The Entrecarder

Yeah, I'm one of them...my name is Kent and I'm a Drop Master. I've lost my way and I'm having a hard time breaking the habit. Some days I'll drop just a little when I first wake up and think I've got it under control. By mid-afternoon my fingers start to twitch and if I don't feed my addiction I know what I'll be doing right before the magic moment (midnight ET), after which I can relax and become a real person again. How did this happen? Why did I think that dropping 300 cards a day, mostly on the same people who I dropped on the day before, was a good thing? What is this self-loathing I feel for only dropping 293 cards the other day? What kind of monster has Entrecard turned me into?

Thank goodness for Alexa sending most of the Entrecard community a nasty wake-up call yesterday. Ha! You just thought your blog was popular because we, the Entrecard community as a whole, were gaming Alexa with our daily repetitive visits and drops. What are we doing? This isn't about dropping an Internet Business Card on a potential reader. This is a game where we huddle together with other players and agree (indirectly) to boost each other's traffic numbers with 3 second visits. No, not every Entrecarder is a participant...but you don't usually get labeled a Drop Master by throughly reading 300 blogs a day.

I've spent a few moments pondering the efficacy of reaching out beyond the Entrecard community for possible readers of this blog and always come to the same conclusion: this is a blog about and for Entrecarders. Entrecard is my niche. My challenge isn't to reach beyond the community, but to extend my reach within the Entrecard community. I should be dropping cards on every active Entrecarder at least once a week, which would mean that I wouldn't be returning very many drops from daily visitors. [Hands start trembling.] That would likely mean my popularity ranking would go down. [Throat getting dry.] And it might mean that I get more readers coming to my site on a regular basis! [Huh?]

Sure, I wouldn't have kicked the habit and would still be a Drop Master, but hopefully I can move away from the hard stuff and get closer to finding some balance in my Entrecard activities. It's been helpful to post more in the forums, but that can become an addiction of another sort. It has also helped to prep myself to sell The Entrecarder and remind myself that the blog is the thing and not credits or rankings. I feel I've done a credible job of establishing a brand that adds value to the community and I shouldn't expect to command the same ad price or be rated as highly as blogs whose subject matter has wider appeal.

The challenge each of us faces with our Entrecard participation is to not get sucked in by the game and to remember that Entrecard is a valuable tool, a needed crutch for many of us when getting started. However, lean on that crutch too long and you might not ever want to get rid of it and it will begin to inhibit your progress rather than aid it.