Squidoo Announces SquidBids for eBay Sellers

Squidoo announced today that they have launched a new promotional tool for eBay sellers called SquidBids. eBay sellers can use their eBay userID or eBay Store name to create a profile on their ebay business. It is a cool little tool and something even the big players on eBay should consider for their business.

I would love to see a SquidBid page for GrapevineHill, InflatableMadness, GothamCityOnline among others. Sellers need to reach out and find customers where they hangout and Squidoo gets tons of traffic. Here is an example of a SquidBid page from eBay Seller FreakNoodles.

Seth Godin does a much better job of explaining SquidBids then I would so here is a link to his blog post.

Combining SquidBids with the Red Door Store campaign that some store sellers have started might give eBay sellers some promotional juice.

My New Role As Community Manager on Squidoo

As many of you know, I've been a Squidoo user (lensmaster) since March of this year and have enjoyed it immensely. I've created a personal lens on my life, a lens on being a single dad, published my Dad's first novel (we call it a Squidovel) and created a gallery of wonderful photography, travel destinations and video clips that I've Stumbled Upon. I was recently honored with the title of "Squid Angel", along with several others, a role that charges us with promoting the best content (lenses) on Squidoo and I've also become a Jurist in a monthly "Top Lens" contest. You would think that would be enough to keep me busy but I still had too much time on my hands.

As of last week, I have a new title (drum roll please). I am officially the Community Manager for the eBay Seller Community on Squidoo a wonderful group of sellers who use Squidoo to promote their eBay Stores, Websites, and online content. This community reminds me a great deal of what eBay was like in the early days. The community is very strong and active, with over 200 eBay sellers already taking part. Meg! This is the real "Social Commerce"

Now, here is the best part, this is not a staff position, I am a volunteer. I am committing my time and energy to make this a success because eBay Sellers need every bit of help they can get. As you know, I have not always spoken kindly of eBay's decisions over the years and I've done what I can to encourage sellers to open their own websites and diversify their businesses. I've said over and over again, "stop calling yourselves eBay Sellers" and begin to think of yourselves as online merchants. I'm still going to continue to do that but at Squidoo, we've created a community for online sellers to promote their businesses, it just happens that we are gearing the community around eBay sellers. It doesn't hurt that I have many years of experience with eBay.

Update:
Seth Godin has recently written a post entitled Jobs of the future, #1: Online Community Organizer and what he says really hits the spot.

"If you want to hire a union organizer, you probably know what to look for. Someone with resilience, passion, persistence and excellent interpersonal skills.

What if you want to hire someone to build an online community? Somebody to create and maintain a virtual world in which all the players in an industry feel like they need to be part of it? Like being the head of a big trade association, but without the bureaucracy and tedium..."

eBay sellers, understand the role that community plays in their success and they get excited about finding ways to reach new customers (especially when they are free). What Squidoo allows them to do, is build their own brand and develop their own expertise, sharing that experience with a whole new group of customers on Squidoo. Sellers are the experts on their particular product and they can drive targeted traffic to their listings, blogs, lenses and WebSites. In fact many of them are already doing that. Several sellers get over 10% of their eBay Store traffic from Squidoo. I get a growing portion of new visitors to my blogs from Squidoo and I know of one seller who is doing very well driving traffic to her own website; see it can be done. I'm very excited to be a part of this.

The power to succeed, is in the will of the individual, not in the marketplace. Being an eBay seller provides an instant connection with over 200 other sellers and my job will be to harness that power and channel it into a community that I hope to grow exponentially.

If you are an eBay seller and are interested in more information on Squidoo, please visit the eBay Seller headquarters or my new eBay Squidoo Blog for more information.

Squidoo, is the Web 2.0 tool I've been looking for. It is much more community oriented than MySpace or Facebook, it empowers the individual to speak about subjects they are the experts in. It rewards users (lensmasters) as it grows, by sharing the revenue with them and it provides eBay sellers a vehicle to promote their products, on or off eBay.

Ebay Sellers on Squidoo - Version 2

I've been working on the directory I created for eBay Sellers on Squidoo and I would love to get your comments.

Squidoo ranks very high in Google search so I thought I would bring eBay sellers together in one place and see if we could drive some traffic your way. You will only get out of this what you put into it so take a quick moment to add your eBay Store, Website, blog or Squidoo page to the directory. This directory is for eBay sellers and former sellers worldwide so my Brit and Aussie friends please add your links also.

The traffic that is generated is not substantial right now but it will build, so add your store or items to the directory today.

You can't beat free. And if I can get some of my fellow eBay bloggers to mention the directory that would help move things along.

Squidoo is Courting eBay Sellers!

I recently received an email from Squidoo promoting “The Lens of the Day” a nice little feature where they highlight a particular “Lens” for being unique, clever or in some way standing out. Yesterday’s LOTD was Freaknoodles and here is the email I received:

“Hi Randy,

Q: What happens when you cross Sock Monkeys with some Cherry Pie and Santa Claws?
A: Freaknoodles!

Huh?

Okay, once more, in English.

Freaknoodles is a cute eBay store that sells colorful pajamas. And they have a lens, which is today's esteemed Lens of the Day.

This is what every eBay seller should have! Tell a story about your items, why you're selling, who you are, share some testimonials, and point people straight to your auctions. You get more reach, more pages linking Googlers to your stuff, more sales.

Are eBayers with lenses the new elite of online trade? You better believe it.

Stop by the Freaknoodles lens and suck up some inspiration from a pro.

http://www.squidoo.com/NickAndNoraPJs/

P.S. The SquidTeam will be at eBay Live in Boston this year. June 14-16. Come out at say hi! “
I was struck by the focus of the email. It appears that the folks behind Squidoo see the value of promoting their site to eBay sellers, in fact they are going so far as to tell readers they will be at eBay Live in Boston. I have posted a couple of times on the value of Squidoo for eBay sellers – mostly small to medium volume sellers -- it is nice to see the management of Squidoo sees that value as well.

BTW - Freaknoodles received a substantial increase in activity to their Squidoo Lens as noted in a eBay Stores Discussion thread post number 2.

Squidoo is what eBay's My World Should Be.

I've been playing around with Squidoo.com for a couple of days now and have come to one conclusion. This is what eBay's My World Profile should be.

In an perfect world, if eBay weren't so determined to control the universe, the My World profile would allow sellers to generate incremental income from the content they create while expanding their ability to connect with their customers and maximize their marketing efforts. Imagine if you had a Squidoo Lens with eBays traffic. Of course we don't live in a perfect world so sellers that are creative end up going off of eBay to find tools like Squidoo.com to help them connect with their customers and network with other sellers and heaven forbid, generate incremental income.

The money you make at Squidoo.com may be small initially but if you use it as a tool for finding new customers connecting with existing customers and networking with other sellers your business will be better for it. Check out my Seller Evangelist Lens on Squidoo (I know the name sounds a little weird but it grows on you).

Just my 5 Cents!