Social Network Users Sick of Spammy “Friend Requests”
By Anna Johnson on June 26th, 2008A study commissioned by Cloudmark has found that 83 percent of social networking website users have received unwanted (or spammy) “friend” invitations, messages or postings on their social or professional network account in the past 12 months.
Two-thirds (66 percent) of those surveyed said they would be at least somewhat likely to switch to another social network if they continued receiving a significant number of such unwanted messages.
Meanwhile, the vast majority (80 percent) of social network users were at least somewhat concerned about spam, phishing and virus attacks on their social or professional network account.
None of this should come as a surprise and is a warning to Internet marketers seeking to use social networks like MySpace, Facebook and the like as mass marketing communication tools. They’re not. Facebook, for one, plans to crack down on attempts to spam users. Meanwhile, social network users are well aware – and obviously tired – of attempts to spam them.
They’re certainly unlikely to respond kindly to such spam, let alone actually convert into customers.
Sources: “Nationwide Survey Shows the Prevalence of Spam on Social Networking Sites, Threatening Growth and Membership Retention”, Cloudmark, June 9, 2008, Kikabink News, “Facebook Too Zealous In Combating Spammy Applications?”, June 26, 2008
