Peer Squared is a new platform that allows people to share commercial messages with their online communities and earn points that are redeemable on Amazon. It’s an interesting concept and the first one I’m aware of that actively encourages people to share brand messages on their personal social networks by offering tangible rewards for doing so.
The motorcycle manufacturer Ducati just got on board, but I haven’t heard of any of the other four brands that so far have “programs” on the site. So when Peer Squared calls itself “a peer-endorsed online marketing platform that rewards you for promoting the brands and products you love across the internet,” that’s only true if 1) a brand that you happen to love is there, 2) your motivation for promoting the brand is that you truly love it, vs. you’re only 1000 points away from that Sony speaker system you’ve been dying to get for free.
There’s the rub. It’s one thing for brand enthusiasts to share messages and brand content out of their true love for the brand, with no motivation beyond the fact that when we find something we think is really good, there’s nothing more rewarding than being the source for others to discover and enjoy it for themselves. And it’s perfectly legitimate for brands to help enable that, through widgets, links and sharable content. That’s the beauty of social media marketing. Your customers do the marketing, out of love for your brand, and that marketing achieves a new level of integrity and effectiveness. But it’s quite another thing when someone’s motive for sharing information about the brand isn’t simply out of love, but out of a more self-serving objective — to get stuff in return.
And what does it say to our online social connections when we throw commercial messages in their faces, for products we in fact may not really believe in, for the sake of a few thousand Amazon reward points? Is that what the social web is becoming? A platform for shilling products to our friends? “Hi friend, I interrupt my Facebook feed for this short commercial message.” With friends like that …, well, you know how the rest of the saying goes.
I’ve started a little experiment. I’ve signed up to Peer Squared and placed content on my Facebook page, Twitter and elsewhere. I’m curious to see how fast I can accumulate points, and whether my social network notices, is indifferent or protests.
I’ll keep you posted.
The Social Media Soapbox 