Came across this program couple days ago. It's a firefox booster, 100% free and easy.
Very small 0.3mb download, then start the program, 5mins or less most the time. 20-40% speed increase from what friends and I can tell.
Does not delete cookies, passwords or anything.
It's like defraging Firefox, it just organizes things better for the computers benefit.
http://www.crystalidea.com/speedyfox
Make sure firefox is shut down when you run the program.
It's 100% free, it's not a trial offer of anything.
Recommend to do once a month. Parhaps twice a month for really heavy surfers.
Earning more money with Skill Gaming
Read the Skill Gaming FAQ first
The best way to maximize your profits with skill gaming is to become a master of one or two games or game types. I personally play the brick/paddle/ball games the most, and a few of the classic arcade games, like Pac-man.
What you want to do is practice for free (the more the better) on which ever site you plan to deposit on first. Play for hours on end, as much as you can. Play for a week or two before risking a single penny.
By doing this you are going to be able to dominate the lower rankings of the site and guarantee a solid profit to start you off before you reach solid competition and take a loss here and there.
If you joined one of the sites with larger tourneys, you should be able to finish top 10 of one of the tourneys in the lower ranks and at least double your deposit.
Continue to dominate the larger tourneys while you can and try to avoid the 1 vs 1 battles. The 1vs1 tend to move you up in rank to quickly, thus minimizing your profit from the large tourneys at lower ranks.
When you finally reach the medium to high rankings. begin to play 1vs1 games. Play 3 games, if you face the same opponent and keep winning 2 outta 3, then continue to play until you face a new person that you don't beat. Picking different times of the day and days you play, you will find a bit weaker competition. It varies from site to site so mix it up.
Last more arguably the most important. NEVER deposit more then $20 per site.
If you can not practice a game enough to turn a profit on $20, then you should not be risking that much money.At that point you are instead playing a game with a slight rush, but you are playing for fun, not to turn a regular profit.
Once you Turn $20 into $60 or more, withdraw double your deposit($40), and begin the process over on a new site, and pocket $20, while still leaving $20 on that site.
Follow that process and you'll be able to turn a nice profit while still having plenty of sites to choose from, for when you decide to master a new game type and run the ranks for the new game.
Find more Skill Gaming sites to play on
The best way to maximize your profits with skill gaming is to become a master of one or two games or game types. I personally play the brick/paddle/ball games the most, and a few of the classic arcade games, like Pac-man.
What you want to do is practice for free (the more the better) on which ever site you plan to deposit on first. Play for hours on end, as much as you can. Play for a week or two before risking a single penny.
By doing this you are going to be able to dominate the lower rankings of the site and guarantee a solid profit to start you off before you reach solid competition and take a loss here and there.
If you joined one of the sites with larger tourneys, you should be able to finish top 10 of one of the tourneys in the lower ranks and at least double your deposit.
Continue to dominate the larger tourneys while you can and try to avoid the 1 vs 1 battles. The 1vs1 tend to move you up in rank to quickly, thus minimizing your profit from the large tourneys at lower ranks.
When you finally reach the medium to high rankings. begin to play 1vs1 games. Play 3 games, if you face the same opponent and keep winning 2 outta 3, then continue to play until you face a new person that you don't beat. Picking different times of the day and days you play, you will find a bit weaker competition. It varies from site to site so mix it up.
Last more arguably the most important. NEVER deposit more then $20 per site.
If you can not practice a game enough to turn a profit on $20, then you should not be risking that much money.At that point you are instead playing a game with a slight rush, but you are playing for fun, not to turn a regular profit.
Once you Turn $20 into $60 or more, withdraw double your deposit($40), and begin the process over on a new site, and pocket $20, while still leaving $20 on that site.
Follow that process and you'll be able to turn a nice profit while still having plenty of sites to choose from, for when you decide to master a new game type and run the ranks for the new game.
Find more Skill Gaming sites to play on
Why Paid to post site Mylot is so great.
Looking around my Google Analytics today to check up on traffic sources and activity on my site, I noticed just how great of a factor MyLot is for this blog. I've been using Google's tracking for 30 days now, since Aug 7th. I'm really liking the options it gives me to review activity on my site, and to see where people are coming from.
Here are some quick numbers to dwell on about the traffic I get on my blog from MyLot:
10.68% - The amount of my overall traffic that comes from MyLot.
