No really, I do. Every time I fire up my favorite social media sites I see it. People coming up with sneaky, underhanded, usually unethical, and occasionally illegal ways to promote themselves. But every time I think about downloading that spam-bot or using a MLM scheme, this stupid voice in my head reminds me that I’ve spent the last three years online playing by the rules, and cheaters never win in the long run. Maybe it’s not that I have a conscience. Maybe I just have schizophrenia. Highly moral schizophrenia. But since I don’t have coverage for anti-psychotics, I guess I’m stuck wishing I could trade in my Jiminy Cricket for a few million viewers.

One person who obviously doesn’t have the same moral dilemma that I face is Gary Mccaffrey. Haven’t heard of him yet? Gary is an Internet marketer, and while I cannot say with any certainty that he has no soul or no conscience, my magic 8 ball says that all signs point in that direction. Recently (12 hours before this post was published) Gary released a new site called tweetergetter (and no, I’m not linking to the site – if you want to see it, you’re smart enough to find it, and hopefully smart enough not to use it). This new site plays off the very old concept called the multi level marketing scheme, or MLM for short. MLM’s in written form are typically illegal, and if the post office learns that you’re taking part in a mail version of one you get slapped with a federal offense.  The reason for this is that these things not only don’t work the way they’re advertised, but usually the only winner in the game is the person who starts the chain.

Gary makes boisterous claims about his new program, that you can get either 15,625 or 19,530 new followers in under a month (he uses both numbers) by simply joining his site and retweeting the message to join the site. When you join, you’re made to follow the six people on the list, and your name goes to the number one slot. The idea is that 5 people see your message, and they tell 5 people, who tell 5 people, etc…

The problem is, this program, like all MLM schemes, might give you a little return, but it’s not going to be a return that you enjoy in the long run. What’s the point of having 20,000 mindless followers that don’t really care what you’ve got to say or who you are? I’ve gone that route, when I was featured on YouTube. I got over 1,000 followers in a couple days (mind you, that was pretty impressive three years ago), and since then, I don’t think any of those people have ever come back to watch my videos twice.

Good marketing requires that you’re “sticky”, that people come to you, get stuck on you, and draw others to come get stuck on you too. When you’ve achieved this stickiness, your marketing force becomes your followers, and you just have to keep the good stuff flowing. Tweetgetter (and other sites that advertise MLM) induce a “fake stickiness”. Sure, maybe 10,000 people MIGHT follow you on twitter, but they don’t even know who you are. They only followed you because they knew the number 1 person on that list, and that person has 5 degrees of separation from you. How far is 5 degrees of separation? It’s far enough that you can connect a loser like me with Kevin Bacon (No really, you can – a movie buff friend of mine figured it out. I was on a National TV show with Kevin Costner, and it’s only like three jumps from him to Bacon). What I’m getting at is that Even if the people who are joining this thing really like that number 1 person, they have no clue who you are. From a marketing standpoint, these followers are useless fluff.

And then, there’s the tax this will create on the system. If you haven’t seen a “Too many tweets” over capacity page on Twitter, you haven’t been there long.  So, let’s take a fragile system and shove several hundred thousand new tweets down it’s throat. Brilliant idea. Plus, twitter only allots so much bandwidth for API usage, which means that if you like tweetdeck or some other api-driven client for twitter, this site is stealing your mojo.

Ultimately, the only winner is Gary, who gets his name retweeted over and over, becoming the most popular guy on retweetradar. Whether you get popular because of this is inconsequential to him. He’s doing this to build up HIS popularity, and you’re a pawn. Congratulations on that.

Here’s my prediction: He will grossly overuse twitter bandwidth, his site will get blacklisted, and everyone in his “system” is screwed, with nothing to show other than a few followers who don’t even care about them. He, on the other hand, gains 15 minutes of fame (or infamy, which is about the same in marketing). All the while, I’ll just plod along on my twitter account, doing what I do. But don’t take my word for it – let’s talk to an expert.

Aaaaaand according to the magic 8 ball, all sources say “yes”.