The biggest issue facing Entrecard today isn’t spammers, falling credit prices, reciprocating dropper clubs, inflated ad prices, or even dropper burnout. The #1 issue is a lack of any real incentive to advertise. For the last month and 1/2 I haven’t advertised on any sites other than a few 2 credit new sites, and a couple of sites in the old “shortest wait” category. Yet my ad price stays around 400 ec and my brand is just as recognised as ever.
As other’s have pointed out, you can sell your credits and buy ads on Project Wonderful for much less. This was a very good business until others started to dump their credits. The only reason they have a glut of credits is because they aren’t buying advertising. The price per 1000 cr varies from $7 on eBay to $10-$11 on widgets like mine. This is down from a high of $15. While lower ad prices would encourage more ad buying, I don’t believe that’s the only solution.
For sites established in the Entrecard community, it’s tough to make your site more recognizable. You’d be more productive writing a letter to every quality new site than buying an ad everyone has seen before. In fact, several Entrecarders do message every new site. I know, because every so often I submit a new site as bait just to see who bites. That’s also not the solution.
What is needed is some other incentive to pump credits back into the Entrecard System. At a certain point Entrecard becomes more of a social site than an advertising service. The top members can simply show their faces, socialize a bit, and pocket their credits while still remaining on the “most popular” list. No matter how many ads I buy, I’m not going to greatly increase my Turnip Brand.
I do have a few ideas how to provide ad buying incentives. One would be to factor credits spent on ads into your own ad’s cost. I think that alone might inspire me to advertise more. Not to mention helping the credit economy, because gamers would want to buy credits to “buy their way to the top”.
Another idea I had was a contest idea. Perhaps a few of the marketing blogs could all be assigned a no name blog, either singularly or in teams. Then they could compete to make the blog go from nothing to something in 3 months using all their marketing talents. If we kept both the new blog and their sponsors secret, this might be great fun. It would pump credits into Entrecard, give a couple of marketers bragging rights, and help numerous blogs just starting out with advice, readers, and publicity.
A third idea would be for Graham to publish a list of who spends the most on ads. To me this shows more support for the Entrecard system than “Most recommended” any day. People who like to appear near the top of a category have one more to shoot for. Graham could offer additional rewards to these people like spots on the front of the site. Anyone have another idea on how to get established blogs in the Entrecard community to buy ads and put their credits back into the economy?
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@Turnip:
The #1 issue is a lack of any real incentive to advertise.
Well, if that site has lots of non-Entrecarders traffic, and if advertising cost is not too high, might be worth to give it a try.
Anyone have another idea on how to get established blogs in the Entrecard community to buy ads and put their credits back into the economy?
Dunno about the rest, but I am distributing little bits of my EntreWealth by giving out EntreCredits to those who commented on my site.
Deimos, it’s true that someone might use their credits on a big site to try and attract non-entrecarders. But how often do spots on those sites open up? 3k-4k other people would all like that opportunity. Yes, giveaway contests and paying people for comments seems like a good way to create a little excitement with your credits. But not a long term solutions. I’m not going to spend hours mailing 2-10cr like joetech must spend.
@Turnip:
…how often do spots on those sites open up?
Hmmm… true also.
What if the number of spots are to be increased?
Do you see something like that happening any time soon?
Would it be feasible to do that?
Yes, giveaway contests and paying people for comments seems like a good way to create a little excitement with your credits.
Well, it was fun seeing all those seasonal comments pouring in. Rather tedious task of keeping track of everything though.
To send EntreCredits to each is okay, just need some time.
But not a long term solutions.
True. Unless EntreCard gets some new features.
I’m not going to spend hours mailing 2-10cr like joetech must spend.
Gah! Now that you mentioned this. I wonder how many hours he spends daily on sending EntreCredits to his slot machine winners? LOL
Perhaps a system where you can bid credits for an ad spot would resolve a lot of problems you mention.
We would be able to get an ad spot on ANY site simply by outbidding the highest bidder. The option of having multiple ad spots would add more opportunities to get on the site.
Site owners could set a lower limit for their ad price.
PW with credits instead of money, basically.
I still spend all the credits I get, haven’t been over a thousand credits since I bought them from you. Maybe I’m foolish. (Actually, I’m guaranteeingly foolish. As I make up words like guaranteeingly.)
I think as long as new people come along wanting to be “known” within Entrecard, there will be a need to advertise. You may think you have an established brand, but you drop 300 cards a day and hit up the “Most Recent” sites. Those are things that will keep you on people’s minds. Stop doing those things and see how established you are.
Stan: It’s more of an issue being established inside entrecard, but not outside entrecard. Yes, were I to stop dropping, advertising, and posting in the forums, I’d fade into Entrecard obscurity, but only if I stopped writing new articles as well. A month later Graham would be posting “where’s that turnip guy?”. You spend all your credits, I don’t. The difference in cost between our blogs? 56 ec. That’s 28 readers averaged over 5 days. I’ve noticed a few others complaining of a glut of credits as well.
Ben: I’d love the opportunity to bid more to bump my ad onto certain sites. I don’t see Entrecard making that change though.