4:07 - The amount of average time the person coming from MyLot spends on my blog.
81.97% - The percent of people visiting my blog for the first time via MyLot.
3 - The number of days in the past month MyLot has not produced any traffic for me.
43.97% - The increase in percent of pages visited by MyLot traffic compared to other traffic sources.
Why are these numbers so much better when compared to other traffic sources of mine?
1) I post on MyLot about topics related to my blog, so the traffic that it brings is highly targeted.
2) When I post, I often make reference to my blog in one form or another.
3) I'm active there, posting 3-10 times on most days.
4) It's a paid to post discussion board, so the people there are interested in making money at least a little bit. Very much related to this blog.
5) It's one of the first sites many people find when they enter the world of earning money online. So a solid portion of the site is looking for guidance.
6) Since posting of promotional links is not allowed. Their is a highly customizable profile page for each member can use to promote their sites and blogs. This has a large effect on posting and the number of people that visit each others profile and because I took the time to make my profile nice and neat and provide multiple links to my blog, many find my blog.
Want to know more about MyLot?
Here are some quick numbers to dwell on about the traffic I get on my blog from MyLot:
10.68% - The amount of my overall traffic that comes from MyLot.
4:07 - The amount of average time the person coming from MyLot spends on my blog.
81.97% - The percent of people visiting my blog for the first time via MyLot.
3 - The number of days in the past month MyLot has not produced any traffic for me.
43.97% - The increase in percent of pages visited by MyLot traffic compared to other traffic sources.
Why are these numbers so much better when compared to other traffic sources of mine?
1) I post on MyLot about topics related to my blog, so the traffic that it brings is highly targeted.
2) When I post, I often make reference to my blog in one form or another.
3) I'm active there, posting 3-10 times on most days.
4) It's a paid to post discussion board, so the people there are interested in making money at least a little bit. Very much related to this blog.
5) It's one of the first sites many people find when they enter the world of earning money online. So a solid portion of the site is looking for guidance.
6) Since posting of promotional links is not allowed. Their is a highly customizable profile page for each member can use to promote their sites and blogs. This has a large effect on posting and the number of people that visit each others profile and because I took the time to make my profile nice and neat and provide multiple links to my blog, many find my blog.
Want to know more about MyLot?
- It's a paid to post discussion board.
- Over 180,000 members
- Been online since 2003.
- $10 minimum payout, via paypal once a month.
- The "earnings per post" is not public information.
- Because it's not public, the way to go is with a mix of quality and quantity.
- They allow people from all countries in the world.
- You can discuss pretty much everything, there are 100's of active interest groups covering pretty much every topic there is. You can create one if you can't find one!
- Highly customizable profile, and no self promotion linking in discussions, results in people viewing your profile.
- Highly customizable home page too, allows you to view what you want of relevance.
- Private message system, but you have to be friends with someone to send message, means no spam on your site inbox.
- Upload photos with your discussions to provide more info.(and earn more doing so)
- Great 25% earnings of first level referral program
New Users Guide to MyLot I wrote to help you get maximum benefit from it.
(guide will show you how to setup your profile among other things)
(guide will show you how to setup your profile among other things)
As always, feel free to leave a comment or contact me if you have any questions.
You can also contact me on MyLot, I'm known as "2earnmoney2" on that site.
You can also contact me on MyLot, I'm known as "2earnmoney2" on that site.
How to get Referrals Part 5 - Advertise
Tip: To get best results and understanding of the how to get referrals series I suggest you read them as I have written them, starting with part 1 and working your way up to part 5 because you will not benefit from certain steps until you have completed the previous ones.
If you already read parts 1 thru 4, click the "read more" button to continue your learning with Part 5 of the How to get Referrals series.
How to get Referrals step 9 - Advertise
"Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read."
Leo Burnett
Great quote about advertising that really sums up this entire series. Many of the things I've already told you involved in getting referrals is about doing everything involved in the quote by the late great Leo Burnett. Don't hype things up, give them the facts, put it in places people are already looking and keep it organized in one location that's worth visiting.
Did you recognize the name of Leo Burnett but not sure why? He's responsible for some of the most well known advertising icons like The Jolly Green Giant, the Marlboro Man, Toucan Sam, Charlie the Tuna, Morris the Cat, Pillsbury Doughboy, the 7up "Spot", and Tony the Tiger.
