see anyone perpetuating this Twitter scam, my recommendation is to block and report as spam.

Tomorrow the series continues with spammers claiming to help you find “Extreme Wealth Through Twitter Followers!”

Part 1 in the series of Twitter’s Biggest Scams: Multi-level marketing

Part 3: Building wealth through Twitter follower lists

Part 4: The Trump Network

Part 5: What to do about Twitter scams

Article one of a five-part series

Have you ever wondered about those annoying followers you get on Twitter promising to whiten your teeth for free, make you rich in the Trump network, or help you attract thousands of followers?  I’ve been curious about these folks and how they could possibly make money off these spurious claims.

So, I figured if I was wondering, you might be wondering too.   Over the next few blog posts, I’ll try to lift the veil of mystery surrounding these business models. To understand many of these scams, you need to start with the basics of …

Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)

First let me be clear that there are many successful and legitimate “real-world” MLM businesses like Mary Kay, Discovery Toys, and Pampered Chef.  These business models rely on independent distributors to sell directly to their friends and families. The distributors profit from the sale of real products and from commissions for recruiting new distributors — so the more “levels,” the more profitable they are.

However, Internet MLM schemes seldom rely on the sale of a physical product or legitmate service.  Instead, the Twitter-variety MLM’s primary objective is to recruit new members, with revenue generated from the start-up and “maintenance” costs paid by new members to take part in this “can’t miss” route to riches.  The MLM pyramid scheme takes your money and then uses you to recruit other suckers distributors to send their money.

Does it work?  Obviously data on a shadowy industry like MLM is difficult to obtain, but an article from wikipedia.org opines:

“The vast majority of MLM’s are recruiting MLM’s, in which participants must recruit aggressively to profit. Based on available data from the companies themselves, the loss rate for recruiting MLM’s is approximately 99.9%; i.e., 99.9% of participants lose money after subtracting all expenses, including purchases from the company.”

Telltale signs of an MLM pyramid scheme:

1) Requirement to “invest” a large amount of money up front to become a distributor.

2) Upfront costs to buy “inventory.”

3) No mention of an actual product or service.

4) Plan designed so that you make money by recruiting new members rather than through your own sales efforts.

Another difference between these web-based pyramid schemes and the traditional Mary Kay-style MLM is that a great deal of it has become automated, which accounts for the sheer volume of annoying tweets we suffer through.   The automation tools (or “bots”)  they employ make it easier to spread their links more quickly.

In fact, there are lots of websites and even huge conventions dedicated to helping these MLM spammers find new spam-generating automation tricks for clicks.

And here’s a surprise …

People actually do click on the links.  URL services like bit.ly allow you to track the clicks of links hosted there, and if you take a look at any one of these spam messages, people are actually clicking on them. Whether they make appeals to the rough economic times or high unemployment, teeth whitening, weight loss, or whatever, there are lots of people who click, even if you and I wouldn’t.

Like you, I get strange Twitter followers almost daily wanting me to sign up for EXTREME WEALTH!  In an effort to provide a balanced report, I contacted more than a dozen of these MLM marketers for their perspective, but none of them responded to my requests.

Part 2 of this series on Twitter’s Biggest Scams:   The teeth whiteners

Part 3: Building wealth through Twitter follower lists

Part 4: The Trump Network

Part 5: What to do about Twitter scams

“Twitter is the newest bright shiny object online and a perfect hook for yet another work-at-home scheme … cash-strapped job hunters need to be wary of shelling out money for a dubious scheme that revolves around Twitter.”    -  Steve Cox, Better Business Bureau

Have you ever wondered about those annoying messages you get on Twitter to whiten your teeth, join the Trump network, or get rich by attracting thousands of followers? 

 I have.

While I have spent this past week providing examples of the legitimate business promise of the social web, Twitter has also become a fertile ground for the corrupt, the ridiculous, and the desperate. 

We need to look at the dark side, too. So let’s do that, together.

I’ve been looking into Twitter’s most pervasive scams.  In a series of blog posts beginning Monday, I’ll let you know what they are, how they operate, and what you need to know about them.

I hope you’ll visit {grow} each day next week for an exploration of the strange world of multi-level marketing and Twitter’s biggest scams.

Thanks to R. W. Schaefer for providing research support for this series of blog posts.

This week, I’m featuring personal case studies to demonstrate how the social web can provide tremendous business benefits … often when you least expect it!

Today’s example started when I tweeted ”Go Steelers!” … and ended with the video about my business that you can view by clicking the image above.

