There are all kinds of social media spamming and for a variety of reasons. For this blog, I want to focus on any purpose other than the intent to communicate and connect.
Example: Post a blog about a technical how-to and you receive a comment such as:
“Oh, so gald to see your views about acai berry,I’m also looking for acai supplements. I found a lots of websites online.
and i have read some other idea about :acai berry,extreme acai berry,acai berry product,acai berry supplement,
acai pills,extreme acai berry,acai berry diet.
There are also some review sites about acai berry diet, are they true or not?
Anyway, I’ll try acai soon.”
Or post a general blog about social networking and receive this comment:
“How I Lost 30 Pounds in 30 Days Without Diet Thanks for posting about this, I would like to read more about this topic.” Of course, a url for the weight loss site is included.
I am not going to get into the all the technical detail such as trackback submitter and rel=nofollow. You can read about those at numerous sites and blogs.
Obviously spam is not new just relatively new to social networking sites and provides new opportunities in the Socialsphere.
I put spammers into two categories: the professionals (whether they are good at it or not) and the amateurs.
Let’s stick with the amateurs because those we can deal with ourselves.
With blogs (WordPress specifically) I have the opportunity to: Approve Spam Delete Edit or Reply with each individual comment. I receive an email alert and I am in control (somewhat).
Content spamming originated in guest books. I had a 63 year old client that manufactured fishing lures. He would find guest books on fishing web sites. He would sign in with “Great site! Looks like you love fishing like I do. If you want to catch more fish, you should try my lure. [url address here]. I explained what was wrong with this idea, but he got results and there was no stopping him.
LinkedIn has it own amateur spammers. I joined a group about pets with less than 50 members. Of the eleven discussion comments in the group, seven are from the same member (read company) selling Social Media Marketing services. What is up with that?
Connecting is one thing, but blatant promotion is another. What would you or have you done in situations like this? Please comment.
Update: The owner of the group deleted the non-relevant comments and posted a reminder to the members regarding the focus of the group. Excellent.
Twitter has its own issues. The spammers don’t try to see what users might be interested in and don’t reach out to create a relationship. They often start with a Thank You for following me message with a link to their scheme. The site owner’s challenge is to sort out the voices they want to hear, from the clamoring spammers. I will take this one step further. As a twitter site owner, you have a responsibility to check out who is following you and weed out the spammers. If we are all diligent, there will be fewer places on twitter for these spammers to go. Let’s not make it easy. You can receive an email alert and check out each follower and direct message.
Facebook has its own set of rules for its members to follow. Facebook Fan Pages require the site administrator to be proactive in regularly checking the page. It is a difficult line to walk. You want the conversations and connections but not the junk. There are no email alerts or updates sent to you. As the site administrator, it is incumbent on you to manage the comments and posts.
Digg flat out states it is not for commercial use. Using Digg for selling or promoting may cause your account to be terminated.
YouTube guidelines center on creating misleading descriptions, tags, titles or thumbnails in order to increase views. They also discourage untargeted, unwanted or repetitive content.
Spamming can be different things to different people. My fishing lure manufacturer actually believed he was doing a good deed by sharing how great his lure was with others.
What you consider news or marketing may be considered spamming to others. The two comment examples above are obviously content spam. Ask yourself this question when commenting or in a discussion group – Is it germane to the original content? It is all about you or your company. If so then you may be spamming too.
@social_dynamics
Social Media Content Spamming – Tracking and Taking Action
Friday, November 20th, 2009By Sharon Hill
Still dealing with the spammers from Russia. I did make progress but I have one pesky fellow named Vadim.
I have my WordPress/Settings/Discussion set to:
I do not want to add an entire country to the blacklist, so I have tried the @domain.ru as a compromise. In my case, it was @fesin.ru. This worked until Vadim started spamming. I tried several different versions in my blacklist.
Prior to Vadim, WordPress and Akismet were doing their jobs because I was not seeing any more spam from the domain @fesin.ru. In fact, I only received 2 Russian originated spam comments in a period of 3 weeks.
Then along comes Vadim. So how do I know it is someone named Vadim?
In the email you receive, information is provided such as:
Author : lipitorw (IP: 81.30.187.197 , 81.30.187.197.dynamic.ufanet.ru) E-mail : dxxdxxdxxs1111@gmail.com
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=81.30.187.197
Use this link: http://www.db.ripe.net/whois and input the IP address (in this case 81.30.187.197)
This way you can get to the source:
person: Vadim Gxxxxx
address: deleted for blog
address: deleted for blog
address: deleted for blog
phone: deleted for blog
fax-no: deleted for blog
e-mail: vadim@ufanet.ru
Now I can add vadim@ufanet.ru along with previously added @ufanet.ru and @dyanmic.ufanet.ru in my blacklist.
You also receive the link in the email where the spammer wants to send you. I actually went to the link imbedded in the comment. It is a stumbler at stumbleupon.com. Sure enough this stumbler is all about the online pharmacy site. I check another email and go to another link. This one is at a forum for collaboration. The links are member pages or member forums that look like something real until you scroll down and see the ad to buy the prescriptions. In one case, it appeared to link to a member site and instead went to a landing page (ad). In checking with these sites, I did not find anything specifically against terms of service except no commercial spamming allowed and no posting that promote businesses. It is not always intuitive how to contact the sites to register a complaint. Most of the social media sites expect members to police themselves.
I realize that not many folks would not take the next step. I called the online pharmacy and actually spoke to someone letting him know that our blog was being spammed from Russia with links to their company website! I emailed the Whois information along with our blog URL address. I received a nice automated reply. The pharmacy is located in England. I do not expect any real action.
So far I have received spam by way The Netherlands, Russia and The British Virgin Islands.
In the RIPE database there are two fields labeled mnt-by and referral-by. By clicking on one or both you should be able to find the abuse@ address. I sent one to the British Virgin Islands and received a response. No more email from that spammer!
In my email accounts, I have been extremely proactive in responding to spam and have been quite successful. I plan on taking the same approach with comment spamming.
With email spammers, I use the unsubscribe link, then spam it and then block or filter it. In addition, if they are in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm I cut and paste the relevant portion along with the link and email it back. Locally, when someone in just trying to make a buck and harvests emails from an association, I have called them, and while being polite, have let them know that there are laws regarding sending unsolicited emails and offer to send them the link.
There is a much grumbling about spam and I admit that I have grumbled too. Since we are the recipients of spam it is difficult to be proactive without be overly restrictive. Go the extra mile and learn about how your blogs are being spammed. Understand the underlying activity and set a course of action, then do the work.
@social_dynamics
Tags: blog spamming, comment spam, content spam, Email, email spamming, spam, spammers, stumbler, stumbleupon, WordPress spamming
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