So when you are doing your advertising for your blog/site, and articles you have written consider who's going to be viewing it, and why they are viewing it. Are they new to the field of earning online, or do they have experience? Are they viewing it because they gain from the view, or are they viewing cause they are interested? If you don't know who and why the ad's are being viewed by then you are wasting your advertisement.
Getting more referrals from your ad's is a compilation of everything you've already learned in the first four parts of this series. Rereading everything is suggested to make sure you write everything on your blog for a purpose.
How to get Referrals Step 10 - Blog or Single Site Advertising
There are lots of places you can advertise online for free. Some of them have already been discussed. Your blog/site is what you primarily want to promote because you will be consistently updating it, build trust with it, and people will be available to contact you for help.
When to promote a single site instead of your blog is really dependent on where you advertise and why you want to promote the single site.
Reasons to promote a single site instead of your blog/site:
If you already read parts 1 thru 4, click the "read more" button to continue your learning with Part 5 of the How to get Referrals series.
How to get Referrals step 9 - Advertise
"Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read."
Leo Burnett
Great quote about advertising that really sums up this entire series. Many of the things I've already told you involved in getting referrals is about doing everything involved in the quote by the late great Leo Burnett. Don't hype things up, give them the facts, put it in places people are already looking and keep it organized in one location that's worth visiting.
Did you recognize the name of Leo Burnett but not sure why? He's responsible for some of the most well known advertising icons like The Jolly Green Giant, the Marlboro Man, Toucan Sam, Charlie the Tuna, Morris the Cat, Pillsbury Doughboy, the 7up "Spot", and Tony the Tiger.
So when you are doing your advertising for your blog/site, and articles you have written consider who's going to be viewing it, and why they are viewing it. Are they new to the field of earning online, or do they have experience? Are they viewing it because they gain from the view, or are they viewing cause they are interested? If you don't know who and why the ad's are being viewed by then you are wasting your advertisement.
Getting more referrals from your ad's is a compilation of everything you've already learned in the first four parts of this series. Rereading everything is suggested to make sure you write everything on your blog for a purpose.
How to get Referrals Step 10 - Blog or Single Site Advertising
There are lots of places you can advertise online for free. Some of them have already been discussed. Your blog/site is what you primarily want to promote because you will be consistently updating it, build trust with it, and people will be available to contact you for help.
When to promote a single site instead of your blog is really dependent on where you advertise and why you want to promote the single site.
Reasons to promote a single site instead of your blog/site:
- A site is having a referral contest.
- You promote like sites on each other. I.E Promote paid to post forum on another paid to post forum. You know they like to earn that way, so promote alternatives.
- Doing a referral swap where you help a referral build a line.
- The site just changed something that will attract new users who may have overlooked the site previously. Like new countries allowed or new payment processor.
- Some PTC's allow you to spend money earned on advertising rather then cashing out. After your blog has been going for a while and is producing decent results, spending this easily made money is a great way to get the word out and develop some constant readers. My personal favorite PTC for this is DonkeyMails.
- Traffic Exchanges are great for getting lots of lower quality traffic for free. Once you have a solid blog to promote, it will generate referrals through TE's. But remember that TE's will produce small amount of referrals compared to number of visitors that visit. But if you promote your blog this way over a month or two, it will produce better results. The more often someone see's your blog with new content being provided then the more likely they are to visit it and sign up under you. It's a Trust thing.
My personal favorite TE's are these two. Both have great admins and extra prize pages for more credits. First one even has chat and surf feature. HorrorMovieHits, TipTopTraffic. - Forums have already been discussed in part 3 of the series.
- Social Networks also discussed in part 3.
- Social Bookmarking sites also discussed in part 3.
- Classified Ad sites like Craigslist.
- Your profile where ever you go, always fill it out.
- Chat Rooms
- Blog Directorys, my favorite is Link Referral
- Local stores, create a 1 page flier and ask if you can put it on a window or bullentin board.
- Telephone poles around town, again 1 page flier make sure to put little tabs people can rip off with your blog address.
- Other blogs of relevance to yours, exchange links to each other. Make sure it's a fair trade though, A-list blogs won't do this with new blogs.
- Don't be afraid to comment on other people's blogs to advertise as well, but just like forums this should be done with care and should add to the conversation.
- If you do a bunch of downloading and/or have people directly download from you, add a simple text document to the file with your web link and brief site description.
