by 37 people |
Got Squidoo Fans?
All Squidoo lensmasters can have their own personal fan clubs. The fan club feature is pretty cool, because it gives you a way to contact people who already appreciate your work and want to keep up with everything you're doing on Squidoo.
Any time you create a new lens or update an existing lens, you can send out a message (called a "Squidcast") to all your fans. This encourages them to visit your lens, rate it, sign the guestbook, vote on the poll, etc. It's like a mailing list within Squidoo.
If you don't have many fans yet (or none at all), how do you get more?
Any time you create a new lens or update an existing lens, you can send out a message (called a "Squidcast") to all your fans. This encourages them to visit your lens, rate it, sign the guestbook, vote on the poll, etc. It's like a mailing list within Squidoo.
If you don't have many fans yet (or none at all), how do you get more?
Build Great Lenses
Be a Good Lens Builder
Great lenses are a must for growing your own fan club. If you have mediocre lenses or no lenses at all, there's not going to be much of a fan following.Some lensmasters always reciprocate when someone joins their fan club. However, not all lensmasters do. They take the word "fan" seriously, and if someone's lenses don't impress them, they aren't likely to become fans.
So what makes a lens good? Mostly good content. Excellent content that's useful or at least entertaining can make up for a lot. But it's also important for your lens to have pictures and a guestbook module. You should also rename your modules instead of sticking with the default "New Guestbook" or "Great Stuff on Amazon" titles, which looks unpolished and turns many people off.
How to Build Great Lenses
There's a lot to know about Squidoo. Visit these lenses to learn what it takes to make great Squidoo lenses.-
What I Look For In A Lens! by a Squid Angel
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First off, it is an honor to be one of the first Squid Angels on Squidoo and I take this responsibility very seriously. There are a great many lens makers here on Squidoo that are keen on improving their lenses; to increase traffic, lens rank and pos...
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GreekGeek's Squidoo Tips: How to Get Your Lens Found
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So, you want to learn how to build successful Squidoo lenses (or any sort of webpage), attract web traffic, and get your Squidoo lens found by Google! This three-part tutorial covers: Learn the Secrets of My Squidoo Success! Part I: Ten Steps to Buil...
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Common Newbie Squidoo Mistakes
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Making a Squidoo lens is easy. Making a good Squidoo lens, well, that's another story. A lot of Squidoo newbies ask veterans to critique their lenses, and most of these lenses are not nearly as good as they could be. (There are exceptions!) Hopefull...
Complete Your Profile
Don't be a Squidoo Nobody!
Have you uploaded a personal avatar and edited your profile yet? No one wants to see "This is my bio. I can edit it later!" We want to know who you are.You don't have to be wordy or reveal any personal information. It can just be a glimpse into your personality, a summary of your Squidoo-related goals, or whatever.
Remember, almost anything you come up with will be better than the default message! Completing your profile and uploading a picture shows other people on Squidoo that you're serious about your lenses and care enough to make a good impression.
Getting Help With Your Profile
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Are You a Squidoo Nobody? How to Become a Squidoo Somebody in 6 Easy Lessons
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Who is this little orange guy? That's what everyone wants to know! So, why are you leaving us in the dark? "This is my bio. I can edit it later." Well, little orange guy, later has arrived. The time is now! Come out from behind your orange anonymity...
Join Other Fan Clubs
To Have a Fan, You Must Be a Fan
Once you have some good lenses under your belt, try to find some lensmasters you admire and join their fan clubs. You'll find that many lensmasters will reciprocate.While there's nothing wrong with joining someone else's fan club when you don't have some good lenses yet, it can be a potentially wasted opportunity. When I see that someone has joined my fan club, I always make an effort to visit some of their lenses. I'll only become a fan in return if I honestly like what I see.
Leave Comments on Guestbooks
Leaving comments on other people's lenses gets you noticed. Since lensmasters usually get some kind of alert when someone leaves a comment, signing a guestbook is a good follow-up action after joining a fan club.Be careful, though: You don't want your messages to sound self-serving. Many lensmasters delete guestbook messages that sound like this: "Nice lens, please visit my lens about shaving poodles." If it looks like you're just using guestbooks as a way to lure people to your lenses, other lensmasters are not going to be pleased with you.
People will become more interested in you if you leave intelligent, thoughtful comments. A quick & dirty "Nice lens, 5 stars" isn't very compelling. Make it sound as if you really did take the time to read the lens and gleaned something from it.
