I'm Too Picky for Video

So after I read the chapter in Building on a Budget about making and uploading videos to drive traffic to my lead capture page, I started working on a video.

I found that I'm far too picky for this kind of stuff.

I watched several of the home brew videos that people post and I just don't feel like they're of the qualify I would want to present to the world. Some of them just look tacky.

I stress the importance of a complete package - don't do it half way, and don't shoot your wad for a bunch of junk. So instead of The Flip, I invested in a slightly more expensive video camera that also takes pictures and stills in HD. It's actually a great little camera, and with the extra memory card, I paid about $200 for it.

So my total's creeping up (plus this is month two of my autoresponder costs), but I've already used it to take some great pictures for my website. You'll be seeing those soon.

I'm pretty excited about the next chapter in Mike's book, press releases. I've already been using press releases, and I'm excited about the prospect of making them work even better for me.

Craigslist Power Posting Using Black Hat Techniques?

Craigslist makes a wonderful place to market your product or service. Throughout the last year, Craigslist has unfortunately dramatically cracked down on bulk posting. When this book was first written, it was much easier to bulk post on Craigslist. One could simply post an image-based ad from a Craigslist account and have the liberty to
post many ads within a short period of time.

Although posting on Craigslist requires patience and persistence, marketing on Craigslist is more valuable than ever. Why, you're wondering? Because the site gets more traffic than ever before... and because of its large usage, it can serve as a valuable place to generate leads and targeted website traffic.

This is an excerpt from the opening chapters of CraigsListPowerPosting3.0. Written by Mark Mattey, CLPP3.0 is designed to make the posting process easier. But what I continue to run up against, is the concept that Craigslist doesn't want people posting the same ads in multiple cities.

Here's what Mark has to say to that:

The goal of this report (and the PowerPosting process) is to inform you on how to post responsible,multiple ads in multiple cities. The ads will run simultaneously. Each ad will virtually look the same, but to Craigslist's computers they (the ads) will appear to be unique - therefore they will not get staff deleted.

Originally I had some moral issues with selling this information (this ebook) because of this. But I've recently come to believe that Craigslist really does not care if people post responsibly. Posting quality ads for quality products in proper sections does not hurt Craigslist. If someone is outside of your city and you sell them something they wanted that is worthwhile, what is wrong with that?

Craigslist mainly does not want spammers bulk posting garbage products all over their website. Understandable, right? So don't become one of these people, please.

Are we running into a grey area here? Is there really a moral dilemma to be had?

Right now, I'm up to 3 leads. But I'm NOT posting every day. It's too much time, and I'm still wading through CLPP3.0. But the more I read, the more I feel like I've entered a realm of "black hat" secrets that I should run SCREAMING from in the other direction.

Whenever I see something like this, I get nervous:

Another option (that I recommend) is to cut and paste junk content after your image, and HIDE it via using white text. This way it will appear unique to the computers, but to the human eye it will not appear (unless it is highlighted with the mouse).

I thought SPAM was junk that people don't want to see? How does appending junk to your post make your post NOT junk?

The more I read, the more concerned I get about Mike Dillard's recommendations. Sure Craigslist may be an orchard of leads ripe for the picking, but if you have to use black hat methods to get them, I'm not so sure I want to be associated with that. How do you teach your downline to use these same techniques and create something that works for them when the rules at Craigslist are constantly changing to keep "spammers" off the field?

ESPECIALLY when it looks like WE'RE just adding to the spam fodder.

So if you like black hat, somewhat backdoor techniques to increasing your Network Marketing Leads, grab a copy of Mike Dillard's Building on a Budget right now.

Otherwise, stay posted as I continue to "work" through this book.

Craigslist Power Posting Strikes Back!

Well, I finally got my copy of the Craigslist Power Posting package.

This guy is SO concerned about security that he keeps moving the location of the file and changing the download link location.

TALK about frustrating. I don't check my email every day, so by the time I got his message, the download link had moved - again - and again - and again!

Argh.

I finally had to threaten to report him to PayPal.

But I got the collection. And it's pretty comprehensive, so I'm taking a few days to digest it.

...before my chance to ask for a refund expires.

Mike Dillard's book recommends this guy in his "references" section. Mike references him again in the online members area.

I hope other users aren't having the same problems I did.

And Then There Were 2

So far, I've still not gotten my power posting package, and I've been a little stumped by the video- which I'll get to in a different post.

Mike Dillard's book, Building on a Budget makes it clear that he's not responsible for the recommendations for the power posting people. But this guy's had my money for nearly a month now and I STILL don't have the stupid files he's supposed to send.

He keeps saying he'll send it - then never does.

But on the bright side, my manual efforts have brought me 2 leads.

So they're in my pipeline, and we're moving forward.

On the other bright side, my funded proposals are starting to pay off, too. One of the people in my pipeline just plunked down the cash to buy Magnetic Sponsoring, Black Belt Recruiting AND MLM Traffic Formula all at the same time. That puts a few bucks in my advertising pipeline.

Thanks Renee!