The short version of this post (besides the usual Traffic Exchange Live news) is this: IM Faceplate is a complete and total game-changer and freakin’ awesome and I love it, and I was an idiot for not paying more attention to all the buzz about it last week.

You might have heard me joke in the past about my “Internet ADD”. While it’s mostly a joke, it’s true there are certain circumstances that sometimes cause my brain to shut off or send my attention zooming elsewhere. This is true not just with traffic exchange and marketing-related stuff, but pretty much all aspects of the online world in general.

I’m sure this attention problem affects more people than just me, I just think mine’s probably worse than most and often affected by truly odd things that might not affect most everyone else. I can’t even really tell you what the circumstances that set it off are – I just know that they’re there, mainly because – at some point later on – I find out I missed something I shouldn’t have.

I say all that to say: Well, blow me away… I should have been paying more attention last week when everyone was talking about IM Faceplate!!

Honestly, there have been so many social network thingamabobs and similar thingamajigs coming out all the time for the past year or so – and a couple of the more established ones, I didn’t really care for too much or only recently took much of a liking to – when I started hearing about IM Faceplate, I kinda just thought, “eh, another social network thingy”. I actually got hipped to the fact that it was about to come out a week or two before it launched, and while it sounded kinda interesting and all – again, I more or less thought, “eh, another social network thingy”.

Don’t get me wrong, I generally like most of the major social networking stuff (though it took me a while to learn to like Facebook), and I and some of my statewide blogging colleagues were all very early adopters of Twitter. But when it’s something that winds up needing constant maintenance and gets very time consuming, that’s where my interest and activity starts to falter. I love Facebook now and have enjoyed reconnecting with really old friends and others, but I can easily wind up stuck on Facebook for 12-15 hours straight if I’m not careful. Consequently, I’ve been so busy the last couple of weeks, I really haven’t logged in and am now kinda dreading when I do.

So there was that, and yet another reason for being all “eh, just another social network thingy” about IM Faceplate.

The day IM Faceplate was launched, I was really busy that day trying to help out with Safelist Marketing Tactics‘ one-year anniversary. I was messing around in other tabs and windows doing stuff while Traffic Exchange Live was going on, where pretty much all they were talking about that day was IM Faceplate and how to set it up and use it, and following each other and all that. I was listening (sorta), but obviously not as closely as I should have been.

So I kind of about half-listened to all of the TE Live folks talk about it, and sort of just put IM Faceplate on my to-do list for later on when I had more free time and went about my merry way. Still thinking in the back of my mind, “eh, just another social network thingy”, but also thinking, “ugh, this sounds like something that is going to be more time-consuming than I want to mess with much”.

By Saturday afternoon’s Affiliate Funnel conference, I still hadn’t signed up. Everybody was talking about it in there too, and I was kinda glad to hear William Brant say he hadn’t really looked at it yet either, so I didn’t feel so much like the only Lone Ranger in TE & IM Land who hadn’t yet signed up and checked IM Faceplate out. Again, still on my to-do list – but I wasn’t all that excited about it and was dragging my feet getting to it ‘cos (as by now you know) “eh, (it was) just another social network thingy”.

Then after the weekend was over, my friend Winter Perkins and I were chatting about nothing much important as we often do (lol), and the subject of IM Faceplate came up.

Winter and I are a lot alike in a lot of ways, but one way we differ a bit in the way we do things online is that she loves, loves, LOVES social networking. That’s totally her thing, while I am usually more semi-warm to apathetic about it – mainly because most social networking stuff takes up more time on a regular basis than I generally want to spend on it.

On the other side of the coin, I like participating in forums (like this one) while Winter really doesn’t much, and I mostly enjoy surfing – even though I don’t much anymore – while she hates to surf.  This all kinda works out nicely between us as I can let her know any need-to-know info from forums and other such places and she can hip me to apps and other things I might not have necessarily known about myself.

So yeah, we got to talking about IM Faceplate and I expressed my reasons for being slow to sign up and what my perception had been – and then she set me straight, because my perceptions had been totally wrong. She assured me it probably wouldn’t take more than 20 minutes or so to set up (which was about right) and told me what all it does.

Once I got signed up and started looking around, it dawned on me that IM Faceplate was absolutely NOT “eh, just another social network thingy”! It really has totally changed the whole landscape of social networking, especially for Internet marketers. So much so that I am kinda, like, all “who needs Facebook?” now. (No, I probably won’t kill my Facebook pages, but I’m even less excited about them now than I was before, heh.)

