About two months ago, or more, I came across the Etrecard site. I'd seen the little "get one" on boxes on some sites and wanted to know what it was. When I did my investigation, I realized it was a site to help get more traffic to your blog. Great! I signed up, and dived right in.Now, a few months later, I'm finding that I've let the "frenzy" take hold and I've worked to drop more and more cards as the days have passed. I've commented on various sites and I've listed in the marketplace. It's all worked well except for one thing. . . I don't really have time to spend browsing that many blogs, dropping that many card and getting that many "credits" when there is so much more I need to do with my time. I've tried doing it only when I'm eating, my son is playing around me and I can't focus on something significant or late at night. However, my craft can be done at two of those three times and when I'm eating, I have lots of sites to visit already.
So, after a long deliberation, I have freed myself of the frenzy. I am no longer worried about how many people "drop" cards on my site, because I want to focus on the "quality" of my visitors rather than the "quantity" I want to leave time in my day to peruse sites of those who've visited my and left comments or joined a contest I've started. Therefore, I'm not going to run around "dropping" as many cards as I can anymore. However, I'm not taking my box off the site.
The things I will do are the following:
- I will drop on anyone who advertises with me on the day their ad is shown. And I will make every effort on that day to take a good assessment of the blog to see if it's one I'd like to follow on a regular basis. Then I'll do what is necessary.
- I will use the credits I currently have to advertise on very focused sites where I think their audience would be served by visiting my blog
- I will drop on boxes that I encounter on my regular surfing, and leave a comment if appropriate.
With so many things going on in my life, tying myself to a system that requires such a time commitment with mixed rewards is not high on my list of priorities. I still love the "idea" of Entrecard, but I think in trying to gain as many credits as possible, people have lost the essence of what it was created for. I'd like to use it in the way it was intended.