I was watching a Monday night football game and tackling a little work at the same time. I flipped to Twitter and cheered for my favorite team. “I’m cheering for the Steelers, too” Michelle Chmielewski tweeted back.  And soon we were sharing our love for football, Pittsburgh (where she was a student), and blogging.

I had never connected with her before but Michelle had been reading {grow} and had just started to blog herself,  The Observing Participant.  As a new blogger, she asked me for some feedback on her own posts.  Over time I grew to really love the  quirky, funny video posts she featured. One day I had a brainstorm — one of these videos would be a great way to explain my business to potential customers!   Michelle agreed to do it, but on one condition – instead of pay, she needed a new high-definition camera to take her video blogging to a new level.  I was glad to oblige and provide her with a tool that could further her career.  

I’m sure you’ll agree that Michelle’s video is awesome, and in a week or so I will be featuring it on my website.

Throughout the year, Michelle and I continued to learn from each other. She talked me into getting on to Skype and has looked to me as a mentor on career issues.  Best of all, Michelle is my friend, and that never would have happened without the social web.

So here’s the lesson of Twitter: You just never know!

Let’s check in again with my formula for creating business benefits on the social web and see how it relates to this case study:

Connections + Meaningful content + Authentic helpfulness = Business benefits

How this worked in the real world:

• Michelle and I both actively created connections by engaging with people on Twitter.
• Because of the meaningful content on my blog, Michelle became an interested follower.  Michelle’s video content created engagement with me and eventually resulted in a mutually-beneficial business benefit.
• We continuously offer authentic helpfulness to each other without regard of any future “pay-back.”  This trusting friendship will continue to pay personal and business dividends.

This formula works.  What “unexpected” Twitter stories do you have?

This is the second installment of the unexpected benefits of the social web. You might enjoy these other articles:

Part 1: How to become a CMO in 10 tweets or less

Part 3: LinkedIn: A goldmine of business benefits

This headline is just a bit ridiculous, of course!   But I did want to make a point that social media works in amazing and unanticipated ways.  This week, I’m featuring personal case studies to show how the social web can provide legitimate business benefits, sometimes when you least expect it!

The first example is about how I became the Chief  Marketing Officer of Freesource … without ever meeting my new boss.   

About a year ago I saw notice on a LinkedIn Group that the American Marketing Association was offering a webinar on using the social web to make your business more efficient.  The presenter was a guy named Nathan Egan, a former LinkedIn exec who had just started a company called Freesource.  The price was right — free — so I attended.  Nathan seemed like a bright guy and at the end of the webinar, he invited the participants to follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn, so I did.

Getting on the radar

Through Twitter, I appeared on Nathan’s radar and he began reading my blog.  The topics I wrote about resonated with him, and, like many readers of {grow}, one day he called me to talk through some of his business problems. We continued to support each other and toss ideas around over a period of months.

Nathan assembled a great team and Freesource grew quickly as businesses sought the company’s advice on using the social web to make their businesses more productive and efficient.  As the client base grew, he needed a wide variety of resources to support projects, and, since I can do a wide variety of things, I seemed to fit the bill!  Nathan began sending me paid assignments to fill in the many white spaces of a start-up company.

I loved the work because our views on business and marketing were aligned and I absolutely bought into his vision of how the new media could work for a corporation. As Nathan’s trust in me grew, he provided more important, strategic assignments.

Freesource quickly became one of the largest and most respected social media marketing agencies in the country.  Nathan no longer had time to work on the critical marketing functions of his company and asked me if I could help.  I recently agreed to become CMO on a part-time basis and help him through this exciting growth phase.

The success formula

This is a good time to reflect on that important formula I introduced a few months ago:

Connections + Meaningful content + Authentic helpfulness = Business benefits

How this worked in the real world:

• I was active on LinkedIn and established relevant new business connections.
• By providing meaningful content through Twitter, I appeared on Nathan’s radar screen. Ideas from my blog grabbed his attention.
• We offered authentic helpfulness to each other without regard of any future “pay-back.”  This built trust and a dialogue that led to a mutually-beneficial business partnership.

The more I’ve studied success stories in the social media space, the more I am convinced that this formula really does work.  This week, I’ll share a couple other examples to show how.

How does this fit with your own experiences on the social web?

