Do you fake?
Have you smoked it, but never inhaled?
I recall the days when Adsense was all the rage – where you could slap up dozens of sites, tack on Adsense code and start to really rake in the profits. There were more "get rich with Adsense" guru’s than you could shake a stick at.
I myself used Adsense (and still do) on my top content sites, but it was never my sole (or even major) source of income, used more as an initial monetization technique for sites I was building authority, reputation and traffic.
But at the time there were tons of tricks from rapid site builders to keyword stuffers and everything in-between. While the tricks still exist, Google has clamped down significantly – and you knew they would, after all it’s their business and reputation at stake.
Now, we’re headed right back into the abyss with social networking.
This week alone I’ve been offered service, software and invitations to "automate" the process of getting rated or building friend networks on various social networking sites – come on, do you really think I’m THAT stupid?
The Myspace, Facebook, Reddit, etc… of the world MUST maintain as natural a social networking site as possible for their services to continue to thrive – so far they’ve done a great job.
To think that they won’t is simply being naive and is definitely NOT good business.
Rachel Corbett covers the legitimacy of musicians who use Myspace as a mechanism to "get found" and pre-market their material (a major subset of users on Myspace surround the interest in independent music) in her blog posting "Myspace, Faked Space"
Whatever you do – do NOT be sucked into using social networking sites in an automated, un-natural way – because you WILL be found. I’ve seen it happen again and again online, any temporary gain you derive from "fooling" the system will be more than erased when you get found out.
Instead, focus on really using these tools as they were intended…for example:
1. Setup your Myspace account and USE it by completing your profile, seeking out legitimate contacts that are in-line with your interests and content building your friend network the natural way.
2. Focus your interests and topics and then ADD value. You will miss the mark if you either don’t make your topic and interest crystal clear OR you simply do not add value in terms of information, opinion, references or other value you can add to those interested in the topic you have chosen to focus on.
3. Blog a few times a week on Mysapce – I have found this to be a tremendous way to get attention, become listed highly in the search engines and attract more friends which gets you additonal links.
4. Post comments on your friend’s sites – a link back to your own site is ok so long as you are offering information that is relevant and valuable. You could develop a special report just for your Myspace friends as an example.
So far I have seen far more attention being given to try and fool the system than to try and work within it’s mandate and take advantage of the power of networking which is, after all, the intent of the site.
I only spend less than 1-hour on Myspace each week and yet I get hundreds of unique visitors who visit my sites, sign up to my opt-in lists and buy my products. Not bad for using the system as it was designed.
Jeff
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