Over the past month I’ve been using Entrecard like never before. I must admit that I turned sour on the whole “drop card” thing many months ago, but I still kept my account open even though I wasn’t accepting new drops. With my first go around I wasn’t terribly 
impressed with this form of advertising, thus my shelving of the project.
Sometime in early November I decided to take a fresh look at Entrecard, deciding to give this free advertising method another chance. Not really for the same reason that other bloggers have been using Entrecard, rather as a way to network.
I’m very active with social media (StumbleUpon, Digg, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo Buzz!, etc.), but with Entrecard I’m glad that droppers actually visit my blogs with some leaving comments, connecting with me privately, etc.
By no means do I consider myself to be a “pro dropper” though I freely admit that there are many days that I am dropping my cards hundreds of times per day. I’m the type of person who gets completely into something when I decide to do it, hence my new found enthusiasm.
To that end, the following are some of the steps I’ve taken to improve my Entrecard experience:
Choose Your Blogs Carefully — At the moment, I am actively managing six blogs, all of which are updated regularly — four daily, the remaining two at least weekly. I closed down one of my blogs months ago, but allowed people to keep dropping on it. However, I thought that this wasn’t being fair to advertisers (as very few people actually visit the blog) so I ditched the site and replaced it with another one which hadn’t been registered previously. Right now I have four blogs registered with Entrecard and they’re linked.
Drop Early, Drop Often — I like to pull up my “drops inbox” to see who has been dropping on me and return the favor when I can. I have also been experimenting with various Entrecard drop lists, but most of them get pretty old quickly. I did take one list and changed it around somewhat by removing defunct blogs and adding my own and some others. However, don’t believe the claims that you can drop 300 cards in as little as five minutes — that doesn’t work!
Advertise Freely — Accumulating points is one thing, but spending them is entirely much better. I’ve learned that you can generate a lot of goodwill by advertising on other people’s sites — many folks are appreciative and will reciprocate. I accept a lot more sites than I have done in the past, but they still need to be relevant and I reject certain sites when they inappropriate.
I’ll be taking a break from dropping for several days around Christmas and again around the first of the year. Generally, I do the bulk of my dropping on weekdays with a limited amount over the weekend, particularly on Saturday mornings. I can see how this whole thing can be addictive so I want to keep everything in its proper perspective.
Happy dropping!
Writing | Matthew C. Keegan, 25 Dec 08 | 
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