This is part of a series on the unexpected business benefits of the social web. You might enjoy these other articles:

Part 2: On Twitter, even casual tweets can create business benefits

Part 3: LinkedIn: A goldmine of business opportunity

Zappos* is a successful company with a well-publicized, aggressive employee use of social media.  In fact, it may be the most famous social media model in all of blogdom. They have 13 blogs, 50,000 videos and their employees tweet like rabbits in heat.  It’s worked for them and it’s a wonderful case study. I get it.  But it’s probably the wrong model for most companies.   

And here’s the point where the waves of Zappo-sniffing social media purists come crashing down on me.  So be it.  This is dangerous stuff. 

It is relatively safe to blog and tweet about shoes.  But in many companies, the risk of an all-employee social media free love policy will far outweigh the benefits.  For many important companies all it will take is one Twitter-induced SEC violation, a leak of vital competitive information, or a national defense breach, and the hammer will come down on the use of social media forever. Policies are usually made to deal with the lowest common denominator.

Is this a leadership issue? Not necessarily. There are irresponsible people everywhere.  There are disgruntled employees even in the best-managed companies.   Where corruption can occur it will occur. Welcome to the human race.

So what’s the answer?

Under the following conditions, the Zappos model might be ideal:

• Company culture supports employee engagement
• Company leadership understands the model
• Customer base is active on the social web in a meaningful way
• Benefits outweigh risk of security breach

If just one of these conditions are not met, the free love policy cannot work. 

That’s not to say that social media won’t work in some form with almost any company if there is appropriate training, role clarity, effective policy and boundaries. But you have to fit the tactics to the strategy — and the culture — just like any initiative. 

A marketing leader has to make effective decisions based on what IS, not on what you WISH for. You can’t “will” a social media effort to work in your company just because it worked in the Zappos corporate culture.

For an excellent and thorough perspective on the need for effective and appropriate corporate social media policies, I recommend Kent Huffman’s recent post on the subject.

OK, your turn. Let ‘er rip!

*If you are unfamiliar with the Zappos social media model, Jeff Bullas has written wonderful case studies on this company:

• How Does Social Media Help Deliver On Zappos’s 10 Core Company Values

• Why Would Your Company Need 13 Blogs?

• Revelations On How An Online Retailer Went From Zero to $1.2 Billion

• 6 Ways Zappos Uses Twitter To Increase Sales

Something amazing has happened.  I have nearly 8,000 Twitter followers in eight months.  How does somebody maintain a meaningful presence on Twitter with a crowd like that?  I’m a work in progress, but here’s what’s going on with me.  Maybe it will help you too!

First, after I block out the creeps, I consider it an honor to have somebody follow me.  Sure, they still might be trying to spam me, but my underlying assumption is that a new follower has genuine interest in me and I generally follow them back.  I want to treat anybody who follows me with respect. My intent is to connect with you if you sincerely want to connect with me.

The wave of noise

Obviously there is no way to have a meaningful dialogue with 8,000 — or even 1,000 — people.  It is a wave of noise.  As my followers grew, I realized that I was simply not going to be “engaged” with most of them.  

The compromise is, I try to stay engaged in a meaningful way with anybody who makes an attempt to connect with me through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or (gasp) the real world.  I manage this through Seesmic (or Tweetdeck, take your pick).  I have segregated lists of people who connect with me and I try to watch their activity and support them as much as possible.   If you make an effort to engage with me, I’ll put you on one of these lists so I can hopefully get to know you and engage. I truly want to help and support people in my audience any way I can, whether it is tweeting, reading your blog, or having a chat about a problem. 

Everybody’s equal

In my Twitter World, even though you may be one out of 8,000, everybody has an equal chance at dialogue.  I generally follow back — now it’s up to you!  I also make an attempt to engage in some way with new followers, especially if I see something in their profile that indicates a common interest. In general, if people connect to me, we stay connected.

I also maintain a Seesmic list of the folks I consider to be thought-leaders from a wide range of disciplines.  Learning from these great thinkers and having access to them is one of the best benefits of Twitter, in my opinion.

I have not used public Twitter lists for two reasons. First, I don’t see an advantage over the lists I’ve already built on Seesmic. Second, I don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings. If I had a list of “B2B thought leaders” and one of my followers wasn’t on it, it could hurt their feelings.  As I said, bottom line this is about respecting people. I know there is a real person behind that little picture and you are amazing in your own way.

What’s next?

This strategy seems to be working for the time being.   Can I maintain relevance with an audience of 10,000 or 20,000?   I’m sure I’ll have to adjust and I’ll probably have a new post to write you at that point!

In the mean time, I would appreciate your feedback.  What issues do you face with your growing list of followers? What ideas do you have that can help me do a better job staying connected with you?