Social bookmarking tool? Now what?

[Allison]

Hi Jason

I totally agree with you in some respects. In others I am not so sure. I will always pay for a great tool if it does what I want and I understand why I need that tool. I feel a little leery of recommending that someone pay for something, when they have little understanding of why they should. Which is where many of the 30DC'ers are at.

Once you have the basics then go nuts!

That's why I think people should be excited about the social bookmarking tool as it will do what many outsource to others. Not a bad deal in my books and one that should help those starting out in this year's 30DC.

If you want to pay for the same service, that's up to you. If you find you need something better then of course it makes sense to shell out.

(Oh and I LOVE looking for freebies, it's one of my passions so not such a time sink, could be a female thing )

As for PPC this year, I will be really interested if it is included, it is certainly on of the things that I need to get my head around. After the Google slap hysteria I avoided learning too much about it. Bring it on!

[Jason Moffatt]

Hey Allison,

I'm not even referring to the social bookmarking tool, but
just rather tools in general that are needed.

For instance, I think it's usually a total waste of time to be bookmarking
anything if you aren't running the traffic to a page where they
are signing up for your list.

But Aweber costs $19.99 a month. And in the spirit of FREE, recommending
Aweber to the participants was not encouraged.

This has to be the worst thing that I've seen in the 30 day challenge
and partly why I quit paying attention or referring people.

I want to see people build businesses and assets, not aimlessly
making posts, squidoo pages, and every other web2.0 site without
capturing those leads.

Now, I'm not opposed to the bookmarking, and social media stuff,
but it has to be done smart and the traffic generated needs to
be turned into leads, not just random visitors who visit your site
once and probably never come back.

The reason most of the 30 day challengers run into problems is
because their copy and offers suck. That's not a put down on anyone
but just the truth.

That's why it is critically important to capture leads. Because even
if your copy or offer is not the greatest, at least you get multiple
chances to sell them. And with frequency, conversions go up.

But many people don't get that chance and end up giving up on
their sites and promotions because their web2.0 submissions and
bookmarkings seem to not work.

If you want to succeed in this game, it's ESSENTIAL for you to spend
$19.99 for a Aweber account. Or you could choose another service,
but you got to capture leads. If you don't capture leads, you don't
really have a business going on.

When I started 30 day challenge I didn't have a dime to spend and
I needed the free resources. But I was also wise enough to realize
that free was only going to get me so far. Soon enough, free would
actually end up costing me tons of man hours and wasted time when
I could of just paid a few bucks.

It's kinda like using Camstudio over Camtasia. Camstudio is considered
free, and Camtasia is $300.

But the truth is, I feel like Camstudio really costs you about $1000
once you run into all the problems that you would of just avoided
with Camtasia.

Like I said, I don't know a thing about bookmarking, and really don't
care all that much. This little rant doesn't apply directly to that, but
just the overall waste of time that FREE can often be.

That said, I think the 30 day challenge is one of the greatest free
resources on the entire web. I wouldn't be where I'm at today without
it.

However, I dearly hope this year that Dan and Ed will allow some
suggestions of tools that need or should be bought for those that do
have the ability to buy the things that will save them time and money.

Making the rules... "Everything has to be free" is very detrimental to
the success of the larger group of people in my mind.

[FernHill]

Well said, Jason. I agree, but I do think that the decision to do "free" during 30DC 2007 was a gutsy and creative move. I'm glad I had the experience to try doing it the free way - it forced me to try out new techniques and ways of approaching things. And now I'm using those techniques in combination with PPC.

[Allison]

I get what you are getting at Jason, and it is a valid opinion. My post was in the context of the topic of this thread which is all about the Social Bookmarking tool

Maybe we should start another thread and have everyone weigh in with their opinion rather than hijacking this one

[scole]

tvsm22...

Thanks for the information, but those are a little different than what Dan is doing.

Dan's service is going to be a moderated, spam free, peer-to-peer social bookmarking service...

Otherwords, the service will automatically post my content on a random number of other TDCs accounts. It's not just automating the processing of posting to my own social sites (which there are a lot of options for already). It's the power of having your content shared on other members accounts as if they "showed the love" themselves all done automatically that is the REAL POWER of this service.

