I fought Facebook for a long time before peer pressure won me over and I joined the throngs as a Facebook follower. Now I love it. It’s great for keeping in touch without actually having to keep in touch.

I know many people have started to use Facebook as a marketing tool but I haven’t really explored that area at all. I’m not a master marketer and tend to try to focus on building quality websites rather than searching out new ways to attract readers. But I certainly think that Facebook and others like it have lots of marketing potential.

I got a friend request last week from some guy who I vaguely remember as a friend of a friend from high school. I had no idea who he was at first so accepted the friend request to investigate. I realised I was never really a friend of his and have absolutely no interest in what the guy is doing with his life so was going to delete him. But for some reason I didn’t and this afternoon I was surprised to get a message from him. When I opened it up, I was even more surprised to see that he was suggesting a poker site to me, complete with an affiliate link.

If the guy had sent me the message saying that he thinks I might like the site and then mentioned that if I click on his link, he’ll get a few bucks I might not have found the whole thing so offensive. But I think spamming so-called friends through Facebook with affiliate links is pretty low and not being up front about it is even worse.

I think it’s sneaky and I don’t like it and I’ve deleted his sorry ass.

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The major advantage of earning a living online is being able to do business from anywhere. Another thing that doesn’t seem to get spoken about quite as much is the ability to do business with virtually anyone.

One of my best performing affiliate partners has sales coming in from all over the world. Most sales tend to come from the UK, Australia, USA, New Zealand and Canada with a spattering from Europe and the occasional sale from Asia. Seeing all of the sales laid out in front of my by country has opened my eyes to something I hadn’t given much thought to before - who I do business with can have an effect on the bottom line.

The product is travel insurance and so far for November I have 18 sales from the UK and 20 from Australia. My Australian sales have earned me just under $300 but UK sales have brought in over $450 so far with two fewer sales. This has proven to be the case month after month - sales from the UK are bigger and therefore pay out more than any other country I deal with. Conversely, I have 13 sales from the US but my commission thus far is a pitiful $65.

I attribute this mainly to the strength of the mighty UK pound and to the fact that, based on my experience of living in several countries, it’s much easier for a UK resident to drop £200 on an insurance policy than for an Aussie/Kiwi/Canadian/Yank to spend $400 on the same thing. Maybe the reason I think that is because I’ve only ever earned $7/hour in Canada so saving up $400 would take an eternity and in the UK saving £200 for me is just a matter of staying in a few nights. I also think the low payout on American insurance policies is because they tend to travel for shorter periods of time.

My point is this… I can choose who my target market is. Based on exchange rates, earning power, length of trips and population I think that for travel insurance, I’m going to focus on UK residents and try to get me a piece of the mighty pound. Being American doesn’t mean you have to target Americans and same goes for any country. If you speak Japanese, experiment with some sites targeting Japan. If you speak Swahili, by all means target… uh… whatever country speaks Swahili. Be creative and don’t limit yourself to operating within borders.

Now the point of this post isn’t for all of you to start travel insurance sites aimed at UK residents… no, don’t do that. I guess this whole targeting specific markets based on offline factors is something I only just thought of and I want to make sure the rest of you are keeping this in mind when you choose your target markets.

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If you’ve got a decent website then there are lots of companies in your industry that want to give you free stuff. The travel industry does at least, I know from experience. So far I’ve managed to scam a two week unlimited Busabout pass, a canoe trip, a discount on a backpacker tour of Scotland, free books, a discount on travel insurance and heaps of random mugs, stickers and stationary that I’ll never use. Some of this has come my way without even having to ask and others have taken no more than a simple enquiry.

If you offer to do a write up on your site about a product or service, your chances of getting something are probably better. Publishing companies seem to give out new books for review pretty willingly so if a new title is out that you think your site or blog readers would like, hit them up for a copy. If you see an affiliate program that you’d like to use, contact them and ask for a sample of the product. Companies have it in their marketing budget to give freebies to people in their industry and if you don’t ask, you won’t get.

The trick to all of this is getting in touch with the person who pulls the strings and being able to sell yourself as an expert. If you can do this then you’ll almost always be guaranteed at least a wee package of crappy stickers or a mug or something. If your site is a good match with their product then you should be able to wrangle more than that.

I’ve only tried this a handful of times but in the few times I’ve tried this I’ve never been turned away without at least some sort of discount. I’m pretty confident that there are discounts and freebies out there ripe for the taking if you go for it. The most important thing is having a quality website that targets the same market.

Professional writers get free things all the time. Don’t devalue yourself or your website. Think of this as a legitimate business and consider yourself to be a writer in whichever industry you’re in. Just because you’re self employed doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have the same perks as someone who works for a major magazine.

This is another example of why choosing a topic you’re passionate about is so important. I’m a lot more inclined to get excited about a few free nights at a hostel than I am about a 10% discount on car insurance!

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I’ve recently bought a square on Blogging’s Most Wanted. For the tidy sum of $15 I am now the proud owner of a 40×40 pixel square on the site, located second from the left on the top line. Will it send me any traffic? Will it take off and result in a high PR incoming link? Who knows but $15 isn’t much to lose if the whole thing crashes and burns.

My blog is completely new so I’m looking for interesting ways to get it out there. I like this guy’s idea and think it has a lot of potential. If blogs that bought slots link back to the site he’s giving a refund of $5 too so that’s a great way to generate a lot of inbound links. Plus there’s a one in 625 chance to win a $1000 prize so I could always just treat it as a rare lottery ticket purchase by me and hope to win.

The site idea was thought up by Ryan Shamus who calls it “the hottest, baddest, most dangerous form of advertising for bloggers that has ever been announced.” That’s a pretty confident statement but if he promotes the hell out of it then he might just be onto something. I know I’ll keep returning to this page once he sells more spots to do a bit of window shopping for new blogs to read and I hope to get a few clicks here and there from other people doing the same.

The slots aren’t exactly flying off the shelves. With only 9 slots sold so far out of 625 you don’t have to rush but if you want your pick of the ad slots then getting in sooner rather than later is a good idea.

I’ve got no idea how this will turn out but I’ll keep you posted on whether I’m getting any traffic from the link and maybe that’ll help you decide whether to get a link or not. If I win the $1000 prize you can bet I’ll be reporting that it was worth it!

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