When Are Multiple Squidoo Accounts Useful?
There have been some reason discussions in the Squidoo community discussing the ever present question of how many squidoo accounts should someone have and when it makes sense to have more than one account.
The most popular reason seems to be ‘to separate niches’ or build one account for each ‘theme’ of lenses you have. An example would be one squidoo account for sports, one for outdoors, one for technology, etc etc.
While this method may be popular, I can speak from experience that you are seriously diluting a lot of the power you can get from having a unified account.
From the dashboard, lens labels are spectacular for handling different sections of lenses or groups. I have labels for both verticals or themes as well as by aff. network or marketing strategy. Multiple accounts make tracking this stuff a total pain.
Additionally, some of the synergies you can get from having all the lenses in one account get lost when you start ’sharding’ off other accounts. Losses in branding and other intangibles are also inevitable unless they are done correctly.
That being said, there ARE some reasons that I’ve run into that could require you to have multiple accounts:
- multi-user accounts - Squidoo does not currently offer, and has no plans I know of, to allow multiple distinct logins to one squidoo account. So, if you want to create a squidoo account for a ‘group’ created venture or set of lenses then it’s safest to create a new account and have everyone share the account access. While not the best solution, it’s the best I’ve been able to find. I have a few accounts like this that I run with multiple people about a set of common interests or a unique business model. Since the branding for these accounts is designed to be to promote that specific brand and not mine, it’s not a big deal to me that there is no ‘cross-branding’ in this instance.
- Accounting - I’ve found reason to open up another account in order to better track some costs, revenue, and project specific profit and loss. I thought a separate account may help with this a bit but it turns out I’m having to look to some separate solutions.
- Testing/Control Group - Sometimes if i want to check if changes I’m making to my lens design best practices will have a positive or adverse effects on lenses of various group sizes. Before I deploy a best practice across all of my lenses I’ll test in a smaller control group of 50 or 100 lenses with varied and reasonably stable statistics in order to see what kind of impacts on rankings etc. occur.
Any other thoughts on why you should or should not have multiple accounts on Squidoo?
February 9th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
I think you are right on with this post. With the ability to label on the dashboard, you do away with most of the reasons to have separate accounts. It is true that some authors have more than one pen name depending on what genre they are writing in. Usually though the minute they become popular in any genre, they link them together by saying so and so writing as so and so.
February 9th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Up until recently, I didn’t think that have multiple accounts was necessary. As I am working at getting a novel published, I found that I needed to create a second account to reflect my pen name.
February 9th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
I agree, especially from the profitability standpoint. It’s enough work to keep oone account updated and working like it should. For myself, I plan on keeping things as simple as I can.
I can think of a few lensmasters who have more than one account, but they are really savvy. I’m sure in some instances there can be benefits if you work it right.
Great post!
Bette
aka BadMsM
February 9th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
I have been using multiple accounts on Squidoo now for a few months. I find it has really helped with various niches and feel that if I had just kept it all on one account that it would be a disadvantage to me.
Another reason that affiliate marketers do this is to protect a niche they are in. If they add it all to the same account, other affiliates will know what they are doing to create their revenue and will try to recreate and in essence copy your hard work. I have had my personal work stolen by someone I personally helped online. I had to quickly learn that I had found that one bad apple, but when would the second come along?
Thanks for a good read. =)
February 10th, 2009 at 2:34 am
Great post, Captain!
Yes, this certainly has been a topic of conversation, hasn’t it? I use many Squidoo accounts and find that it helps me (and my clients) more than to lump them all together. It also can help the Squidoo site making it easier to promote more page views.
So, I can’t really say I agree with all you’ve said, but I will say that you make some very valid points that we should all think about in order to make the best decision for our own personal and professional needs.
Jennifer
~PotPieGirl
February 10th, 2009 at 4:39 am
Glad to hear that PotPieGirl got her account issues resolved. A sigh of relief all round!
Personally, I prefer to see all my lenses in one place. Saying that, the new browser toolbar makes managing multiple accounts soooo much easier.
February 10th, 2009 at 7:41 am
I would love the convenience & other benefits of having all my lenses in one place, but I still choose to have multiple accounts, partly to protect my niches, as badmsm says, and also because I use separate pen names in each niche. I just don’t think it always looks credible to the reader when one person is presenting themselves as an expert on multiple topics (even if they are). And another reason is simply not wanting to have all my eggs in the one basket – as PotPieGirl’s recent experience shows, accounts can be locked unfairly, and if all your lenses are in the one account, you’re making yourself more vulnerable to the effects of that kind of glitch.
Having said that, it would be nice if Squidoo offered the option of having different user names within one account, with unified stats etc, like some of the article directories do, but as they don’t, I’m sticking with my multiple accounts.