How to get Referrals Part 4 - Incentives
Tip: To get best results and understanding of the how to get referrals series I suggest you read them as I have written them, starting with part 1 and working your way up to part 5 because you will not benefit from certain steps until you have completed the previous ones.
If you already read parts 1, 2, and 3 click the "read more" button to continue your learning with Part 4 of the How to get Referrals series.
How to get Referrals Step 7 - Incentives
"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."
Albert Einstein
This quote really sums up this entire series on how to get referrals. By creating a blog that gives the reader value for visiting, it you will succeed. Sharing your knowledge builds trust, when you have the trust you will have the willingness of other to sign up under you, offering extra value just increases the odds in your favor for long term success.
A sure fire way to get referrals quickly and keeping them active is to offer them some incentives on your blog. By giving up a portion of what you earn because of having them in your down line or giving up a small dollar amount up front you can greatly increase the chances they will sign up under you. But if you have not built the trust, then it's unlikely they will take advantage of the offer.
Important things to consider when deciding if to offer a incentive deal:
Swapping referrals can be a great way to gain active referrals, if you find the right people or site to do it with. There is two main forms of swapping, and one lesser done way that is only effective once you've become very solid in your own forms of gathering referrals.
The first and most common way is simple one-for-one swaps. You sign up under a site for someone, and they sign up under you. As long as you both stay active then you both benefit. The only downside of doing this, is if you don't do your research on both the sites involved and the person you are doing it with then you are likely to get scammed. If one site requires 20mins of work a day, and the other takes an hour, one of you is likely to quit because they feel it's not fair. So make sure you know what site you are joining, and that the site you want the other person to join are roughly the same in amount of daily work involved and potential earnings. Also make sure to investigate the person you are doing the swap with, do they have a good reputation on the site you found them, do they have a blog, can they show payment proofs and a good explanation of what all is involved in the site they want you to join. A good person will be willing to answer your questions and be available for any additional questions you may have.
The second most common way to do referral swaps is with referral exchange sites. These types of sites usually have 100's of sites available to work with and work on a credit system. When you join a site through the referral site you gain a certain amount of credits which can then use to spend on getting referrals on sites you want to promote. The biggest drawback of these types of sites is that often the referrals you get will not stay active for a long time in your site. But you can say in order to get the credits from you for signing up under you they have to do a certain number of things on the site, like stay active for 7 days or complete X# of things. Just remember to keep it "fair" if you require 1yr of membership, no one will ever sign up. But what's great about these sites is the fact you can find some really great sites to join through them, as the referral exchange sites often check on the sites allowed to be promoted for their paying status. So when you sign up, it's not in vain and that you will be able to cash out from the site.
Finally the least used way is really only available if you have a successful blog or another form of gaining guaranteed referrals. This way also should only be used on sites that have multiple down line levels. What you offer is that when someone signs up under you, you will then help get them a referral or few of their own. Usually by replacing your referral link on your blog with their link or by using credits on a referral exchange site to have someone join under them. When you do this you are increasing the chances your first referral will stay active cause they are earning more and you both will still gain if the site has multiple down line levels.
Recommend places to do referral incentives:
Important things to remember about doing incentive based referral getting:
As always if you have any suggestions or questions go ahead and contact me or leave a comment.
Part 5 on how to get referrals is titled Advertising and discusses some pros and cons of different methods to advertise.
If you already read parts 1, 2, and 3 click the "read more" button to continue your learning with Part 4 of the How to get Referrals series.
How to get Referrals Step 7 - Incentives
"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."
Albert Einstein
This quote really sums up this entire series on how to get referrals. By creating a blog that gives the reader value for visiting, it you will succeed. Sharing your knowledge builds trust, when you have the trust you will have the willingness of other to sign up under you, offering extra value just increases the odds in your favor for long term success.
A sure fire way to get referrals quickly and keeping them active is to offer them some incentives on your blog. By giving up a portion of what you earn because of having them in your down line or giving up a small dollar amount up front you can greatly increase the chances they will sign up under you. But if you have not built the trust, then it's unlikely they will take advantage of the offer.
Important things to consider when deciding if to offer a incentive deal:
- Is the site stable? If you give them money to be in a scam site you both lose.
- Will it benefit you enough to do it for just 1 person, and 100 people. Look at both ends of the spectrum.
