With Craigslist, you have to tread with caution. I used to sell longboard skateboards back in the day, and so I'd post an ad to sell an item locally and then refer back to my site for different options. CL has been abused a lot in recent years, and it doesn't "work" to use to market just any site. Your site for the most part needs to offer something that could be offered as a local classified ad. I used to market a merchant service that I'm a partner in on CL just to test ads and see which ones performed, but we've since stopped doing that because there are easier ways of doing that. I think I'll actually be updating my "7 Ways" post - or making a new one - in the near future -Chris
Joint Ventures (JV's) are simply a partnership where you work with someone else who has what you want. In most cases, this means traffic or a client database to leverage. I have an info site on Joint Venture Marketing with tons of free articles on the subject that explain everything. It's at http://www.JV-Web.com if you're interested in learning more about using partnerships to get fast results... Cheers, -Chris
Isnt it prohibited to carry out commercial promo campaigns using social network sites such as myspace and so on ...? I thought they consider thsoe as SPAM ...? hmmmmmmm
This is sort of the "gray area" of it all... MySpace in particular has been hit with waves of spammers that just make everyone else's experience a pain. The way to market with these sites is to simply get involved and contribute to the community, adding friends that you'd want to add yourself - even if you had no site to point to... The actual TOS actually does forbid commercial activity, but that's sort of contradictory, being as MySpace actually features commercial profiles - such as band profiles and corporate profiles like Sony, etc. So that's what makes it "gray"... To boil it all down, you need to be tactful if you're going to use MySpace. Your profile actually has to be a profile - it can't just be an ad. Follow the examples of the more successful corporate/promotional profiles (the ones that MySpace features) that don't abuse the system, and you'll do fine. Myself, I've used myspace primarily to promote my own social networks, which sort of tie into the whole "MySpace" experience anyway. I never spam people with unsolicited messages, and I don't blast out bulletins all day long. And honestly, I've begun to focus more on other social networks that DO allow and encourage promotion and marketing. Such as Squidoo.com This is a judgment call in terms of ethics. Follow your conscience, and use common sense... -Chris