Self Promotion Offline Tip #40

#40. Find a few other self employeed business owners in your community and team up! You can all sponsor a local parade float, parade clowns etc. Make up signs with your business info imprinted on them so that you can receive some great business exposure during the parade!

$250 free smackeroos from Free4Me

Self Promotion Offline Tip #19

One thing that I do love about freebie sites is that they do simply pay for my gifts to others which is really helpful for birthdays and Christmas. I can get myself a Nintendo Wii bundle without having to pay over $5! Wouldn't you want to do the same? You can do it too. Think about it, a Wii bundle on most sites requires about 10 referrals because bundles are about $500 and since you only have to complete one offer which can be as less as $1 and the rest is up to your referrals to complete. A Wii bundle for $1 sounds sweet doesn't it? But it's true! If you don't like obtaining referrals then you can always do a DIY site and complete 10 full credit offers yourself which can cost you as low as $10 which is still pretty sweet. Freebies are totally sweet!

#19. Contact Companies in your area to see if you can come in and set up a table in the employee lounge or cafeteria for a employee shopping break! These days alot of companies will allow you to do this if you ask them!

3cuties4me let Free4Me pay for her Christmas gifts!

Self Promotion Offline Tip #18

SantasGiftsAllYear's January Referral Contest is almost near its end and I am still not even on the latest leader board that was updated on the 15th. You can still join in and who knows, maybe you will win even with a late start. The 1st prize is still up for grabs so join in and grab yourself some free money!



1st Place - $350 1st Place = CSH-445
2nd Place - $150 2nd Place = ACC-195
3rd Place - $50 3rd Place = IPO-170
4th Place - $30 4th Place = ACC-214
5th Place - $20 5th Place = LAP-251

#18. Network with others in your community who are in home business. Find out what events and activities that they participate in. They are usually "in the know" and can help you get started in networking in your community.

Melmarie80 showing off her free gifts from Free4Me

How Do Freebie Sites Give Away Free Stuff?

Most freebie sites requires you to complete offers or refer others in order to receive your free gift and the reason for this is because advertisers do not want to pay an excessive amount of money broadcasting on TV when there is an alternative that is not only cheaper but to a target group. Advertisers will allow what we know as incentive sites to advertise to users by allowing users to sign up for their services and by signing up for their services, advertisers will pay the referring incentive site an commission for the referral in which will be used to pay for your free prize. Advertisers are happy, incentive site owners are happy, you the user will also be happy. Everyone gets paid. How much do referrals usually go for? Referral costs depends on the networks but generally a referral will earn you about $35 to $50 so referrals aren't cheap. If you don't like referring others then you can waste your time doing other free stuff like clicking on links for less than a penny a click. The choice is yours.

Michelle512 cashing out on Free4Me'z Zogopoints

Do You Digg It?

Recently I have noticed a new way of cashing in on the new wave of online social networking programs out there. I have always known that a way to drive traffic to your own site was to use sites like Digg to well Digg sites and make comments. Lately I have heard that there are people and sites out there that will actually pay you money to Digg sites in which I assume as a an attempt to stir traffic to the target site. Or it could be like other sites that will pay you just to go Digg happy much like sites that will pay you to upload just about anything. It just goes to show you, if you can think it then you can sell it.

Egyptianruin cashes out on a ton of giftcards from ZogoPoints

Cash Site vs Referral Site

There is another difference between what is called a cash site and a referral site that most people would not know about. Yes, obviously one has something to do with cash whereas the other has to do something with referrals. One thing that you may not be aware of has to do with the list of offers you can choose from. Some companies will not allow incentive sites to place their offers on a cash site so in a sense, cash sites have limited offers. The reason for this is because advertisers are protecting themselves against potential fraud among users. Sites offering cash rather than gifts are more likely to be hit with fraud because it takes less time to send cash than an item which allows companies less time to catch fraud. When it comes to catching fraud, time is of the essence. Fraud may not always be caught at first because it depends on when the fraud triggers alarms. Fraud is a major killer of most incentive sites which really ruins things for everybody including you, the one committing fraud. It is illegal and you may be prosecuted.

