ThumbVu Reinvents Traffic Exchanges

January 7, 2010 – 5:46 pm

I spent my lunch hour today playing around with Thumbvu, a new traffic exchange created by John Guanzon, Austin Hallock and Martin Gardner. I say “traffic exchange” but it’s so unfair to call it that – really, it’s a social networking hub for marketers, a reputation marketplace for offers, an opportunity to build a mailing list, and about twelve other things at once.

True, you earn credits the way that you normally do – by surfing advertising pages posted by other users. There’s a big difference, however, between ThumbVu’s system and a traditional manual exchange. For a start, ThumbVu allows you to pre-view three thumbnail images of your “next” destination. Seen an offer before? Ignore it. Not interested in yet another traffic exchange? Don’t click. You can even ask for three more thumbnails.

Users can vote sites up or down using the buttons presented on the surfbar. The pages that get the most attention and votes are showcased in a gallery on the ThumbVu site. ThumbVu also offers these metrics for your campaigns, allowing you to measure the success of your pages. For the first time, you can split-test splash pages and get actual, useful numbers and user vote counts.

In addition, the selective nature of the credit surfing means that you don’t burn credits on people who log in, crank out an hour of viewing (whether that means they see your page once, twice, or ten times), and then bail out. At best, this encourages you to engage in the same behavior to ensure that your sites are live. At worst, it’s a game of “100 people in a room with megaphones.” There’s no value. You don’t get to know the person.

This leads me to the next thing that’s amazing about ThumbVu – the social network profile of each and every user is available on demand. You can add your YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter, blog, Digg, and many more social networking accounts. Connecting once with someone allows you the opportunity to tell them a lot more about yourself. Your reputation and your brand are given marquee status each time someone views your sites.

Even more incredible, premium membership allows you to place an offer right in the sidebar anytime your sites are displayed. You can offer free videos, an e-course on list building, whatever strikes your fancy. And you can build your list using whatever autoresponder you already use.

I can’t say enough about how much better this system is than any of the ones I’ve seen (and that includes really well-run manual exchanges). John and his team have leapfrogged the competition and created an incredible product that gets the nature of reputation and trust in today’s Internet.

But don’t take my word for it – sign up for ThumbVu and see for yourself…

…Oh yeah,the site is optimized for the mobile web, too.

Disclosure – the links in this post are referral links – I will get credit for your decision to sign up with Thumbvu, and will receive a commission if you upgrade your membership or purchase credits.

By derangedpenguin | Posted in Traffic | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)

Okay, Here’s the Plan:

January 5, 2010 – 9:02 am

2010 is the year that we collectively work our asses off. Sound good? Post done.

Well, wait. I suppose that’s a bit over the top. Here’s what I mean: I’ve been noodling up to now. Not really persistently focusing on this project. There’s nothing wrong with that, unless you actually have expectations of results. At that point, you have to consider why your actions are not tailored to reach the results you’re interested in.

So 2010 is the year of crazy-seriousness here at Deranged Penguin. Each day is a chance to incrementally improve some aspect of the marketing empire, so I’m going to use Teux Deux to keep up on what I’m supposed to be working on. This is a new habit and will take some force to put into motion. But it’s worth it – much better than spinning wheels and assuming that you’re getting somewhere.

WordPress is the platform of choice for practically any project I think of, so why am I not formalizing and releasing my WP startup tricks into the wild? Good question. That’s going on the list. Expect to see it by the end of the first quarter.

I’m also going to dip a toe into pay per click, using Wealthy Affiliate’s resources and training to understand a lot more about that particular advertising medium.

And, as I posted over at the APS Forum, January is Consumer Focus Month! Time to spiff up the search engine and blog like hell over at SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Okay, Here’s the Plan:", url: "http://www.derangedpenguin.com/2010/01/05/okay-heres-the-plan/" });

By derangedpenguin | Posted in Affiliate Marketing, learning | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

5 Twitter Mistakes Made by Every Marketing Guru

November 19, 2009 – 3:34 pm

These are in rank order of egregiousness.

1. Automating anything.

Yes, I know that your auto-DM gets clicks. I know that you see nothing wrong with pitching right out of the gate. I know that you are just sending a friendly “thanks for following!” message with no link whatsoever. They’re all annoying. You are not doing yourself any sort of service by utilizing this technique. Whatever conversion rate you are receiving as a result of the auto-DM, I bet you’re losing an audience that would, eventually, have purchased something you recommended if you had given them a chance to get to know you.

Also, although I am a huge fan of Tweetspinner (referral link, free accounts available and useful), you will notice that I’m not a big advocate of the “spinning your tweets” part of the equation. This is because the use of “human-looking” twitter bots still does not pass muster. I’ve yet to see a series of automated tweets that didn’t look fake. (Note that scheduling tweets that you write yourself is not only okay but somewhat essential if you’re going to employ a niche marketing strategy on Twitter).

2. Calling yourself a guru.

This is pure horseshit and will not be tolerated. The age of snake oil is far from over, but being an “expert,” “guru,” “thought leader” or any other trumped up title certainly is. There’s been a lot of chatter about social proof in Internet marketing circles lately, but for the most part people still have the wrong end of the stick. Personal branding does not involve titles or badly scanned checks or pictures of you with your BMW. It involves indicia of helpfulness and a service mentality.

Tiger Woods doesn’t talk about how great he is. He usually talks about where he could have done better. Even when reporters throw softball “how great are you” questions at him, he finds ways to make them into “how I can improve next time” questions. Your narrative should do the same – be a lifetime learner, not a coach, teacher, or mastermind.

3. Giving away control of your account at any level.

If you have an absurdly inflated follower count for someone who does nothing but repeat the same affiliate link, you are a doofus. Be the Smith Barney of Twitter: earn your followers. (See below.)

Note that most of the services that will maximize your follower count retain authorization to tweet stuff “on your behalf.” Not okay. You are the sole messenger.

4. Neglecting the 80/20 rule.

People hate being sold and love being served. Make sure that your content/commercial ratio is 80/20. This is where tweet scheduling comes in handy – you can “preload” a day’s tweets the night before, fold in an appropriate and context-sensitive number of #ad tweets with your affiliate links, and rest assured that you’re monetizing your tweetstream even as you go about your day. If you’re using a service like Magpie to handle your commercial tweets, you can set the ratio appropriately to ensure that you’re not over-saturating your tweetstream with advertising. I’d say 30:1 tweets/ads is about right, because that leaves you room to also discuss your own programs, products, or whatever.

5. Failing to wordsmith

I pay almost no attention to people who treat twitter like any other ad space. Twitter is unique, and your audience is unique. Take the time to identify a need and then offer a service that fills that need. We’re not all the best writers in the world but I know you can do better. Tweets are little fortune cookie missives to the larger world. How can you make that play to your advantage? What’s the hook that no one else is using because they’re not smart enough? Focus on that.

By derangedpenguin | Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Twitter | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)