The pulse of the traffic exchange industry and the random ramblings of Jon Olson (that's me!)
I've been writing Hit Exchange News since 2003 and have been involved in the traffic exchanges for over a decade. Enjoy the 'news', and thank you so much for making this THE must-read traffic exchange blog on the internet!
First off, MASSIVE congratulations goes out to Paul Kinder and the entire KRM team. I just got wind that Traffic Splash hit 100,000 members a few hours ago and I’m very excited with that news.
Paul has been a friend and a business partner for years and to see his vision of his empire take shape, I’m honored to spread the word about this amazing milestone.
Congrats sir, Mr. Rash and the entire KRM team…You guys are some of the hardest working people in the business and it’s great to see you reach this plateau!
O.K., warm and fuzzy stuff has been said, now it’s time to rant….
So I’m checking out my account at IMfaceplate and I seem to be bombarded with silly ‘pitches’ in my inbox and they start off something like this…
Hi, I followed you, you should do the same for me and while you are at it check out this (enter generic loser matrix program here)
Seriously?
Folks…This whole social networking thing is not about pitching people. It’s not about sending twenty emails or private messages a day. It’s not about annoying your future potential business partners. It’s about people…
And people (I count as a person sometimes) don’t like to be yelled at and essentially that is what you are doing when you join a social networking site and start throwing links in front of people. Get to know the person. Like an article or two of theirs. Join their mailing list. Comment on blogs. Ask a question.
This takes time. I know, it’s not what most folks want to hear, but it’s the REAL way to build relationships with your lists, your referrals and your social network. Most people won’t follow this advice though and continue to spam their networks, there isn’t much we can do about that but anyone that does want to REALLY embrace the power of this social stuff, I urge you to get to KNOW the people in your circle before you start sending links to them.
Remember, social networking is about people…Treat them like you want to be treated yourself.
A few years ago, there was a guy named Rich Taylor who was very active in the traffic exchange community. Not trying to get all sentimental and stuff but I do think Rich was a major reason that I became branded as a traffic exchange expert simply because he pushed me to find my niche and really excel at it.
Rich Taylor was a pioneer in this business and one of the first traffic exchange owners who used ‘themes’ with his businesses. Anyways, long story short we started a traffic exchange consultation gig together and one of the ideas we came up with was the 3:1 surf ratio. Surf ratios in the traffic exchanges have always been a hot topic and well, some people swear up and down that programs shouldn’t give any less than a 1:1 ratio while others have gone as low as 5:1.
The 3:1 surf ratio was adopted at every program I owned and was consulted on and for years and it’s been fantastic, it was a very healthy ratio for the program and savvy surfers really understood why we kept it at a 3:1. But in the time and era of the cash for surfing epidemic (and yes I think it’s the worst thing to happen to traffic exchanges in years) we need more ways to entice surfers to view sites WITHOUT relying on cash for surfing.
So I have made a pretty big change in the way I do business with my cornerstone traffic exchange I Love Hits.
I have raised the minimum surf ratio for Light Weight members from a 3:1 to a 2:1. So now for every 10 page views in I Love Hits, you receive 5 hits back instead of the old 9 page views for 3. Now a few things before I get the tomatoes thrown at me…
I have been monitoring the surfing at I Love Hits for quite a few months and we can mathematically sustain this ratio thanks in large part to Bracket Surfing. Raising a surf ratio is VERY hard to do when you have a balance to maintain in a program but today I’m going to give it a shot…
Let’s see how it goes. If traffic delivery plummets, I’ll have to bring it back to a 3:1. But something tells me, with the added bonus of Bracket Surfing and the vibrant community at I Love Hits, this will do nothing but increase surfing.
In other news with I Love Hits, I am in the process of adding IM Faceplate to our Profile Pages. This is to give members even more networking opportunities for themselves and their businesses. This will be up and running very soon.
