Free 'Super Forum Tips' e-book

Day73
I write a monthly column for one of our local weekly papers about parenting a college age kid. It’s been a lot of fun and for this last one I tied in my My Space experiences. For the first time the editor added after my name that I run an online store givitup at http://www.givitup.com/ and write a daily blog (and this address)! So that was neat to start tying this all together!

It’s almost time to send the free classifieds again. I really see no traffic on my statcounter from them and have debated stopping. But, as long as it’s not hurting anything I guess I’ll continue a while longer. I hate to not try.

One thing I do get a lot of traffic from is forums! And I know when I’m reading an answer that is interesting I almost always click on their URL to at least see their site.
I mentioned a great book on forums called Forum Super Tips by Harvey Segal when I first started my blog. It’s a good read and you can download your free copy of Segal's e-book here.

Using news for product ideas

Day34
OK, My Space is getting freaky. Got an email from a guy – “can’t believe anyone as pretty as you isn’t married.” Guess I should have checked the married box…and not lied about my age.

Getting a little discouraged. Some hits still coming through on the statcounter, but haven’t had a sale forever.

Read in the USA Today that Chicago and New York City are having an “online fight” about which city is better. So on the spur of the moment decided to do a section for Chicago fans and one for New York fans. The article had mentioned Craigslist as being involved, so I did an ad in each city’s Craigslist and sent a press release to the Chicago Tribune. On our way to the theater so will have to send one to a New York paper and also clean up both sections better tomorrow.
Wish I knew what will finally work or what is a (huge) waste of my time, but it’s all a guessing game.

Cleaning up MySpace

Day32
Finally got My Space sorted out. Classifieds caught up to where I thought I was the day before and joined a few groups that let you promote things. Had to close my eyes to 90% of the group titles though!!

John helped me get my picture on there to replace their default picture, which looked like one of those silhouettes the police shoot at for firing practice! Of course my picture doesn’t compare with most of the girls on there!

Other types of MySpace promotion

Day31
Announced my Blog on a CafePress forum and got a couple very nice comments!

Later I was on My Space getting very frustrated that none of my classifieds had posted, so for a break I typed in my 18 year old daughter’s name. There she was in a hot low cut red dress! I sent her a message, “Hi, I joined this site to promote my store. What are you promoting?”

MySpace and Spam

Day21
I asked about My Space on the forum and got enough positive feedback to sign up. Got the basic information in there and then got totally confused plus someone kept messaging me “helloo…are you there?….” while I was trying to figure it out. It’s late now, so I think I’ll go back to the site tomorrow and try again!

Day22
I get so much spam mail to my business email address now! I think it’s the free classified sites I used. The CaféPress forums even “welcome people to the club” when they get the Nigerian spam emails! I have also gotten emails saying my ebay account and Pay Pal account are in jeopardy of being closed. I don’t have an ebay account and my Pay Pal uses a different email address. So I ignore it all. But, it is a little disconcerting and I am joining so many sites I’m having trouble keeping all the user names and passwords straight!