Recently I was in the forums of one of my favorite social networks ~ twittermoms.com. I was in the twitter newbies forum and someone had asked what everyone’s favorite twitter tool was.

I enjoy twitter tools and told people what my favorites are and why.  I also led people to my cool twitter tools lens and encouraged them to add their favorites to the list.

I checked back in a day or so later to see what other twitter tools people were using that I might not know about (those new tools come up just about every day).

The newest response was a banner ad. Yep, just a banner ad pasted into the space where words should be.

If you want no one to click your link this is a great way to do it.

In social communities the point is to be social, communicate, help people out, not blatently paste your affiliate links and banners everywhere. (Later I saw the same banner ad pasted throughout the forum)

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying don’t use your affiliate links in forums. If it’s cool with the terms of service of the site you’re on, go for it, but do it the right way!

Provide some insight, answer the question being presented, tell people why you love the product ~ then SURE give them the link to go check it out. (and yeah, you can use your affiliate link).

There’s nothing worse than a conversation rudely interrupted by a huge banner ad.

Remember that people don’t necessarily buy products ~ they buy people. So if you give them some great information and maybe a story about how the product has helped you they have a connection to you, and click the link feeling good about checking out a great resource.

If you can do that you won’t have to worry about no one clicking your link.

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