- Is the offer worth sharing with their friends? Consider this: Would you sign up under you then tell a friend about the deal, or would you sign up, then offer a better deal to your friend?
- Is their better offers by more reputable people for the same site(s)? Do your research on possible competition.
- Will it get people to just sign up and stay active minimum amount of time, or is it a nice long term deal.
- The larger and longer the site has been in existence, the more you should offer. Stability is a powerful factor.
- Why should they trust you? Have you given info about the site and helped them?
- 25-75% of what they earn you. So if you earn 10% of what they do, give them 3-8%.
- 10-30% upfront of what you expect them to earn you in their first month.
- A few cents or dollars each month they are active.
- A contest for all your referrals, giving money and/or advertising to the most successful of your referrals in a given time period, or first to reach a given goal.
- If the site has multiple down line levels, give them something for each new referral they find.
- Giving more then 80% of what you will get from them being under you. Giving more then 80% does not make it worth your time to keep track of everything and will attract people that will try to scam you by singing up multiple times.
- By offering a set amount to each person that signs up under you that you will not earn back in the first thirty days you will really short change yourself because not everyone will stay active the given time needed to recuperate your losses.
- Any deal where a lot of extra is required from both of you, if a site doesn't show how much work each of your referrals does, then you will need screen shots/proof from them. Making the entire process much more involved then needed.
- Avoid offering deals on sites that will require a lot of work from your referrals w/out any referrals themselves to be able to cash out or see reasonable gains. It does no good to have 50 referrals sign up under you because of the great offer you have, if none of them will have any success and soon quit using the site.
Swapping referrals can be a great way to gain active referrals, if you find the right people or site to do it with. There is two main forms of swapping, and one lesser done way that is only effective once you've become very solid in your own forms of gathering referrals.
The first and most common way is simple one-for-one swaps. You sign up under a site for someone, and they sign up under you. As long as you both stay active then you both benefit. The only downside of doing this, is if you don't do your research on both the sites involved and the person you are doing it with then you are likely to get scammed. If one site requires 20mins of work a day, and the other takes an hour, one of you is likely to quit because they feel it's not fair. So make sure you know what site you are joining, and that the site you want the other person to join are roughly the same in amount of daily work involved and potential earnings. Also make sure to investigate the person you are doing the swap with, do they have a good reputation on the site you found them, do they have a blog, can they show payment proofs and a good explanation of what all is involved in the site they want you to join. A good person will be willing to answer your questions and be available for any additional questions you may have.
The second most common way to do referral swaps is with referral exchange sites. These types of sites usually have 100's of sites available to work with and work on a credit system. When you join a site through the referral site you gain a certain amount of credits which can then use to spend on getting referrals on sites you want to promote. The biggest drawback of these types of sites is that often the referrals you get will not stay active for a long time in your site. But you can say in order to get the credits from you for signing up under you they have to do a certain number of things on the site, like stay active for 7 days or complete X# of things. Just remember to keep it "fair" if you require 1yr of membership, no one will ever sign up. But what's great about these sites is the fact you can find some really great sites to join through them, as the referral exchange sites often check on the sites allowed to be promoted for their paying status. So when you sign up, it's not in vain and that you will be able to cash out from the site.
Finally the least used way is really only available if you have a successful blog or another form of gaining guaranteed referrals. This way also should only be used on sites that have multiple down line levels. What you offer is that when someone signs up under you, you will then help get them a referral or few of their own. Usually by replacing your referral link on your blog with their link or by using credits on a referral exchange site to have someone join under them. When you do this you are increasing the chances your first referral will stay active cause they are earning more and you both will still gain if the site has multiple down line levels.
Recommend places to do referral incentives:
- Your blog, create a blog entry with specific's of what type of swaps your willing to do. If a site has a referral contest, make a blog entry about it and put a time limit on when people can sign up.
- Forums, Most forums have a open advertising section and some even have a a section specific for referral exchanges. Post your offer and remember to not ask for to much, and be specific in the sites your willing to join.(make sure to read forum rules to not violate them and get banned)
- Social Networks, Put the offer on your profile and make sure people have a way to contact you.
- GetRef , My personal favorite Referral exchange site. Been around for years with over 1,000 sites you can spend your credits on to get credits. Blog entry with more details.
