Sticking With Entrecard…For Now

The uproar over accepting/rejecting paid ads on Entrecard (EC) seems to have passed. At least for now.

Graham Langdon Feels The Heat!

When EC first announced that a paid ad program was going to be put into place, they made a poor decision by not allowing people to reject ads. Fortunately, as is often the case with EC, if you squawk loud enough than Graham Langdon changes his mind. Now, EC allows bloggers to reject any and all ads if they so choose.

Still, the paid ad initiative has been a bit of a fiasco as it seems that some ads are still appearing while even approved paid ads tend to push ahead of the traditional EC ads. This isn’t good. Personally, inasmuch as EC has an “approve all” function for paid ads,  there are times I would like to “reject all” in order to allow Entrecard ads to pass through first.

One gripe I have with EC is that if you “favorite” a site, then it stays in your favorites even after that blogger has removed their widget. Right now I have three blogs linked to my account (WordJourney.com and AutoTrends.org are the others besides this one) and have favored quite a few sites with each blog. This means I often hit up the same blogs over and over again, but there are many times when using the EC toolbar I discover as many as five of the ten favorites are no longer “droppable.”

Life After Entrecard

I’m sure that there will be a day when I will no longer use Entrecard, but I thought that day would have occurred much sooner. Granted, I don’t drop on sites every day and I rarely get to the 300 drop level with any one blog…I simply do not have the time.

When I first began to use EC I simply dropped my cards and moved on, choosing not to advertise on any sites while generally not approving ads either. After taking a lengthy break for about half the year, I returned this past fall — immediately I began to drop regularly, accepted Entrecard ads and placed my ads on other sites. These days I’ve taken a break from advertising elsewhere, but I still accept both kinds of ads.

If anything, EC is a decent way to keep up with what other bloggers are saying. I could bookmark like crazy to follow people, but with the EC toolbar I can surf in, drop a card, read your article and perhaps leave a comment.

Maybe I’ll end up dropping by on a sporadic basis instead of completely shutting down, but for now EC is stuck with me and I’m still stuck on you!

Related — I’m Giving Entrecard A Whirl!

Marketing on the Cheap

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!