Please don’t use eBay.com’s new sharing tool

by Chris Dawson

eBay have just introduced new share features for listings on .com, but the best advice I can give you is just don’t. Don’t use them. Don’t click them. Don’t get social!

ebaysocialmediasharingI know what you’re thinking – why would eBay put them there if they don’t want you to use them? Well it’s simple, eBay want you to spread the love and make everyone you know aware of the cool things available to buy on the site. What’s likely to happen though is people will run through their own listings thinking what a great idea it is to click them all hoping someone will buy. They forget however that all their friends already know what they sell and really aren’t interested.

Social media is already being over run with ways to spam your mates with what you sell. If it’s not cross posting your eBay listings to Twitter (a sure way to lose a ton of followers), it’ll be spamming all your Facebook friends begging them to become a fan of your shop page.

Even eBay, deep down inside themselves, know that self promotion is a bad thing. That’s why on the email share option they say “If you use this service to advertise an item you are selling and the recipient complains to eBay, your eBay registration may be suspended”, with a link to the spam policy.

So to keep your friends and not annoy your followers here are Chris’ three rules for sharing:

  1. If you’re going to share make sure it’s an interesting or unusual item.
  2. Don’t share your own products, be interesting so that people look to see what you sell out of curiosity.
  3. And this is the ultimate rule – Don’t automate sharing, if it’s not personal no one cares

Now go and have fun. When you find the weirdest, whackiest, crazy stuff that makes us love eBay, go click the share button, tweet it, facebook it or if you’re a little old fashioned email it to your buddies. Just make sure it’s something actually worth sharing.

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Tags for this post: , ,
Author: Chris Dawson
Posted at: Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Filed Under Site Changes, Soapbox, eBay.com
 

Small Business 2.0

Comments

9 Responses to "Please don’t use eBay.com’s new sharing tool"

  1. board_surfer says:
    October 30, 2009 at 9:23 pm

    When you find the weirdest, whackiest, crazy stuff that makes us love eBay, i’m bloody buying it! sod the rest of the world!!!

    :lol: :lol:

  2. Hillary says:
    October 30, 2009 at 10:07 pm

    I like the idea of the feature for cool listings, noteworthy ones, etc.

    As for people spamming, lord knows they all do it already so what’s another button for them to use. ;-)

    • Chris Dawson says:
      October 31, 2009 at 12:22 am

      “What’s another button for them”?… just wait until some ignoramus figures out a way to automate it with a (hopefully non-existent so they can’t) API call.

      I can promise you one thing though – anyone on my facebook or who I follow on twitter that starts spamming me won’t be a friend/followed for long :grin:

      • ebuyerfb says:
        October 31, 2009 at 12:27 am

        You really don’t need an API call to do that. Just a platform notification that occurs when the seller lists an item and a developer account on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

        hmm…

  3. Steve L. says:
    October 31, 2009 at 3:57 pm

    I totally agree. I put up with it the first time on Facebook, maybe they’re just trying things out.

    The second time I make a mental note.

    Strike three – they’re hidden from view.

    I spent 30 minutes hiding auction spammers and re-Tweeters on Facebook a couple months ago and it was the best way I’ve ever found to clean up my feed.

  4. Sambora says:
    October 31, 2009 at 7:27 pm

    Plus, there’s another side of spamming that people seem to be overlooking. And that is saturation. People will get so sick of seeing eBay spam everywhere they go that they’ll just start tuning it out. I started skipping over all the Google entries for eBay items years ago, but that was partly because the auctions would end long before I saw the link and clicked on it. Or even worse, potential new eBay buyers could be completely turned off by eBay if they see too much spam.

  5. board_surfer says:
    October 31, 2009 at 9:20 pm

    I quite like spam

    If it wasnt for spam I would get hardly any emails.

    I make me feel wanted ;-)

  6. Steve says:
    November 4, 2009 at 1:14 pm

    There are people on facebook who just spam, spam, spam everyone and anyone with their groups and product links – a few of whom I have no idea who they are – I never see them on the boards, any private groups, on here etc.

    It hardly gives any credibility, and is not excatly targetted. If I wanted to advertise my goods to other sellers, I’d up my activity on eBid….