I just came across this great new Social Media Resource Center on the IBOAI website, with tips on the do’s and dont’s of using social media to promote an Amway business. The guide gives some great summaries of different social media services, their rules and guidelines, and general netiquette on using them.

Where I found the guide falls down is in addressing older forms of internet communication such as blogs and forums and the continued failure to address the fact that the Internet is not a broadcast medium, as I pointed out last year. Amway seems to consider an IBO’s internet presence as a form of “non-local” advertising, when in fact something like a blog is as “local” as you can get – it’s only available to people who have actively decided to go to the location of your site. Something like google display ads are not “local” – you’re broadcasting them over a variety of websites over which you have no control, and neither does the recipient. Sending a spam email to masses of people you don’t know – that too is broadcasting. A blog post, a tweet, a facebook page – they’re local, narrowcast messages sent only to people who actively want to receive them – people who have made personal contact. Amway’s view seems to be that personal contact can only be made in one direction: IBO to prospect. Why? If this was a consistent rule, then if someone “in the real world” learned I was an IBO, and contacted me for some reason (saw an ad, read an old internet article, heard from a friend, whatever) – it would be wrong of me to respond to them. That’s ridiculous isn’t it? Continue reading IBOAI launches Social Media Guide for Amway Business Owners →