Affiliate Networks Should Develop SUL’s
“In a few weeks you will not be following people that are not on at least one list as they will be considered either a spammer or irrelevant.” @vinnyohare
Earlier this week, Twitter caused a considerable amount of envy-then-joy as it slowly rolled out its new and important Lists feature to users.
Interestingly enough, there have been a number of affiliate lists popping up and a couple of them are really valuable:
These are just the lists that have included me (obviously the bests lists because of that), but there are already a number of Lists being rolled out by users that focus on affiliate marketing and its various niches such as Geno Prussakov’s valuable affiliate networks list.
Listorious has quickly gained the position as “Lists Central” in the geek community and a search for affiliate there comes up with interesting items like Affiliate Summit ’10’s speakers.
So, the question becomes how valuable are these purely subjective lists beyond just mindshare (which itself is valuable but not always immediate)?
What I think would be incredibly interesting relates roughly to what Market Leverage has put together (although in a sloppy shotgun-the-wall fashion) with their “Fans and Friends” List. Networks or affiliate vendors should already be putting together lists with all of their employees and execs for affiliates to follow. That’s a no-brainer. I’m waiting for Linkshare, Shareasale, CJ etc to realize the immediate return this would provide and do it themselves rather than waiting for an affiliate to do it for them.
Most importantly, Twitter Lists carry a large element of social/link capital with them. What would be interesting is for a network to use Lists in a “spotlight” type of way, highlighting interesting new affiliates, high performers, or just good people on a rotating basis. These would have to be small-numbered lists (20?) akin to Twitter’s oft-maligned but always envied “SUL” or Suggested Users List. These lists would also have to be highly marketed and grow the number of people following in order to bring the social capital, but that wouldn’t be a problem with the market share of the larger networks. And let’s face it… we all love to be on “Best Of” lists.
As Vinny points out, Lists changes the game of RT’s and Follower numbers. All of a sudden those metrics mean much less and how many (or which) Lists you appear on mean everything.