I'm really looking forward to when this is live.

~Shannon

p.s. status updates would be nice though...

[scole]

Originally Posted by Jason Moffatt

Hey Allison,

I'm not even referring to the social bookmarking tool, but
just rather tools in general that are needed.

For instance, I think it's usually a total waste of time to be bookmarking
anything if you aren't running the traffic to a page where they
are signing up for your list.

But Aweber costs $19.99 a month. And in the spirit of FREE, recommending
Aweber to the participants was not encouraged.

This has to be the worst thing that I've seen in the 30 day challenge
and partly why I quit paying attention or referring people.

I want to see people build businesses and assets, not aimlessly
making posts, squidoo pages, and every other web2.0 site without
capturing those leads.

Now, I'm not opposed to the bookmarking, and social media stuff,
but it has to be done smart and the traffic generated needs to
be turned into leads, not just random visitors who visit your site
once and probably never come back.

The reason most of the 30 day challengers run into problems is
because their copy and offers suck. That's not a put down on anyone
but just the truth.

That's why it is critically important to capture leads. Because even
if your copy or offer is not the greatest, at least you get multiple
chances to sell them. And with frequency, conversions go up.

But many people don't get that chance and end up giving up on
their sites and promotions because their web2.0 submissions and
bookmarkings seem to not work.

If you want to succeed in this game, it's ESSENTIAL for you to spend
$19.99 for a Aweber account. Or you could choose another service,
but you got to capture leads. If you don't capture leads, you don't
really have a business going on.

When I started 30 day challenge I didn't have a dime to spend and
I needed the free resources. But I was also wise enough to realize
that free was only going to get me so far. Soon enough, free would
actually end up costing me tons of man hours and wasted time when
I could of just paid a few bucks.

It's kinda like using Camstudio over Camtasia. Camstudio is considered
free, and Camtasia is $300.

But the truth is, I feel like Camstudio really costs you about $1000
once you run into all the problems that you would of just avoided
with Camtasia.

Like I said, I don't know a thing about bookmarking, and really don't
care all that much. This little rant doesn't apply directly to that, but
just the overall waste of time that FREE can often be.

That said, I think the 30 day challenge is one of the greatest free
resources on the entire web. I wouldn't be where I'm at today without
it.

However, I dearly hope this year that Dan and Ed will allow some
suggestions of tools that need or should be bought for those that do
have the ability to buy the things that will save them time and money.

Making the rules... "Everything has to be free" is very detrimental to
the success of the larger group of people in my mind.

I can totally understand Jason's point... but any sort of monthly fee even if it's critical to the future success of your business can be a deterrent for a lot of people getting started.

Many people coming to the TDC for the very first time, don't have any extra money, a paypal account, a credit card, etc. Not to mention the fact that there are a lot of junk out there and no one trusts anyone these days.

I think for the thirty day challenge going the completely free approach is excellent. Remember the thirty day challenge goal was to make your first $10 online... it's not building a sustainable business online...

I feel that Ed done an excellent job at trying to instill the basics of business along with showing a the technique of using web 2.0 sites.

I'm sure you remember from the TDC training that they showed the complete overall picture of their business model, which includes list building, ppc campaigns, self hosted sites, and web 2.0.

Ed is just teaching one small aspect of the overall picture so people can get their feet wet without costing them a monthly fee.

~Shannon

[cmiddlebrook]

To put a somewhat cynical twist on things - as Jason correctly points out, there is great power in list building and we have seen the massive power of the 30DC itself to build a HUGE list for Ed! They are building that list in the best way possible, by providing an amazing amount of free content. However, I wouldn't surprised if the "zero cost rule" was introduced to lower the barrier to entry to get more people into the 30DC in the first place.

In Ed's defence though, he DID advocate Aweber but only right at the end. Once somebody has gone through the 30DC and started making money, then THAT is the time to step up the game and invest some cash. When I first started out I wasn't making anything so I didn't buy anything and I was a total cheapskate.

But over the last few months things have changed. I now have Aweber, belong to several membership sites and I even bought PLF 2.0 recently which was quite expensive. However, I started out free. If I had been encouraged to spend money at the start I might never have got off the ground.