One of the neatest aspects of IM Faceplate is the way it works with your Twitter account, your blog feed if you have one – really the possibilities of what you can send to your Faceplate that will be as active as you are elsewhere are limitless. So though I’m not necessarily an every single day without fail blogger (or Tweeter), I do both pretty regularly – therefore my Faceplate is never going to look as inactive and slightly desolate as, for instance, my Facebook pages for the blog and my traffic exchange do right now.

The ability to put opt-in forms – to pretty much anything! – is very cool too. Granted, right now the majority of followers and visitors I may amass from following the people I am following are probably either already subscribed to my blog or come by here all the time anyway – but that won’t likely be the case with the majority of future followers and visitors, especially since IM Faceplate is one of those things that’s not only going to be valuable to traffic exchange folks but all kinds of online marketing people. I slapped an opt-in form to subscribe to my blog up, and I’ve seen other friends who have opt-ins for various programs they’re in or own and other stuff. Again, really, the possibilities are unlimited.

And it’s an awesome personal branding tool, and as many know, we in TE Land are all about personal branding. I mean, just look at it. That’s like branding yourself all over the place. Branding on steroids. Yeah.

But let’s talk about the one thing that truly blew me away about IM Faceplate and that I totally missed while half-paying attention to people talking about it last week, and one other REALLY cool thing I found to do with it…

First, the really cool thing I found to do with it… you know those Sweeva widgets that they recently added “Easter egg” type random prizes to that everyone’s going around blogs and all over the place hunting for? Put a Sweeva widget on your IM Faceplate!!! Now! Then tell everyone you have one there! Page views, people, page views.

So now I have my Sweeva widget on both the blog and my Faceplate, and thinking of other places I can put it, hehe. I can’t really take credit for this, I saw it on Louise Venison’s (HitsBoosterPro) Faceplate and swiped the idea, but it’s very cool. The more Sweeva widgets you know where they are, the better your chances to win something (and check out cool pages while you’re looking, both on the widget and whatever page it’s on)!

So go to Louise’s Faceplate and check hers, then go to my Faceplate and check the Sweeva widget there (after checking the one on the page you’re on right now here at my blog) – maybe you’ll be a winner!

But here is the main #1 biggest thing about IM Faceplate that rocked my world…

Clickbank commissions!!! (OK – since I originally started typing this, I have discussed this aspect of IM Faceplate with the TE Live gang and most of them aren’t all that excited or expectant about the whole Clickbank commissions things. But being someone who’s still waiting to get paid for the first time, I still like it – heck, if I made five different sales from it in a year or two even, that’d still get me ahead of where I am with getting that Clickbank payment right now. Anyway…)

Someone may have talked about this last week during all the buzzing about the program when it launched – or in any of the mails and blog posts I’ve read about it since it launched – but I’ll be danged, if they did, my Internet ADD kicked in and I just totally missed it.

And by that, I mean that you can get paid Clickbank commissions from the ads that are on your IM Faceplate – according to the documentation, 50% of the ads if you’re a free member… and 100% if you’re a Pro member.

Why do I care about this? Well, if you’ve ever dealt with Clickbank before, you probably know that when you’re smaller (i.e., not a Jon Olson or a Paul Kinder) and just getting started, it can get tough and take a lot of time to make their requirement where you can actually withdraw the money you earn. I don’t do a lot of Clickbank stuff but I have some in my stable, and I’ve done okay with it and have a fair amount built up – but I haven’t been able to meet the requirement for disbursement because virtually all of my Clickbank sales have been by PayPal, and the PayPal sales don’t factor into the requirement. It hasn’t been that long since I was in an online discussion about this same issue.

So yes – I LOVE THIS! And am planning on going Pro at IM Faceplate as soon as I’m able to, mainly because of just that. Maybe I might see some sales and maybe I may not, but no doubt – and especially as IM Faceplate continues to grow and get more and more publicized across the great big ol’ Internet – the chances of sales that will get me to that threshold quicker are greatly increased, the way I see it!

And worth going Pro at IM Faceplate for – while I think it might have been a little better for them to have kept the monthly price a little more in line with the going rate at many related programs, it’s still reasonable. Especially if you take one of the multi-month upgrades (3 and 6 months available).

So anyway, now I’m hooked and a big, big fan, and yeah – that’ll teach me (once again) to pay better attention than I sometimes do, ‘cos if I’d realized all that last week when everyone was yapping about it, I’d have probably gone ahead and signed up and had way more followers than I do right now (as of this moment while I’m typing, I have all of one, heh).

