JAPANSOC MEMBERSHIP DRIVE - ACTION ALERT 3/17-2/23

[Shane]

As many of you know JapanSoc.com is a great way to drive traffic to
our sites (and find great content as well). If there are more active
members at JapanSoc those numbers will only increase! This action
alert is asking you to add code to the post pages on your blog to
actively encourage your readers to join and then submit our best
content from the week to JapanSoc.

Here's how you can participate the the JapanSoc Membership Drive:

Add code to your single post page that encourages your readers to join
JapanSoc.com. Here is a sample of the text your readers would see:

Join JapanSoc Today! - The #1 site for Japan-related blogs, news and
people.

Please customize the anchor test (linked text) on your site so that
thIs action alert is not negatively perceived by Google.

Here's how to do it (for self hosted Wordpress blogs):

First, the code/link: <p><strong><a href="http://www.JapanSoc.com/"
target="_blank"> CUSTOMIZE WORDING HERE Join JapanSoc Today!</a> -
The #1 site for Japan-related blogs, news and people.</strong><p>

Go to your dashboard and open the theme editor (I have to click on
design first)
Find the SinglePost Template
Insert the Code below the content
Save your changes
Check to make sure that the text appears correctly on a recent post
and you're done.
Both Nick and I have added the code to our sites and will serve as an
examples for you to refer to:

Long Countdown http://www.longcountdown.com/2009/02/14/chopsticks-and-smiles/
(Rikuto is cute, isn't he?)

The Nihon Sun http://www.nihonsun.com/2009/03/10/in-a-sakura-kimono/

JapanSoc Blog http://blog.japansoc.com/2009/03/16/only-a-few-days-left-to-submit-your-entr/

It should take you no more than five minutes to add a promo for
JapanSoc to your blog and you will be helping to grow JapanSoc and the
resulting referrals to your site.

Submit Great Articles to JapanSoc

Part two of the action alert is to submit something to JapanSoc. Some
of us submit our own posts sparingly but with the kick-off of the
JapanSoc Membership Drive it's important to ensure we have an active
front page full of great content for potential members to see. So
here's part two:

Submit your best post from this week to JapanSoc
Submit a quality post or news item from your RSS reader to JapanSoc
Vote and comment as usual

Finally, let the group know that you've done your part in the JapanSoc
Membership Drive by replying with a link to your own site after you've
added the code!

Thanks!

[Lee Giddins]

I added the promo to the sidebar.

http://www.loneleeplanet.com/

[Nick Ramsay]

@Lee Woot! Nice one!

At the start of March 16th, there were 585 registered users on
JapanSoc.com. Ask your readers to join and help us build an "active"
base of new users to accelerate JapanSoc's growth and send waves of
visitors to your site when you hit that front page! We need your help
to make it happen, though.

> Long Countdownhttp://www.longcountdown.com/2009/02/14/chopsticks-and-smiles/

> (Rikuto is cute, isn't he?)
>
> The Nihon Sunhttp://www.nihonsun.com/2009/03/10/in-a-sakura-kimono/
>

> JapanSoc Bloghttp://blog.japansoc.com/2009/03/16/only-a-few-days-left-to-submit-yo...

[Deas]

I've done better! I've got links to both JapanSoc.com AND JapanSoc.org
on my single post page now. Great idea to hopefully help boost
readership / participation in the site(s).

You can see a demo of my simple links here - http://www.rockinginhakata.com/2009/03/18/1161/

I hope other people do this! If your readers join, we'll all benefit
from a more robust user base!

- Deas

[Shane]

Now we have a little competition! Who can create the most creative
link for the membership drive. Deas is winning for now I guess...

[Muza-chan]

Starting now, I also added my membership drive anchor to the single
post page view.
Maybe we need a little more small JapanSoc banners...

[pergunnar...@gmail.com]

woops, I accidentaly made a reply-to-author, Sorry Muza-chan :)

Anyways, What I wanted to know if there perhaps was some sort of
banner/ad, I don't really want to just add a bit of text to one post
here and there. If I where to do something I think it would be more of
an all-out thing :D

[Nick Ramsay]

Yep, I just did a search and found these links to banners on another
thread:

JapanSoc.org:
http://groups.google.com/group/japansoc/files

JapanSoc.com:
http://faq.japansoc.com/banners-and-buttons

On Mar 22, 3:18 am, "pergunnar.eriks...@gmail.com"

[Nick Ramsay]

It's the last day of our JapanSoc.com membership drive! Here are some
more things you can do to help JapanSoc so more traffic flows to the
blogging community:

- Bookmark/Favorite JapanSoc.com
http://www.japansoc.com

- Subscribe to Top Stories:
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/japansoc-upcoming

- Subscribe to Upcoming stories:
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/japansoc-upcoming

- Subscribe to the Community Blog:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/japansocblog

- Follow @japansoc on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/japansoc

- Modify your profile (this link will work if you're logged in):
http://www.japansoc.com/profile/

- Add your JapanSoc profile to your other social networking links. The
format is:
http://www.japansoc.com/user/view/profile/USERNAME

- Get a Gravatar for you avatar:
http://en.gravatar.com/

- Report any bugs you find:
http://faq.japansoc.com/contact

- Suggest improvements:
http://blog.japansoc.com/tag/japansoc/

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

[Nick Ramsay]

With the JapanSoc Membership Drive coming to a close, here are the
results of this action alert:

March 16th: 585 registered users
March 23rd: 628 registered users

Considering JapanSoc.com has been going since Nov. 2007, that is a
significant membership boost for such a short period of time, and even
better, the new members are *active* members, who have injected
dollops of energy into it - YAY! :-D Furthermore, the links and
reviews you guys posted will continue to drive people to JapanSoc, and
closer to the 1,000 member mark.

Thanks to everyone who participated!

On Mar 23, 11:45 am, Nick Ramsay <n...@longcountdown.com> wrote:
> It's the last day of our JapanSoc.com membership drive! Here are some
> more things you can do to help JapanSoc so more traffic flows to the
> blogging community:
>

> - Bookmark/Favorite JapanSoc.comhttp://www.japansoc.com

[Jamie]

http://www.FrugalistaJapan.com now includes JapanSoc promo in every
post, yay!

> JapanSoc Blog  http://blog.japansoc.com/2009/03/16/only-a-few-days-left-to-submit-yo...