Important things to remember about doing incentive based referral getting:
- Not all sites allow you to get referrals through the process of offering incentives. Some also only allow some forms of incentives. Traffic exchanges are notorious for banning people for doing this. So always make sure to check the site's Terms and Conditions and the FAQ section. If you can't find any answer contact them asking about which ways are allowed.
- Make sure to know the countries that are allowed for the sites involved, it does no good to get referrals if they won't get you credit.
- Always make sure the sites you want involved are worth it, if you will only gain a penny or two from them over weeks, it's probably not worth your time or theirs.
- Always give the other person a way to contact you, remember that helping is important.
- Don't allow yourself to become overwhelmed by making things to complicated. Simplicity is best when it comes to incentives for both you and them.
- Most importantly don't give up to much, stay below 80% if it's a continuing process of giving to them, and below 30 days worth of work to make your money back if a one time payment to them.
As always if you have any suggestions or questions go ahead and contact me or leave a comment.
Part 5 on how to get referrals is titled Advertising and discusses some pros and cons of different methods to advertise.
How to get Referrals Part 3 - Social
Tip: To get best results and understanding of the how to get referrals series I suggest you read them as I have written them, starting with part 1 and working your way up to part 5 because you will not benefit from certain steps until you have completed the previous ones.
If you already read parts 1 and 2, click the "read more" button to continue your learning with Part 3 of the How to get Referrals series.
How to get referrals step 5 - Social
"Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the
small ones."
Phillip Brooks
This is a great quote that directly correlates to being social online, you don't have to have a million dollar idea to share, just a lot of little ideas to sprinkle every where you go.
There are lots of ways to be social online, all of them offer us many things. Perhaps the largest benefit to social marketing for finding referrals is that no matter what way we do it the people reading and interacting with us have a certain amount of interest already.
Think about all the forums you read, why did you sign up to them? Why do you still visit them daily? If you answer those two questions you will understand why the people on the forum are there as well.
With most forums being about a very specific topic, like sports, or finding things to do online worth your time, and my personal favorite are the ones that pay you to post and talk about making money. This gives us a great way to find very specific people that need and are actively looking for help. (You remember how crucial helping people is right?)
It's pretty easy to find forums about any topic you want, and find knowledgeable people on a given topic. This fact alone makes them so bountiful. You need to be one of those experienced people sharing their knowledge on a number of forums. That doesn't mean you have to have 1,000's of posts on each forum to gain peoples trust, but you do need to have more then 2 posts. All forums show post counts of each member, if someone reads your post and finds it helpful, but then see that you only posted a couple times they are not likely to act on your post.
Take a look at this article for a really good guide to forums, along with a short list of some of the best paid to post forums out there. The article is about paid to post forums, but all the tips directly help increase the effectiveness of all the forums you post on. Make sure to read the final tip in the article for a really good trick to help make forum posting easier on yourself!
Few things to remember about forums:
How to get Referrals step 6 - Networking
The popularity of Social Networks makes these something you simply should not ignore!
There are some really large Social Networking sites out there we all know of like Myspace,Facebook and Twitter.But there are literally 100's of them. These are some of the greatest free ways to find referrals by sheer numbers alone.
Like a blog or forum, this is another great way to create establish your "brand" and build trust.
Just like your blog though, you want to build peoples trust with content that gives information, but then being available to help.
Taking the time to create a complete profile on 3-5 social sites will take a few hours, but is very much worth your time because it's like having a extra blog on each site that you don't have to regularly update. You can create a profile on all the networks you want, but you want to focus on being really active on about 4. Any more and you will find it difficult to keep up with them, and any less then your missing a large free advertising source.
You can put any number of links about anything you want on your profile. You can build friendships through any number of ways. You have the ability to connect with these people and help them. Each network has groups that are about a specific topic just like a forum, make sure to join the groups about money to share your knowledge and find referrals.
Things to know about social networks:
Continue on to Part 4 of the how to get referrals series titled "Incentives"
If you already read parts 1 and 2, click the "read more" button to continue your learning with Part 3 of the How to get Referrals series.
How to get referrals step 5 - Social
"Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the
small ones."
Phillip Brooks
This is a great quote that directly correlates to being social online, you don't have to have a million dollar idea to share, just a lot of little ideas to sprinkle every where you go.
There are lots of ways to be social online, all of them offer us many things. Perhaps the largest benefit to social marketing for finding referrals is that no matter what way we do it the people reading and interacting with us have a certain amount of interest already.
