Confession From a Facebook SPAMMER?

Send 150 Friend Requests and Get Banned From Connecting

Yesterday, I spoke about folks SPAMMING your Facebook News Feed to boost their popularity, mindshare, and of course, to pitch their stories, thoughts and ideas. This morning I caught this news feed item from Andrew Bourland. In his video post, Andrew describes how he bulk contacted certain Facebook groups in order to boost his Facebook friend count. To be honest, I got Andrews friend request (and accepted it) as it was right around the same time I had put out a call to connect request on this blog, so i figured it was a reader looking to connect with me.

I guess I was wrong because I received the exact same form introduction that Andrew describes sending in his video.

Is This SPAM Behavior?

If I sent 150 emails to people I did not know, would people consider me to be SPAMMING them? I imagine some would and some would not. The very fact that Andrew got a high response rate to his friend requests suggest that most did not consider it to be SPAM, but Facebook did as they restricted his ability to send additional friend requests for sending too many identical Facebook friend request emails. This is the sort of behavior that got eCommerce recruiter Harry Joiner banned from Facebook.

I Am Giving Andrew The Benefit of the Doubt

I am going to give Andrew the benefit of the doubt here and say that he “did not know” that this type of behavior would result in getting suspend access to making Facebook friend requests. But, I have to ask, as a founder of the ClickZ Network (which is all about online marketing) should he not have known better? The answer to this, I will leave up to you.

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