Branding at the Traffic Exchanges
Social surfing is the modern set-up for traffic exchanges today. The idea behind it is that you can earn traffic and get yourself know at the same time: Traffic and branding all rolled into one.
Most TEs now have some sort of chat in place which, if nothing else, alleviates the boredom that is common to regular surfers. Using the chat is a great way to get known and is useful for branding, but only if you use chat regularly. If you are using several exchanges simultaneously (and you should be) you will probably find you can only have conversations on one or two chats if you are to generate the credits that you are there to earn. So my advice is to make use of the chat facility but don’t allow yourself to be side-tracked by it.
Another common branding feature of todays traffic exchanges is the ability to have your name and picture on display in the surf bar when your site loads. In order for this to work you must update your profile. It is very important that you do this if you are serious about branding yourself properly at the TEs.
A Quick Look At Twitter
Twitter is like Marmite; people either love it or hate it.
Like it or not, if you work in affiliate marketing you need to seriously consider Twitter as a promotional tool.
Twitter is ideal for advertising and for branding and you can, and should, use the same account for both purposes.
The first thing you need to do is to get yourself a nice picture of your smiling face and upload it to your profile. Next you need to write your profile. Make your profile personal, not an advertisement (Save your ads for your Tweets). If you are blogging, add your blog as your website URL, if not then use your ApSense profile. Use your profile entirely for branding.
When you begin posting on Twitter balance your tweets between branding and advertising. Your branding tweets should offer help, advice, news, in fact anything that is personal to you or your reader and which adds value. Usually your branding tweets should not include a link.
You cannot over-brand but you can over-advertise. Your branding tweets will keep your followers reading, then when you post an add your add will get read too.
Balance your tweets at a minimum of 5 branding tweets to each advertising tweet and you should keep your readers and get sales.
You will also want to limit the number of tweets your post. I do not usually post more than 5 tweets per day, usually less.
Every affiliate marketer should be a member of ApSense!
Apsense is a social network site, like Facebook, but it’s aimed primarily at people in the affiliate marketing industry. It is a place where you can meet other people in the industry and where you can keep up with current trends. It is also a place where you can build your reputation as an affiliate marketer and promote your offers. Spam isn’t a big issue either, because people have to be connected with you to post their offers for you to see.
If you are not a member of ApSense I strongly recommend it to you.
Are you already a member of ApSense?
If you are a member I’d be very happy to have you connect with me. Just mention this Website when you ask for the connection and I’ll approve it.
Connect with Vince Warner on ApSense
ApSense works best when you use it as a branding tool.
This is how I use it:
- I write very short articles that people can read quickly but which give the reader something of value.
- I create reviews (RevPages) of the programs that I’m currently involved with, making sure that they are genuine reviews and not just sales pitches (i.e. I point out the not so good bits as well as all the benefits).
- I write short interesting updates regularly but not excessively, and very very occasionally post about a product or service that I have found useful.
- I join in by answering questions, and occasionally asking some.
- I give positive comments and feedback to other marketers’ offers etc. (when it is deserved)
- I use campaigns to promote my articles which gains me more connections.
Doing these things on a regular basis helps me to get known by other Internet marketers. Getting yourself know and respected is what branding is all about.
There are many other things you can do to gain branding and recognition. ApSense is just the beginning, but an excellent beginning.
Using WordPress For Branding
This WordPress Blog is part of my branding efforts, and I would encourage you to do something similar.
WordPress is free and it is very easy to use. No commissions to be earned by recommending it though, but we don’t need to earn money for everything we recommend do we? Isn’t it good to just help people? Personally I would say it is very good for our branding efforts.
When you set up your WordPress Blog resist the temptation to sell on every page and every post you write. Visitors are soon put off if all they read are sales pitches. It is far better to give help and advice, maybe even offer some nice freebies (I’ll be adding some to this blog over time) and to get yourself known and liked in the process.
This WordPress Blog is not about selling my product, it is about selling me. Yours should have a similar goal.
You can join WordPress and start your own branding blog here.
Two Essentials to Success Online
I believe there are two essential ingredients to online success:
The first is “Branding”. People want to know who they are dealing with. People like doing business with people, not with some faceless Website or marketing scheme.
The second ingredient is plenty of good quality traffic.
Both are very easy to to achieve, and I’ll be adding lots of information here soon to show some ways to achieve them.
NetRhino Traffic & Branding 