For information on JobShuk’s referral system, click here to skip down.
When people ask me how to advertise their business online, I think my brain goes into auto-mode and I regurgitate the same boring stuff that we’re spoon-fed: link building, CPC, SEO, etc.
But I have my own vision of the web which isn’t so far off. By using our own social networks, our collective reach expands exponentially. Wikipedia and Facebook are examples of this. But the information is still not quite what we’re looking for, or involves too much work and wait. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook recently said:
People influence people. Nothing influences people more than are recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral influences people more than the best broadcast message. A trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising.
Looking into the small business world, sometimes I know which of my friends to ask for a recommendation of a service, but sometimes I have no idea. I can send out a mass e-mail to everyone I know, but that’s a nuisance. Community message boards are flooded with recommendation requests, and sometimes yield less than satisfactory results. Nevertheless, personal referrals are still one of the most desirable avenues for finding a service.
Until programs for business referrals are developed and perfected 😉 what can the average business do? Watch the video below for ideas.
Old-School JobShuk.com Referral System
In theory, JobShuk should operate on the "pay it forward" system. You want one more eyeball to find your service, so you tell your friends about the site, and they find another service. That service told his friends, and one of them found you. Since the "pay it forward" altruistic model cannot be expected of most people, we’ve put together a small incentives plan to encourage referrals.
It’s nothing revolutionary, but our referral program rewards members with Premium Ad Dollars for every new member sign-up. As of now, the Premium Ad system is not in place, but we’ve been tracking referrals for a while now, and all referrals will be credited appropriately retroactively.
To earn a referral, a visitor must enter the site one of three entry points (where yourusername is replaced by your username):
- Your user profile at http://JobShuk.com/yourusername
- Any of your blog entries
- Any non-member page, such as the homepage or a search-results page, with the following added to the end:
?user=yourusername
For example: http://JobShuk.com/?user=Zvi
Visitors can come from any source, such as another web site, blog, search engine, e-mail, flier, business card, or word-of-mouth.
If you like graphics, aaron created some images for anyone to use to link back to their profile or blog. Simply copy & paste the HTML provided, and be sure to replace YOURUSERNAME with your JobShuk username. If you’d like to submit graphics or designs, please send them to zv*@*****uk.com
<a href="http://JobShuk.com/YOURUSERNAME"><img src="http://JobShuk.com/images/jobshukprofile.jpg" border="0" alt="JobShuk Profile" width="229" height="25" /></a>
<a href="http://JobShuk.com/YOURUSERNAME"><img src="http://JobShuk.com/images/jobshukprofile2.jpg" border="0" alt="JobShuk Profile" width="229" height="25" /></a>
<a href="http://JobShuk.com/YOURUSERNAME/blog"><img src="http://JobShuk.com/images/jobshukblog.jpg" border="0" alt="JobShuk Blog" width="229" height="25" /></a>
<a href="http://JobShuk.com/YOURUSERNAME/blog"><img src="http://JobShuk.com/images/jobshukblog2.jpg" border="0" alt="JobShuk Blog" width="229" height="25" /></a>