5 Comments

Support Our Industry with Your InfoTithes

Sep 20, 2007
by

You should contribute more to our industry.

Sharing knowledge in the online medium does not weaken your business, give your “competitors” an unfair advantage or loose you clients. I’d argue that participating in the information share online does the exact opposite of those thing.

The building blocks of morality, empathy and sharing predate humanity and are explicitly observable in other species beyond ourselves and the great apes. Even Adam Smith, the father of modern economic self interest theory, recognized that empathy and sharing do not conflict with the invisible hand of the free market.

Sharing is not just caring, sharing is mutually beneficial. Your silence on blogs, forums and social networks doesn’t improve your business but leaves a hole that only you can fill. So, think beyond yourself and recognize that your knowledge greed does you and your business more harm than good.

Shawn Collins coined the phrase “info tithing” (as far as I know) last week with his post on the subject. He includes:

There is a relatively small circle of folks in the industry that have a voice on blogs, podcasts, forums, Tweets, videos, etc.

I’d imagine that silent majority among networks, affiliates, and merchants has some great feedback and advice, but they’re all “too busy.”

Well listen here – if you care about the industry, invest in it with your insight. It doesn’t take so much time to contribute.

Sad, but true. Even worse are those who use the excuse that they are too busy to interact and participate in the conversation because they are “too busy.” If you don’t have time to improve your business, perhaps you need to re-adjust your schedule.

What is most interesting is that this post is not directed towards just old pro’s in this industry (such as the ones who have a space and opportunity to write here and get their thoughts out to thousands of RSS subscribers and a growing readership basis but are “too busy” to contribute), but also to newbie’s and intermediates. There is no barrier to entry. We all have a unique viewpoint on the industry, and you should let that be heard.

I would include network representatives in the addressee list, but I’ve done that time and time with no response (with the exception of Brian Littleton) at places like CostPerNews. I’m not giving up on you network people, but I’m not expecting much from you in the way of participating in the conversation, either. For shame.

So, you want to participate but don’t feel as if you have the time to put together a coherent blog post every week or so? There’s countless options for you:

Twitter
Blog Comments
Bookmarking services with public RSS(del.icio.us, ma.gnolia)
Social networks (BUMPzee comes to mind)
Forums
Tumblr
Start or join and email list
Participate in conferences either in person or virtually

… and the list goes on.

So thank you Shawn for your post and for bringing up the issue. There will always be more lurkers than participants in any system, but your voice is requested in order to improve this industry.

Filed under: Affiliate Marketing + Internet Strategy + Online Marketing + Social Media + Social Networks & Networking
  • Stephen Robinson

    Hi Sam,

    Great blog. This is my first ReveNews comment, your blog calls me out, I am guilty of being a lurker.

    “here will always be more lurkers than participants in any system, but your voice is requested in order to improve this industry.”

    Perhaps some insight into my lurker status, being fairly new to the industry, about 2 1/2 years, I fell under the assumption that I hadn’t earned the right to participate in these blogs. Perhaps I never felt welcome to partipate or that I had anything compelling enough to say. Thank you for your blog and for challenging us all to become more involved in “info tithing”.

  • http://blog.affiliatetip.com Shawn Collins

    Nice post, Sam.

    I’d suggest to anybody who is chronically “too busy” that they should read “Getting Things Done” by David Allen (if you can find the time).

    Quick read and it can revolutionize the way you do things and your effectiveness.

  • http://get-in2.com Mike HYland

    A welcome call to action assuming this industry doesn't just want to post pats on the back of fellow insiders. I'm probably the most prolific "info Tithing" voice in this industry and half the time at Revenews any contributions of insights, truths or observations are blocked by the info/adjenda censors. You can't have it both ways and expect the PC regulated content to keep drawing silent lurkers looking for comments on debatable subjects.

  • http://www.revenews.com Sam Harrelson

    Mike-

    Not really sure what you're talking about with the "info/agenda censors" part but it sounds like there was some sort of issue in the past. Since I've been publisher of the place, that hasn't happened and it won't happen going forwards.

    As far as patting fellow insiders on the back, that seems to happen anywhere people congregate from ABestWeb to here to Affiliate Summit. I think my post was pretty clear that I'm hoping fresh and new voices who aren't "insiders" like we all are will start joining these conversations.

    Sam

  • http://www.get-in2.com Mike Hyland

    Sample of what I was talking about….posting error trap

    Publish error in template: 'Comment Response': Error in tag: error in module Header: Error in tag: Can't find included template identifier 'styles'

    TREAD = http://www.revenews.com/mikemurray/2007/09/excuse…

    Relivent content I wanted to post there….

    Good long term SEO projects had better involve the real merchant sales management, as it is best leveraged for in-house sales activity. Done right it solidifies a site's natural conversion ratio by combining SE page #1 natural SERP and Sponsor links with multiple listings. Talk about a targeted traffic conversion machine. That is the prime purpose of white hat SEO, as it's done without any regard to employing any SEO "flavor of the month" tricks.

    Good SEO has to play by two SE ranking rules that never change.

    1. Good relevent customer facing landing pages, pertaining the keyword searches, deserve top positions.

    2.Merchant trademark holders with real "add to shopping cart" buttons and fullfilment responsibilities will outrank all posers.

    Here's a real world challenge for all the SEO firms out there to add to your arsenal. Are you able to build a 3rd party hosted satellite site for a merchant complete with shopping cart, Google Adwords campaign with Google analytics sales conversion tracking, PayPal and Google Checkout payment options all for under 600.00???

    I did it for a merchant, with true product passion, who tired of listening to marketing experts shoving affiliate white noise and house sales poachers at him for 2 years. Did it all within 2 weeks and launched it yesterday.

    Will http://www.HealthProO2.com do the long term SEO job? Fine tune over a month and get merchant's other sites to cross link ( certainly not a paid link senerio) for link pop. It becomes a parallel house sales channel for their existing sites with no interference to existing affiliates.