Posted 4/21/08 - Kellex
This is the first in a 2 part segment from someone I would consider an "Entrecard expert." Stan from the fantasy baseball site Razzball, has been on top of Entrecard ever since I can remember. He's an amazing guy and shared with us this piece on how you can get to the "popular" page on Entrecard and stay there for good. In case you have seen this before, he also posted this as an Entrecard blog. It's incredible.
How to get on the Popular Page.
I wrestled with whether or not to share these secrets, because, frankly, it will probably do me more harm than good for everyone to know. It’s the golden goose.
Since I joined Entrecard on 12/26, I’ve spent a majority of my time on the popular page. Does this make me an expert? Yup. Is there any set course to get onto the popular page? Nope. However, the following five directives will do the trick in a mere two weeks.
1. “What do I do with my 300 drops?”
Good question, that’s a great place to start. Drop two hundred cards as soon as you can in your day. But not 200 random sites. The worst mistake you can make it “card surfing.” This is haphazard and won’t get you anywhere. When you “card surf” you’re not dropping on necessarily people who reciprocate, you’re simply dropping on some people who have advertised. Also, by dropping on the same exact sites, there’s a good chance you will get backlinks when their “Top Dropper” lists come out at the beginning of every month.
Go to the Most Popular Page and drop on every site there, then move to the category page and hit every “Top Three” site that you’ve missed. If you need whys, I’ll explain. The Popular Page and the top three in each category are the best collection of sites that are active on Entrecard. These are people that will, more than likely, reciprocate your drops. This is the key. Every directive will be making sure you get drops back. Your drops are only used to get drops back or to reciprocate.
If you wanna tip someone, just send them some credits. They’re about a cent a piece. You do the math. Are you following? Great. Now at the latest possible moment in your day (before Entrecard ends its day at 12am EST), drop on everyone that has dropped on you that you haven’t already dropped on. At first this might not be that many, so you should have cards leftover. With the leftover cards, go into some of the categories you’re interested in and drop on the first three sites after the top three. Then take twenty cards and drop on the last few people to post in a forum thread. Take another twenty cards and blanket your category. Once you start moving up your category, you’ll need more of your cards to reciprocate, but by that time you should have a pretty good handle on who reciprocates, so only drop on those.
Do not drop on Most Recent sites. Nine times out of ten they don’t understand what a their inbox is or how to drop a card. By the time they figure it out, you’ll be on the Most Popular page and they’ll be dropping on you.
(Tip: Many people on Entrecard are also on BlogCatalog using the same 125×125 image. So when you come to a site that shows the last five or so people from BlogCatalog, check to see how long ago they were they were dropping. If it was recently, go to their site and drop on them. They are probably doing the rounds, as well. Caveat: Don’t join any bookmarking cliques/lists. If you do this organically, you’ll be better off. Full disclosure: I recently joined a drop 50/day list and I regret it. Probably by the time this is posted, I’ll be out of that. Why I regret it will be for another day.)
2. “Dropping and running? That’s lame. I wanna help the community.”
Well, aren’t you the giver? Okay, next step: sincerely comment on some blogs. If you have nothing to say, that’s a shame and you probably shouldn’t be writing a blog. Some sites will be completely out of your comfort zone. Here’s an idea, don’t comment on those blogs. i.e. Sometimes I see a site where they’re talking about computer “stuff” and I haven’t the foggiest idea what’s being discussed. You know what I do there? Don’t comment. Seriously, don’t pester people with lame comments. Sincere comments on blogs; that’s it.
How many comments a day? There’s no set limit, whatever you feel comfortable doing. You should be able to muster fifteen comments a day.
(Tip: Spread your comments around. There’s no reason you can’t comment again and again on the same blogs, but you should try and spread your net wider. Caveat: Don’t comment and run. Follow-up on old comments to show your gratitude that the blogger commented back to you. You’re building your Entre-foundation. Please try and walk before you run.)
Part 2 will run later this week. Stay tuned!
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