[Jason Moffatt]

Originally Posted by scole

Remember the thirty day challenge goal was to make your first $10 online... it's not building a sustainable business online...

~Shannon

And that is where the challenge differs from the first year.

The first year, the goal was just to make $1 during the 30 days.
But you were given a blue print for creating a sustainable business
as well.

And to this day, many of us are now running 6 figure and million
dollar businesses because of the things we learned in the 30 day
challenge. On of the guys sold his site for $1,000,000.

We built businesses the first year.

And hey, I was in the same boat as most during the my first 30
day challenge. I didn't have much of anything at all either. I surely
couldn't afford to buy much of anything, let alone run PPC.

But we were given free options, and paid options. I pretty much
had to use all free methods, with the exception of making the
brilliant move of spending my rent money on Camtasia.

I'm not at all suggesting that some paid services should be a
requirement. Not at all. I would NEVER want to deter someone
away because they didn't have any money. That's not the spirit
at all.

My point is, some people are more then willing to spend a few
bucks to get ahead. And if that option is available I think it
should be utilized instead of handcuffing the entire group by
offering only the free alternatives to cater only to those who
don't have the cash to spend.

But without a doubt, I think the overwhelming amount of options
should be free. Even with mailing lists, I think Get Response has
a free option. It has ads displaying, but it's free. In a scenario
like that, I think it would be wise to say....

"here's Get Response for free, and here's Aweber for $19.99 a
month".

or...

"here's NVU free website builder, and here's XsitePro for $197".

I don't see the harm in offering the free versions, and then
offering the versions that will make your life so much easier.

[DavidL]

Jason,

I appreciate what you're saying, but I think one of the reason's that this years 30DC was so big was because it's ambition was even more basic than when you were doing it.

But you're right that sometimes people prefer to pay nothing and spend time struggling to make any progress rather than spend $50 (or whatever) and have someone else do it or have it automated.

Anyway, if you want to build a list for free you can use Email Marketing Software - Your Mailing List Provider. I did use them in the past, but I also think Aweber is a better option and well worth the money.

David

[scole]

Originally Posted by Jason Moffatt

And that is where the challenge differs from the first year.

The first year, the goal was just to make $1 during the 30 days.
But you were given a blue print for creating a sustainable business
as well.

And to this day, many of us are now running 6 figure and million
dollar businesses because of the things we learned in the 30 day
challenge. On of the guys sold his site for $1,000,000.

We built businesses the first year.

And hey, I was in the same boat as most during the my first 30
day challenge. I didn't have much of anything at all either. I surely
couldn't afford to buy much of anything, let alone run PPC.

But we were given free options, and paid options. I pretty much
had to use all free methods, with the exception of making the
brilliant move of spending my rent money on Camtasia.

I'm not at all suggesting that some paid services should be a
requirement. Not at all. I would NEVER want to deter someone
away because they didn't have any money. That's not the spirit
at all.

My point is, some people are more then willing to spend a few
bucks to get ahead. And if that option is available I think it
should be utilized instead of handcuffing the entire group by
offering only the free alternatives to cater only to those who
don't have the cash to spend.

But without a doubt, I think the overwhelming amount of options
should be free. Even with mailing lists, I think Get Response has
a free option. It has ads displaying, but it's free. In a scenario
like that, I think it would be wise to say....

"here's Get Response for free, and here's Aweber for $19.99 a
month".

or...

"here's NVU free website builder, and here's XsitePro for $197".

I don't see the harm in offering the free versions, and then
offering the versions that will make your life so much easier.

Yeah, the TDC 2006 did have good information.. I wished I had downloaded it when it was still live *kicking myself*. I'm really interested in PPC as well and fairly certain that Ed is planning on having PPC as part of this year's TDC.

and I fully agree that offering both paid and free options is a great way of doing it. They actually did do a bit of that last year when they recommended the directory submitter software which had a free version and a paid version.

I'm starting to outsource some of the more boring stuff so I can concentrate more on building my business. There's a quote I like that basically said that I need to concentrate on working ON my business, not IN my business.

~Shannon