Think about all the forums you read, why did you sign up to them? Why do you still visit them daily? If you answer those two questions you will understand why the people on the forum are there as well.
With most forums being about a very specific topic, like sports, or finding things to do online worth your time, and my personal favorite are the ones that pay you to post and talk about making money. This gives us a great way to find very specific people that need and are actively looking for help. (You remember how crucial helping people is right?)
It's pretty easy to find forums about any topic you want, and find knowledgeable people on a given topic. This fact alone makes them so bountiful. You need to be one of those experienced people sharing their knowledge on a number of forums. That doesn't mean you have to have 1,000's of posts on each forum to gain peoples trust, but you do need to have more then 2 posts. All forums show post counts of each member, if someone reads your post and finds it helpful, but then see that you only posted a couple times they are not likely to act on your post.
Take a look at this article for a really good guide to forums, along with a short list of some of the best paid to post forums out there. The article is about paid to post forums, but all the tips directly help increase the effectiveness of all the forums you post on. Make sure to read the final tip in the article for a really good trick to help make forum posting easier on yourself!
Few things to remember about forums:
- As discussed in part 1 of the series, these are a great way to increase your "brand" online.
- Utilize your signature to promote your blog/site and any articles you have written.
- Some forums do not allow your signature to contain referral links, so make sure to read the sig rules of each forum.
- Always fill out your profile, and write a quality introduction. Both are sure fire ways to increase your trust and a great way to offer help.
- You don't have to post everyday on all forums, but you should try to post at least several times a week. Consistency is key to build forum presence that translates into trust.
- Not all forums will be effective for finding referrals.
- Posting on 10-15 forums at least once a week is recommended. (paid to post are great, but regulars are fine)
How to get Referrals step 6 - Networking
The popularity of Social Networks makes these something you simply should not ignore!
There are some really large Social Networking sites out there we all know of like Myspace,Facebook and Twitter.But there are literally 100's of them. These are some of the greatest free ways to find referrals by sheer numbers alone.
Like a blog or forum, this is another great way to create establish your "brand" and build trust.
Just like your blog though, you want to build peoples trust with content that gives information, but then being available to help.
Taking the time to create a complete profile on 3-5 social sites will take a few hours, but is very much worth your time because it's like having a extra blog on each site that you don't have to regularly update. You can create a profile on all the networks you want, but you want to focus on being really active on about 4. Any more and you will find it difficult to keep up with them, and any less then your missing a large free advertising source.
You can put any number of links about anything you want on your profile. You can build friendships through any number of ways. You have the ability to connect with these people and help them. Each network has groups that are about a specific topic just like a forum, make sure to join the groups about money to share your knowledge and find referrals.
Things to know about social networks:
- Unlike forums, not everyone on them is looking for knowledge or information, many just want social interaction. So when a person doesn't respond to you, move on.
- Filling out your profile is crucial, just saying visit my blog will not work. You need to build that trust for them to want to care about your blog.
- Being at least semi-active is a must, log in no less then couple times a week to approve friend requests and reply to any messages.
- Be very careful about spamming friend requests or on groups. These sites have lots of spammers already, you don't want to blend in with them and risk getting banned from them.
- Some are very specific in the region of the world or age groups there members are, so some will not work for finding referrals no matter how hard you try.
- You do not have to actually have to "be social" on them talking about the latest news or gossip. But you do have to be willing to talk with people about what it is you promote.
- Twitter - This one is HUGE, you simply can not ignore this site. It's the 14th most used site worldwide! I won't go into how to use it from the sign up process to get more followers. But here's a few quick tips, you should have it set-up so you send a direct message to everyone that follows you. You should post at least once a day, people pay attention to people that post more often. Not all your posts should be promotional, mix in questions, jokes, and general thoughts. Like all sites, make sure to fill out your profile and link to your blog.
- FaceBook & Myspace - Easily the two largest Networks out there. Both are great sites and have some highly receptive people that can be your referrals.
- Mypage5 - One of the larger get paid to Social Networks. You earn a cent or few for everything you do on the site, uploading pics, posting comments, active in the forums, logging in each day, even just rating other peoples profiles and pics. Make sure to upload a picture when you sign up to start off with $5.
- Wiki Page listing 100's of them. Find Social sites that are primarily region specific that would allow sign ups to the sites you promote.
Continue on to Part 4 of the how to get referrals series titled "Incentives"