Bradenr jumping for joy with $75 from Free4Me

Freebie Rivalry

There is such a thing as freebie rivalry among freebie forums and freebie networks that it is pretty insane. The stem of their rivalry goes way back and it still lives on even today. It was so long ago that my interpretation may be a little off but the forum rivalry has always been between
Anything4Free and FreeiPodGuide. ReferralSwapper wasn't really caught in the drama because they were never really focused on their forum but A4F and FiPG were the two big shot callers of the freebie forum trading world. Their users shot back and forth at each other claiming to be the best and what not. I registered on all of the forums listed and in my opinion, I think A4F is better and by comparing their activeness today, A4F wins hands down. I believe that A4F is still standing tall because they do not tolerate scammers and will ban them and their networks from the forum whereas FiPG will still support them. I will not name anyone but I do see that they are still rubbing elbows with FiPG and acting as if they never scammed anyone nor have they returned any money to those that they scammed. Another sign of rivalry can be seen at the grade level of different networks. A4F will grade sites according to user polls taken every month and by how much gifts are sent out to users whereas FiPG pretty much plays favorites. For instance, Free4Me is by all means a grade A site but FiPG will never allow Free4Me to move up to a grade A site because there is a little grudge between FiPG and Free4Me. FiPG won't allow an honest and highly praised network be a grade A site but they will allow a big time scamming network that takes not weeks but months to send out any gifts and puts any accounts on hold and have plenty of users filing complaints to Better Business Bureau and wanting to sue the network known as FreePay. No wonder there would be some rivalry eh?

Wfhsteve enjoying his first freebie of $125 from Free4Me

Custom Gifts

As you may know, there are a ton of incentive sites out there and each catering to a certain genre of gifts and not all sites and networks are repeatable. With sites and networks where you can only do each of their sites once, what happens when you want to do a certain site but do not like the gift that is being offered? One word, custom. Most sites have the option of allowing you to choose your own custom gift if you do not like the gift options. For instance, let's say you signed up for YourPS34Free from Trainn but do not want any of the PS3 options but you want your free gift. You should open a support ticket requesting a custom gift of the same value. So let's say your earned PS3 gift was about $500 so you could option for an iPhone instead. So don't think that if you sign up for a certain prized site that you are stuck with limited options.

Sah0724 is enjoying 13 months of XBOX live thanks to Trainn

Alpha Omega Oh Mama!

It has come to my attention that a long time incentive site will be closing its doors officially on December 15th,2008. It has been around for years but unfortunately it has been forced to shut down. The owner, Benjette has not released as to why she is shutting the site down but for most sites, it is mainly due to scammers and users committing fraud and of course personal reasons. Fraud really ruins the freebie market because fraud may not always be caught at first so some scammers are able to cash out before it happens and when the affiliates notice the fraud that went on the affiliates would ultimately revoke the credit that was given and thus refuse to pay the site owners which ends up as a double whammy loss to the site owners. You may think that you're only really screwing the site owners over but really you're screwing everyone over including yourself because you will be marked and banned as a scammer and some networks will go and prosecute you for committing a crime. Anyways, back to Benjette, her site AnyGift4Free has settled as a grade B site and have given out a number of freebies. I have completed a few AnyGift4Free sites myself so I am sad to see it go. Thank you Benjette and AnyGift4Free for everything you have done!

In spite of it all, another incentive site has announced its revamp in motion. Peter of Free4Me has announced that Free4Me will receive a whole new face lift and will be moving to a whole new system. I wonder what this new system has in stored for us all! It has been announced that all pending referral credits have to hurry up and obtain their credit because only credits will transfer over to the new systems. You will keep your greens and your referrals so don't worry! As long as they receive credit that is. So hurry up and get those referrals to green!

Ringer37's first Trainn payout of $250!

Battle of the Network Owners

What do you look for in a network? Best customer support? Best gifts selection? Best referral/cash ratio? Best selection of offers? Sure, all are important but the most important factor in selecting a freebie site is the site owner's involvement. A site should not be run solely by its managers while the owner racks up all the cash. The site owner should do plenty and I do mean plenty of PR and be involved in every aspect of the business. Peter from Free4Me and Alan from Trainn are one of the best site owners out there. They are very involved and do not rely sole on their managers to handle all of their customer support. You can easily contact them if you wanted to and it wouldn't take you days of waiting either. They're there and they're answering your concerns.

Beatdown28 enjoying $415 from Trainn