Become Active in the SquidU Community
Most of my favorite lensmasters are active on the SquidU forum. They don't all necessarily pop in every day or even every week, but they still have a reputation in the Squidoo community.If you're active, friendly, and make intelligent contributions, people will eventually start taking an interest in you. That means they're also more likely to join your fan club.
Bonus: You'll have fun and learn some things in the process. The SquidU forum is also a great place to get feedback and tips for becoming a better lensmaster.
SquidU Help
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Lens Critiques: Giving and Receiving Critiques on the SquidU Forum
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Asking for critiques at the SquidU forum is a useful way to find out just how good your lenses are. Other lensmasters can share their experience and tips that will really make your lens shine. However, it could also be a demoralizing experience depe...
Be Helpful - Share Useful Information
I love it when I run across something that gives me great information, especially if it's filled with ideas I can use to become a better lensmaster or a better writer. If I find myself consulting someone's lenses quite a bit, well, that must make me a fan!If you become a great resource for how-to lenses on, say, cooking, you're probably going to get a lot of people interested in your work. They'll be more likely to become your fans.
Squidcasting Tips
Once you have some fans, you'll be ready to send them messages whenever you build a new lens or update an existing one. These messages are called "squidcasts." Here are some tips for squidcasting:- Always preview your squidcasts. Double-checking your squidcast will help prevent you from sending out messages containing embarrassing typos and errors. Previewing is especially important if you add any HTML to your squidcast message.
- Promote only your best work. If you're like me, you'll occasionally make a lens that isn't the best example of your work. Maybe it still needs more content, maybe it's a subject that not many people would appreciate, or maybe it's strictly a money-making lens. In the end, I'll only announce lenses I'm really proud of.
- Describe your updates. Always mention exactly what you added or changed. Don't force your fans to re-read your entire lens just to figure out what you added.
- Condense your squidcasts. If you created or updated several related lenses, consider sending out one squidcast that announces and links to all these lenses. (You'll need to know some HTML for this.) This way you won't flood your fans with a bunch of new messages at once.
- Don't flood your fans. Sending out a squidcast once every few days is good, but contacting your fans more than once a day is probably a bad idea. At this time (March 2008), fans can only view the last 25 squidcasts they received at most. If you send out a bunch of squidcasts, you'll push other lensmasters' squidcasts off the list before their fans get a chance to read them. This could annoy your fans and give them a reason to quit your fan club.
- Use SquidUtils. It's a good online tool to help you manage your lenses. More to the point, by using SquidUtils, your squidcasts should get listed at the SquidCast Digest. This could give your lenses more exposure.
More About Squidcasting
Visit the lens below for some ideas on how to use squidcasting.-
50 Ways To Use Squidcasting
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What the heck is Squidcasting? No it's not fishing for Squid! It's the awesome new interactive tool from the Squidoo HQ team. In a nutshell Squidcasting allows you to interact and react with your fans and fellow Squids. Check out my 50 Ways to Use Sq...
Your Thoughts and Feedback
I know other people have their own thoughts and ideas when it comes to fan clubs. Feel free to leave your feedback here.
submit
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Reply
- CamyCash CamyCash Nov 15, 2009 @ 2:16 am
- Hi! This lens does have a lot of terrific information, but like Screenwritint4me, I need the little details like what do I click, and where can I find it... as I'm still pretty new to all of this. Even so, I really love the spirit of your lens! Thank you.
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- RecipesMcGee RecipesMcGee May 24, 2009 @ 8:24 am
- Hey, Victoria... I'm a fan! I joined your fanclub and it's with great pleasure that I did so! This is actually one of the most helpful lenses I've ever come across! I thank you a thousand times, yet there are only five stars at the top of this page. Maybe me favoriting this lens will do the trick for the other 995! Thanks, again, Victoria!
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- Screenwriting4me Screenwriting4me May 13, 2009 @ 5:57 pm
- Join Other Fan Clubs- I would like to see an explanation of how exactly to do this. Where do you locate the lensmasters and what buttons do you click to join the fanclub? I ask the world, but a photo would be good too.
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- organicprof organicprof May 4, 2009 @ 4:19 pm
- Thank you for taking the time to make this lens. I am a newbie and have been trying to figure out how I reciprocate to my fans and meet new lensmaster. I am sure I will be learning for a while. There is so much great info here.
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- BellaDaze BellaDaze Apr 29, 2009 @ 12:25 pm
- Good solid information. It will get me headed towards my own fan club. Thanks for writing this lens.
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by Victoria_Neely
I read, write, bake, and make Squidoo lenses. I like rubber ducks, old PC games, journals, animated films, Squidoo, and other neat stuff like that. (more)
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