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As marketers we often get excited about any way we can generate more exposure, interest and visibility to our messages. No surprise then that the social bookmarking services have been rushed by an influx of commercial messages, “gaming” and reciprocal voting.
Of course the services have reacted with their algorithms and measures to counter marketing tactics. Could your account get caught up in the crossfire?
What all the services want is a varied list of interesting sites. Most marketers claim that because their content is good then any kind of promotion is fair game. After all, the social bookmarking services want great information, and the marketers think they are creating it. Everyone wins, right?
But as a way to get traction and momentum marketers are voting up each other, regardless of quality. Or even in some cases voting up their own sites. Members of services then complain about spam, and accuse marketers of poisoning the well for everyone.
Recently as a way to combat this type of activity, StumbleUpon has been handing out “Ghost Bans”
Ghost Banned on StumbleUpon: You can thumb up, thumb down, discover… pretty much anything a regular user can do. The only thing is, your efforts don’t count. You can tell if you’re “ghost banned” by discovering a page, opening up a different browser, and visiting the review page of the site you just discovered. If it says “Discovered by someone” and not you, you’re a ghost. No word yet on how to reverse this.
The only solution is to keep your activity natural:
- Do not vote just because you are asked to
- Actually read before you vote
- Use send and share tools sparingly
- Keep on topic, and tag ethically
- Avoid “echo chamber” voting where everyone in your social group votes on the same stuff
If you find your accounts are not sending the traffic they once did, then you might have been penalized or silently banned. Watch out!
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