1. Friends and family make great referrals. Assuming you have both, hit them up for the task. Tell them everything though, or you might not be invited to holiday dinners. Explain the entire process and who knows, they might just enjoy it. Sure, grandma isn’t a wicked Grand Theft Auto player, but she might want some extra cash and pick the PayPal cash option or want to join Columbia House and get some Anne Murray CDs.
2. Sign, sign, everywhere a sign. After trying the normal routes, I decided to try and boost my exposure to the public. It came to me as I was walking through my local grocery store. They had a bulletin board in the entryway that had everything known to man posted. There were signs for kids’ toys, music lessons, tools for sale, and much more. I got to thinking, "Why not put up flyers?" I immediately went back into the store at the risk of letting my ice cream melt and asked one of the store employees if there was an approval process for hanging up a sign. They said no. I left with groceries in tow and quickly went home to my computer to pen my masterpiece. Ok, that’s overstating a bit. I threw together a simple, yet eye catching flyer with my site link across the bottom in tear off strips. Then I blanketed the local stores, and college campuses with the news. Also, look into classified ads online. Try to keep to the free ones and follow their rules. Have a website? Post your link. If you get a decent amount of traffic, you could generate a lot of interest. Do you frequent message boards and forums? Include your site as you signature file. Every post you make will have your unique link at the bottom of your post. For your own sake, don’t spam. Be aware of the board/forum policies and play nice with others.
* And just because it’s not electronic doesn’t mean it’s not spam. Be aware of each establishment’s posting policies. Put a real bee in someone’s bonnet and they might contact the IFW parent site and have you shut down for spamming.
3.
Join a support group. No, not that kind. There are websites all over the internet devoted to freebie sites.
Anything4Free.com,
Freebiescout.com, and
FreeLunchRoom.com are a few of the more popular sites. They have forums and message boards for traders, payers, you name it. If you join on of these sites please be aware of their rules. It’s not kewl to be a nOOb. Most sites offer an area on their forums for people to trade referrals for referrals, cash, or just about anything allowed in the fifty nifty United States as well as abroad. Take a look. Be sure to look at the board rules and tips for trading. It’s a pretty good rule of thumb to only deal with people with higher TR (Trade Record) than others. Be honest when asking questions and try to build up a good reputation on the board. It will pay off in spades. When in doubt, check with a mod (MODERATOR) of that forum.
* This is a place you NEED to be CAREFUL! I cannot stress enough the traps that can be out in these types of forums. There is some real scum out there waiting to take advantage of your inexperience in these types of sites. See the chapter outlining Helping people help you for more info.
4. Come on baby, do that conga. A conga circle is basically a group of people that are trying to get referrals from people who join the conga after them. Here’s an example of how one works. All congas start with one person on top. You can be this one person on top by being the first one to post your referral link for a new site. Then, when users start to sign up for that person, they get added too. To be added to a conga, you must complete an offer for one of the Top users. (There are usually arrows pointing to the top users) Once you sign up, post in the correct format listed on the first post of the conga. Once you do this, you will be added to the Pending section. Then, wait until your offer credits and post that your offer has completed and you will be added to the actual rotation of the conga. Some congas rotate every few days or weeks meaning the Top users get moved to the bottom, and the next group gets moved to the top. In order to start a potential conga, you need to post your site link in that particular network's forum in a new thread. Some congas are set at a certain limit. Once you get that limit of referrals, you’re done with that conga. Some places have been conga lined to death. Please keep in mind, some forums only allow brand new sites which have never had a link posted for are eligible. If you post your link for a site that has already been posted, that is considered spam.
5. Break some rules, but don’t get caught. Now, why would I suggest to you breaking the rules when I’ve just spent a lot of time getting you to trust the system. Because, even bad publicity is good publicity. I broke a couple of good rules but got some positive results. EBay is filled with ads for IFW sites. Most people try to not break any rules by stating that the auction is for information only and not the actual product. They also repeatedly and in bold print tell the viewer to DO NOT BID JUST READ! However, this is considered illegal by EBay’s Terms of Service. It does generate a lot of people going to your site through the link, but again, it’s not allowed. There are ways to do it legally, but be careful. There are also places like Yahoo Answers. You can start to answer questions and tag your link at the bottom. Again, this is considered spam, but it does get the information out there. So, I’m not telling you what to do. I’m telling you what is not allowed.
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