As an experiment, I’m seeing if I can drive traffic from the entrecard shop at a reasonable rate. Especially those offers that involve advertising outside the entrecard community.
Lots of people would spend thousands of credits if they could get on JohnChow.com or other big sites. The pricing system prevents people from being able to do that.
This is a result of the pricing system for sites being screwed up.
If prices for sites could float freely, people could use their credits to just bid their way onto sites they want. Because prices can’t float, there are shortages of slots and surpluses of credits….just like Econ 101 would predict.
To date, I’ve gotten 2,096 clicks from ads I’ve placed and 3,932 cards dropped on me. I view the ad clicks as being much more valuable than the card drops.
I think at some point the value of buying an ad will start outweighing selling your credits just because so many will have a surplus of credits. Supply and demand will catch up and a little Entreflation (copyright James Terrell Websites 2008) will set in.
Sure I have thought how nice it would be to advertise on some of the more “popular” sites on entrecard, and I have thought even more about how to best increase my own ec worth. The conclusion I came to was that I get more traffic by visiting and commenting on sites that I find through entrecard then I do by dropping cards or buying ads. Although my traffic is still rather low so you best believe I am spending the credits to get more ads out there. I have also noticed that once you reach certain plateaus of worth that traffic from entrecard naturally picks up. So that by the time you get to the highest levels you probably don’t need to buy any ads because you have so many stopping by and checking out what is so great about your site to make it worth so much and then they drop their card and try to get ad space on your site. To have that problem would be great.
But as far as how to get people in that situation to spend the credits they are amassing, I like the first and third ideas. As far as the second, it may be interesting to see the results the first time arround, but if repeated to often I think I would quickly lose interest in both the contest and entrecard.
And personally just for fun, you could always try to get your ad to show on as many different blogs on the same day as possible.
I agree with the fact that there is a need to dump some more credits in the system. There is however, the issue that if more credits are dumped the value of advertising will go down as well.
I like the contest idea. Entrecard keeps 75% from each advertisement bought. Why not take some of those credits and use them as a prize for a contest. Have a few people start a blog from scratch and reach a goal or something…
Some interesting ideas…
Currently the people who are most popular within EC receive the most credits thus putting the most back into the system (with the cut that EC takes of their ad fee at least). I think putting more or different value on sites would increase the advertising potential of more sites.
Being able to see and sort by things like:
Page Rank,
Alexa Rank,
Technorati Rank,
Unique page views,
ect.
would increase the purchasing of ads across the board. Everyone has their own favorite benchmark of popularity but for a lot of EC users, EC ad price isn’t one of them.
Thank you so much for taking time out to leave me a comment. I always appreciate your advice.
Hey.. maybe i’m one of the minority but im here on Turnip power buying credits constantly… In fact i’m going to buy some right now. I dont know if the traffic i get is quality but my Alexa has skyrocketed which makes me look more attractive to private advertisers.
I kinda like BenBarden’s idea about bidding with the credits. But, then again – only those with zillions of credits who can afford to spend them will win the ad placements, leaving the smaller player SOL.
madWAHM – you might be surprised. Credits might not be the same as money, but while having a lot of credits means you can afford more, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you buy more. I currently have 2000+ credits and I wouldn’t be too thrilled if I paid 400 for an ad that generated virtually no clicks. I wouldn’t advertise on that site again.
With my idea, I think sites would end up with much more realistic prices than they do now. I like GorillaSushi’s idea too, though.
I’ve been a moderate Entrecard user and I think I topped out at 300 drops once. That being said, even I got burn out and now I set my widget to no ads.
To me, it got stressful trying to give my advertisers good value. So, I’d buy expensive ad spots on other places hoping they would chain drop on mine – not for my sake, but for my advertisers sake. However, it forced me to drop a lot in order to get enough credits to afford the ad spots.
I think you can build readership like normal bloggers but it’s just more regimented with Entrecard reciprocal drops. I’m carrying 6300 credits and I only have one blog! I’m waiting for something good to spend on the shops.
I really think that with Entrecard dropping etiquette, Sitehoppin’, and chain droppers, it really negates the purpose of Entrecard advertising.
Turnip shirts are in the shop now for 2000cr! Thats something good
Burnout is a serious issue too. Instead of dropping 900 a day, I drop 300 with this blog, and then 35 with 2 other blogs for a total of about 370 a day. That’s why having a system is important. To make dropping as fun and painless as possible. I’m happy to add my name to dropper lists, but I maintain my own and reward those who visit my site.
Actually, I think there will be tabs based on other methods (Alexa, Technorati, etc.) very soon. And if I’m correct, ad prices will be changeable with a high end price of the what we currently have but you can go as low as you want. Maybe not a bidding system, but people will notice and stop buying on those that charge too much.
In regards to how many hours a day I spend sending ec, about 1 hour. I am about to make a change to the slots to minimize that, however.
Hey Turnip,
I don’t have a clue how to make Entrecard more attractive for the new wave of folks and the current EC’ers.
But, I agree, there is a bump in the road for EC, it will be interesting to see how it is resolved.
I need your technical help. I just bought my domain, and I would like to connect my old blogger stuff with the new website. How can I do this?
Stan Hayes told me to ask you…