February 10th, 2009 at 7:43 am
Sorry, I should have said “partly to protect my niches, as Jodie says”, not badmsm!
February 11th, 2009 at 7:14 am
I understand why having multiple accounts can be useful and I know that there are many Lensmasters who do this for the best of reasons and they conduct themselves ethically. However, given the number of Lensmasters who use multiple accounts to push themselves up the rankings and earn themselves money at the expense of others, it’s easy to see why this is becoming a matter for concern.
It is impossible for HQ to keep an eye on everything, the team is too small. So I appreciate why there are automated processes to try to catch those who are cheating and put a stop to their activity. However, automated systems don’t make the allowances or judgements a human eye would and bang – we have a situation like we had on Monday.
From HQ’s point of view I guess it would be easier for them to keep an eye on things if everyone published under just one account. It will be interesting to see if there are any policy changes as a result of recent happenings.
February 11th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
I appreciate your take on labels. That is something I haven’t used yet, but as my # of lenses inches towards 80, it makes sense to group them in related categories via labeling. Thanks for the reminder.
February 12th, 2009 at 10:27 am
I also prefer one account and keeping things simple and you’ve made some great points but after reading the comments I came to the conclusion that everyone should decide for themselves what works best for them. Always good to have choices…
February 12th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I’ll stick to one account for now…
I have to learn more about squidoo…
it’s a great site for producing content and marketing
(from what i hear at least!)
thanks for the post!
February 12th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
[...] of chat lately about multiple Squidoo accounts. Captain Squid has level-headed insights as always. If you don’t use multiple accounts to fake anyone out, and if you remember to [...]
February 13th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I don’t feel the need to have a bunch of accounts but I do have two by necessity. The account where I make lenses for my company would obviously need to be controlled by them if I ever left, so separating work lenses from my personal lenses makes sense.
February 19th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I think that having multiple accounts would just confuse me; so, I’m trying to just stick to one.
February 20th, 2009 at 1:19 am
hi Jodie
you mentioned that creating separate accounts let affiliate marketers protect the niche they are in. “If they add it all to the same account, other affiliates will know what they are doing to create their revenue and will try to recreate and in essence copy your hard work.” I dont really understand this. Anybody can explain? and whats this about cheating?
February 21st, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Interesting I have several different accounts in other places online… but not squidoo… never really thought of it?
February 26th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Wow! Who’d a thunk it? It never occurred to me to have multiple accounts at Squidoo. And, now that I’m thinking about it – I won’t (have multiple accounts). It’s too much trouble … I have enough on my plate without having however many more passwords to keep up with, as it is. Having things simplified works best for me. One account, at Squidoo, does it for me!
February 28th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
multiple accounts lead to multiple hassles
February 28th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I have two squidoo accounts because I am a content writer and my boss has me build lenses as part of my job. Honestly, some of these I would rather not have associated with my good name and reputation at Squidoo. Having multiple accounts doesn’t hurt anyone, does it?
March 1st, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Well I understand your points, but I like to see all my lenses in one place. In case you are going to work together with others this might be a smart idea. There should be the possibilty to co-author lenses, that would be cool
March 2nd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I have an extra account for two reasons.
One, my “Greekgeek” account is listed with my real name, and I’m always careful what I post under my real name. That means students, colleagues, potential employers, and relatives could find any lens made by Greekgeek. As a rule of thumb, while not all my lenses are related to my professional field, they are all innocuous topics that I’d be comfortable talking about at a cocktail party with my colleagues. (My favorite sports team, for example, or stuff about cooking.)
I have hobbies and interests that I keep partitioned off from my professional life. Nothing awful or illegal– mostly just video games and fanfiction. But for example, what if somebody liked nudist colonies, and wrote the definitive guide to nudist resorts in America? That’s not something they’d want grandma or their students to associate with them!
The second reason I have an extra account is for exactly what you said, accounting purposes. I donate all the earnings in one of my accounts to support an online community I like. I have a whole niche of lenses related to that community’s activities, all making money towards its server costs.
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:39 am
If you are quite famous on Squidoo its better to stick to one account to personally brand your lenses. =)
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:42 am
However…. Sometimes we just want to create new accounts for personal reasons.
March 8th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
I’ve seen and heard alot about people using multiple accounts, wasnt really sure what the advantages were until now. Thanks for the info.
December 14th, 2009 at 7:13 am
I have one powerful arguement for multiple accounts: I write squidoo lenses in English and in German. For the sake of those who do not read the one or the other language, multiple accounts within ONE dashboard would be purely amazing.
And globally, more people are noticing squidoo (I see more and more foreign language content floating through the lenses…), which is phenominal and speaks for this great platform.