Has The Times been spamming social media?
Waxy and Muhammad Saleem have picked up on a story about the The Times apparently hiring an SEO company to “spam” social media sites but is it really spam?
Most good SEO consultants (myself included) use social media to promote their clients, sometimes it is the main thing the consultant is hired to do. In this case I doubt The Times needs much on site SEO help so it makes sense that a consultant would be focusing on social media.
The problem seems to be that the accounts were being used solely to promote The Times and not for promoting lots of other sites too. Would this tactic have been acceptable if the user had promoted lots of other sites as well?
I think there is a fine line involved in promoting sites with social media and personally I’m not sure which side of the line this falls. What do you think?
Post category: Social Media Tweet
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
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I think it’s ok for them to promote it. If the user base of the social networking site do not like it then they have the ability to knock it back (or bury it in the case of Digg). If the times are hiring a company to provide fake “Diggs” or the equivalent on other sites then that would be a shady area.