However, you cut it and define it, there’re marketers out there who do their best to make use of Twitter, Squidoo, Hubpages, MySpace, Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr, Metacafe, Youtube, Revver, forums and other social networking site (of the “Web 2.0” ilk) to generate adsense or affiliate income.

Some of them are spectacularly successful, while others just flame up and die, and have their accounts deleted en-masse.

So is Web 2.0 a “dead” technology for marketers?

Are Web 2.0 site destined to become a dead graveyard populated by “internet polluters“?

I don’t think so.

This issue came up during the taping of a Friday Podcast session with Affiliate Classroom’s Marketing VP and affiliate marketing industry veteran Rachel Honoway.

I was pretty impressed that Web 2.0-based affiliates ranked alongside SEO, PPC, Coupon, shopping comparison and other types of profiled affiliates in Affiliate Classroom’s new AC Certified program for Affiliate Managers.

If you recall, Jim Kukral presented a session on “Bloggers as the Next Generation of Super Affiliates” at Affiliate Summit West 2007.

And it’s great to see these new generation of affiliate marketers being profiled in the new program, and even better, there’re tips for new and experienced affiliate managers to reach out to these marketers.

But back to “Web 2.0” for a second.

If you’ve been reading this blog over the last couple of weeks, you’d pick up the thread that this new breed of affiliates is focused on building conversations/conversation marketing as Internet Geek Girl Steph Agresta would say.

It’s about relationship marketing and community marketing…permission marketing plays a part in there as well.

For it to be truly effective, you need to be able to meet your prospects needs, and not bank on using a bunch of bulletins or PMs or mass broadcasts to bombard them with irrelevant offers (even at $100 a lead…), just because the technologies let you do so.

If I had my way, I’d hit the internet and do a global “search-and-replace” and replace all references of “web 2.0” with “social traffic” or “community building”.

But then again, isn’t enforcing your opinion on a mass basis, the equivalent of “curation” (a nice politically-correct phrase for “censorship”)?

I think I like freedom of expression better, so this is going into my Twitter stream.

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Keep an eye out for the Friday Podcast with Rachel Honoway tomorrow – there’re some goodies in store.

One way to effectively orchestrate you campaign is to identify the key groups, one of which you’ll one to influence and one which you’ll get little or no leverage from.

Influencers: will punch way above their weight. As opinion leaders the inclusion of your URL on their blog or web post could potentially send tens of thousands scurrying to your site.

On the other hand, you’ll want to avoid excessively using the Herd crowd. They’ll tend to parrot what the influencers say, and have little leverage themselves.

Again, the quality measure is much more important than just the quantity of people you’re able to reach out to.

Is social traffic/social media optimization just a gimmicky trick as Jason Calacanis declares “Anyone who hires an SMO firm is an idiot” in a recent post?

Granted there are SEO/SEM/SMO firms out there who do the equivalent of link or trackback spamming, but at the same time to make a blanket statement like that makes for sensational headlines, but as for reflecting the truth?

I think not.

• SEO/SEM

Shoemoney put out a tasty post and buzzed industry contacts with the hypothetical “Would you hire Matt Cutts? If you had to come up with a dollar figure to offer him what would it be? What would his job title and job description be?”

A number of informative and insightful responses from the likes of Kris Jones (CEO PepperJamSearch), Patrick Gavin (CEO Text Link Ads), Greg Hartnett (Best Of The Web), Christine Kim, Rand Fishkin (Owner SEOMOZ), Jason Calacanis (Former CEO Weblogs INC & AOL Exec), Neil Patel – CEO ACS Web Consulting, Danny Sullivan, Aaron Wall – SEOBook

Here’s the link: Would You Hire Matt Cutts?

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• Blogging

Robyn Tippins looks at the backlash from the bloggers perspective from the proposed acquistion of Performancing’s assets by PayPerPost (as mentioned earlier PerPerPost Acquires Performancing Assets). The PPP and Performancing deal nixed? Good thing or bad thing?

Here’s the link: Pay Per Post and Performancing Deal Nixed
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• Affiliate Marketing

Has Click Fraud been blown out of proportion? Jon F gives his perspective and gives his fix to the solution. The fact that he filed his post under “Industry Bullshit” will give an indication of his straight up, in your face perspective on the issue. (I’m looking forward to checking out his session together with Shoemoney at Affiliate Summit West)

Here’s the link: Click Fraud – The Overrated Internet Killer

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• Social Traffic

Social Marketer Michelle MacPhearson is back. Having given birth to a beautiful son, Colum, expect more social traffic tips from Michelle this year. I learned quite a bit from her about social traffic generation last year and will be expecting more good things from her this year.

Here’s the link: 1 Day Old