I think different things about IM Faceplate will appeal to different people (obviously I’m all about the Twitter & blog feeds and especially the Clickbank commissions), but it’s really just a win-win situation for everyone. It’s awesome!

So yes, by all means, hurry and go check out IM Faceplate and if you’re not a member yet – and if you are into traffic exchange marketing or any other area of online marketing and are not a member yet, you should be! – sign up now and take 20-30 minutes to fix up your profile and watch it go. I’ve been hearing about other people’s results getting followers, Twitter followers, blog subscribers, other subscribers, etc. all week long – it is totally worth your while.

And if you’re already a member, drop by my Faceplate and follow me (and don’t forget to check the Sweeva widget and see if you won anything!). If I’m not already following you, I will do so as soon as I’m in again and catch it (I hear they are going to tweak the whole follow process to make it better soon).

OK, now that the IM Faceplate gushing is over with for today… what about Traffic Exchange Live?

Well, I’m glad you asked… except in looking at my notes I find I am missing some very important elements of a normal TE Live update. I think this is because I have laughed so hard so much this week (and my Internet ADD has been just out of control).

And this post got really longer than I intended it to be anyway (mainly ‘cos IM Faceplate is just SOOOOO freakin’ awesome).

I also had been dragging my feet about posting (sorry) ‘cos I was expecting a domain transfer this week, that apparently is now not happening until this weekend sometime (so if the blog disappears for a few hours this weekend, don’t worry, it’ll be back shortly).

You probably also noticed there have been a few changes to the blog, and WordPress god Mike Paetzold has been giving me some new things to play with, some of which I still haven’t quite figured out exactly what to do with yet (but I will and woohoo!). Mike and Jerry Reeder thankfully don’t seem to mind my dumb questions too much (because if you have ever talked voice with me, you know I kinda sound like a 40-something year old Valley Girl with a bigtime Southern accent – and if you don’t know what the term “Valley Girl” means, you’re too young lol – so those questions probably sound even dumber sometimes). In any case, I’m very appreciative of their help with stuff (and they give out lots of help to lots of people for free every single week in their List Building Conferences).

(Or it’s either that they don’t mind my dumb questions, or they just feel sorry for me being “special” about some aspects of marketing, and I do mean that in the “short bus” kinda special way. LOL.)

So I will have to beg your forgiveness and ask you to cut me some slack today and tune in tomorrow for a decent TE Live update (with pictures!!!) because of both my failure to take proper notes because Jon Olson, Jerry Iannucci, Tim Linden, and all those other guys have had me laughing so much this week, AND the fact I really need to get a little work done today before TE Live starts again (in about an hour and a half as I type). I promise, we will catch up the entire week tomorrow!

But here’s a preview of Tim doing a (using this term VERY loosely) “commercial”:

*** Traffic Exchange Live is on UStream every weekday afternoon 3-4 pm EST ***

About the Author

Lynn McCutcheon flailed & failed in online marketing for years until stumbling upon Affiliate Funnel & Traffic Exchange Live. She quickly became known as the "TE Live Gossip Girl", blogging about TE Live nearly every day (still does). She now has her own traffic exchange (Traffic Pro-X), and shares tips & recommendations on strategies, programs & products that took her from unknown surfer to widely read blogger & TE/Internet marketing maven.

Disclaimer: Some of the links mentioned within this post or posts it may lead to are my affiliate links, and in such case I will get compensated for recommending those products. However, I will never recommend something that I don't personally believe in, and I welcome your questions and feedback.

Technorati Tags: Affiliate Funnel, blogging, blogs, Branding, Clickbank, Facebook, HitsBoosterPro, IM Faceplate, jerry iannucci, Jerry Reeder, Jon Olson, Logiscape, Louise Venison, Marketing, marketing tactics, Mike Paetzold, networking, Paul Kinder, Safelist Marketing Tactics, social networking, social networks, Sweeva, Sweeva widgets, Tim Linden, Traffic, traffic exchange, traffic exchange live, traffic exchanges, Twitter, William Brant, Winter Perkins

Related posts

• Being Negative – and Being Yourself – on Sweeva and Elsewhere (4)
• The Poop Scoop On Traffic Exchange Live On Wednesday (0)
• The Longest Traffic Exchange Live Update EVER (8)
• Day Two of Catching Up With Traffic Exchange Live (2)
• The Picture Book Issue of Traffic Exchange Live Updates (0)

• 8 Comments