The Marketers®

What is MLM Marketing

Multi-level marketing (MLM), (also called network marketing, direct selling, and referral marketing) is a term that describes a marketing structure used by some companies as part of their overall marketing strategy. The structure is designed to create a marketing and sales force by compensating promoters of company products not only for sales they personally generate, but also for the sales of other promoters they introduce to the company, creating a downline of distributors and a hierarchy of multiple levels of compensation.


The products and company are usually marketed directly to consumers and potential business partners by means of relationship referrals and word of mouth marketing.

Multi-level Marketing Criticized

MLM companies have been a frequent subject of controversy as well as the target of lawsuits. Criticism has focused on their similarity to illegal pyramid schemes, price-fixing of products, high initial start-up costs, emphasis on recruitment of lower-tiered salespeople over actual sales, encouraging if not requiring salespeople to purchase and use the company’s products, potential exploitation of personal relationships which are used as new sales and recruiting targets, complex and sometimes exaggerated compensation schemes, and cult-like techniques which some groups use to enhance their members’ enthusiasm and devotion. Not all MLM companies operate the same way, and MLM groups have persistently denied that their techniques are anything but legitimate business practices.

This is the first of what seems like a series of new features for its popular photo product.

The tests, which some users will see starting today [Friday], focus on decreasing the tediousness of “tagging” friends in Facebook photos. In the current Photos feature, users upload photos, click on each face in a photo, tag that photo with the friend pictured therein and continue the process until the album is tagged.

If you’ve got a large album or a lot of friends in a single photo, this process is inefficient and tedious. To solve this problem, Facebook has implemented face detection technology that will automatically find faces in photos and select them, eliminating one of the most tedious steps in tagging Facebook friends in photos. Your friends are already selected by the software — all you have to do is answer the Facebook prompt, “Whose face is this?”

The technology is the same as the facial detection technology most digital cameras use today. While the tech itself may not be all that new, it is a clever and very welcomed addition to the Facebook Photos feature set.

The company also promises that face detection is merely the first of many improvements that they’re trying out. It’s also interesting that the post was written by Sam Odio, one of the co-founders of Divvyshot, which Facebook acquired back in April in order to improve the Photos product.

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