One key lesson in the Internet Marketing World of 2012 and beyond is that Less Means More. Don’t try too hard. Patience is a key asset in Social Media and Internet Marketing. But even with the best intentions of hard work, trial and your noble efforts for extension of knowledge, it’s easy to come unstuck. So let me share with you the lessons – and what NOT to do. No-one told me not to try a few things without reading five pages of rules and small-print. So this is what you need to know.

The Cardinal Rule Number One To Not Get Suspended From Twitter

Read their rules on aggressive following and how you cannot use affiliate links in programs.

The Cardinal Rule Number Two To Not Get Suspended From Twitter

Never use the @username reply to send a promotional message. They call it aggressive following and you can have your account suspended instantly. When you start a Twitter account this looks like a great way to message some high profile personalities, with High Following Numbers. But don’t even think about it – unless you have a really insightful reply on a theme that they seem to be tweeting passionately about. And when you reply to @username, jst don’t on any account, add any sort of promotional or affiliate link. You will be suspended for aggressive following before you can say ‘dead-in-the-water’!

Sometimes – on the same day that you set your account up – you may get an electronic ‘slap-on-the-wrists’ (that’s certainly what it feels like!) before you confirm the error of your ways and then they re-open your account. But the surest way to get de-activated and left in floating Twitter suspension land is to sent an unsolicited @username message with a promotional link.

Even worse, don’t upload tweets into a scheduler like Hootsuite or Socialoomph that are constructed in this way, with affiliate links – either shortened urls or the full affiliate coded ‘hoplinks’.

The Cardinal Rule Number Three To Not Get Suspended From Twitter

Working with affiliates looks very lucrative but beware of the biggest and most aggressive. They got there by scaling and promoting heavily. But often their links and landing pages have been blacklisted. Even if you use a URL shortener it doesn’t help. For some reason it often makes more affiliate links get bounced back and rejected. If you use it in a tweet – randomly when you get the moment to do it or formally through an upload scheduler – you can be suspended from Twitter in a heartbeat. Seriously. Then it can take you weeks, maybe months, of lobbying against automated email processes, to, jst occasionally get re-activated. But there seems no logic to How or When such a fortunate moment might happen. So heed the risk.

That’s also why you will notice, on the most spammy of emails from supposed ‘gurus’, they use intermediate connecting links through an autoresponder or hosting company.

The Cardinal Rule Number Four To Not Get Banned By Google AdWords

You guessed it. Avoid those aggressive links in your Pay Per Click Advertising Campaigns. If anything, you will find that Google are more unreachable and unyielding on this than Twitter are. Use a blacklisted link to an aggressive affiliate and Google AdWords will not just block it. They will stop your account. Even if you are running several completely innocent and compliant advertising campaigns. Then their auto email systems will drive you crazy.

Google even say that because you used a blacklisted affiliate link, then you are somehow associated with the company behind it. So they tell you to get that affiliate to make their landing page compliant, even though you clearly have absolutely no control over the affiliate’s company or their web activities!

So stay very patient. Keep your web promotional activity passive and conservative. Check all the affiliate and promotional links that you are using with real diligence before you jeopardize your relationship with those Web Giants that you cannot do without.