Why Is Facebook So Hot, Especially For Affiliate Marketers?

July 25, 2011

UPDATE: Income Hybrid 3in1 Software Suite And WPFacePages Are No Longer Available

If you want a WordPress plugin that builds Facebook pages for you with custom tabs, etc., then I recommend the Fan Page Builder plugin. It replaced WPFacePages.

I don’t get the appeal of Facebook. I really don’t. It looks crappy (like something designed by a teenager) and it’s got the most gawd-awful user interface I’ve come across in a long, long time.

Yet people love it. Go figure.

And people love it so much, they love it more than Google. Yes, folks, it’s official, Facebook gets more traffic than Google. It’s been acknowledged by Google (who are now fighting back with Google+) and Facebook now has a PageRank of 10, equal to that of the almighty Google itself.

Despite hating the whole Facebook “thing”, as an affiliate marketer I can’t ignore. I’ve tried but it just won’t go away.

Providing more free traffic than Google can shake a stick at means Facebook now has to be factored into the affiliate marketing equation and than means building fanpages (yuck!).

Facebook used to use something called FBML. Haven’t got a clue what it stands for (Flippin’ Bloody Marvellous Language?) but it was dropped in favour of iframes. Whoop-de-do. All that happened while I was looking the other way hoping Facebook would be just another flash-in-the-pan fad.

But no, iframes and Facebook are here to stay. Now I couldn’t be arsed spending time building crappy fanpages with Facebook’s tools and their crappy interface. I want a tool that’s going to take the pain out of it so I won’t end up slitting my wrists at the end of the day.

Well, one such tool trundled into my Inbox today.

There’s lots of emails going out about it – it’s called the Income Hybrid 3in1 Software Suite (catchy title, huh?) –no longer available. It’s 47 bucks and you can click the link to get it if you want.

I found there’s a 1-hour webinar on a special page that only a select few are supposed to see but I’m in a crappy mood what with all the Facebook crappiness I’ve been dealing with today that even though I shouldn’t give you the link…

…but here it is anyway – sorry, no, it’s no longer available either! The webinar was pretty good at explaining why Facebook is so important to affiliate marketers, before the inevitable hard sell of the Income Hybrid 3in1 Software Suite appeared (thankfully it was only in the last few minutes of the vid).

Pretty box-shot of Income Hybrid 3in1 Software Suite

Ok, so despite my low opinion of Facebook, it looks like it has potential as a revenue stream. So did I buy Income Hybrid 3in1 Software Suite (what a mouthful!)? Nope. Looks like a decent system for those who want a quick push-button solution. But I want more control…

…and during my research today I came across the WPFacePages plugin for WordPress – also no longer available. It integrated WordPress with Facebook and vice-versa so you had a fully integrated system. Set up of a fanpage was a bit long winded but that’ was because of Facebook’s app IDs, secret keys and other crappy interface stuff just making things harder than they need to be. WPFacePages was also created by Mike Johnson of AutoBlog Blueprint fame.

There’s no pretty box shot for WPFacePages

So why WPFacePages instead of Income Hybrid 3in1 Software Suite? Because with WordPress I have much greater control over what I can put on a fanpage. With Income Hybrid 3in1 Software Suite, monetization is limited to Clickbank, Amazon and eBay though you could stuff whatever ads you want onto your fanpage (it’s a better solution for those who don’t want to go the WordPress route). I don’t know if the affiliate links it creates are cloaked but I like cloaked links. Stops link juice from draining out of my blogs through that’s probably not an issue for a fanpage.

With WPFacePages, I can use WordPress monetization plugins like PHPBay, PHPZon and EasyAZON to put product listings on the page. It also had a lot more features than Income Hybrid 3in1 Software Suite. And I could change the fanpage content any time I liked (don’t know if you can change a fanpage built with Income Hybrid 3in1 Software Suite after the fact). And, since I bought the Developer version of WPFacePages, I could include the plugin on blogs I flipped as an extra incentive for people to buy and to charge a higher asking price.

So it’s WPFacePages for me – the plugin can be used on an unlimited number of domains you personally own, and it’s only 27 bucks, 20 cheaper than Income Hybrid 3in1 Software Suite. Fanpage templates are available for another 10 bucks, so it’s still cheaper than Income Hybrid 3in1 Software Suite.

So what’s the downside for WPFacePages? It needs a separate blog for each fanpage, so there is an overhead in webserver space and resources. Still, it’s greater flexibility suits me better.

Time to gird my loins and do battle with facebook (groan!)