Making the Best Friends on MyLot

Most people come to myLot.com to make money, not friends. But at myLot, friends are a lot more important to your success than they are on many other sites. Having the right friends will make your time spent on myLot more engaging, and your friends may actually become people you will learn to care about. With over 234,000 people on the site to choose from, how do you get acquainted with the ones that will help you the most and the ones you will also enjoy talking to the most.?

I was just looking at a myLot discussion started by a man who wondered if his ears were the reason he wasn't making any myLot friends. He couldn't understand why the friend invitations he sent out weren't being accepted. He posted this discussion four years ago, and his score, which is always current no matter when you last posted, was only 17. That means the grand total of the discussions he started and responded to was 17 in four years. My score is currently 259 and this is the very beginning of my fourteenth day on myLot. I have made many friends so far, 78 as of this moment. And some of them have become real people to me in this time. I have a feel for their cultures and beliefs, and I have followed the ongoing activities of a couple more who are very open about their problems in the family and in their relationships. Some of these people have been very faithful in responding to my discussions. And that, on myLot, is what friends are for.

When I joined myLot two weeks ago, I didn't have one friend. I did not try to make any because I had established no history on my profile. In the discussion referenced above, those who responded to the man's discussion almost all indicated it wasn't the man's ears that kept his invitations from being accepted. It was his profile. I have written an entire hub on how to set up a good profile, but you can only do so much on your own. Some of your profile myLot fills in with your activity on the site. You get to select the sorties that show on your profile, but myLot fills in most of them. The parts myLot fills in are just as important -- if not more so-- than the parts you fill in.

There's an old saying that the best way to have a friend is to be one. That is very true at myLot. Mylotters want friends who will make intelligent responses to their posts and who will also post some interesting discussions to respond to. Since discussions are how myLotters make their money, they have to have a fresh source to keep responding to. On myLot, you get one point added to your activity score for every discussion you start that stays up and gets at least two valid responses that follow the guidelines. So having loyal friends who will check your new discussions and respond helps you raise your activity score so you can get your perks that come with higher activity scores, like finally being able to paste at 500. Discussions you have started will show in your sortie for that if you display it.

Once your discussion is up and running, you should try to make a comment on each person's response to let him know you appreciated it, but it shouldn't say "Thank you for responding to my discussion." It's against the guidelines to just respond with a simple thank you. To get paid, you need to say something unique about the person's response when you comment. Look at some of my discussions I have started to see how I respond to comments for examples. You will get paid for quality responses, but you will only get one activity point for each discussion no matter how many comments or responses you make on it. So you either will have to start a lot of discussions or make responses to a lot of your friends' discussions to rack up those needed activity scores. Your activity sortie on your profile shows your most recent activity. It also shows which of your responses have been chosen as best responses if you have chosen to display that sortie.

There is a summary of all your activity right under your picture on your profile page. You can see it in the picture to the right. Anyone who checks out your profile will be able to tell how active you are. My profile summary was taken a couple of days ago, and it has already been updated since then. Your profile updates every time you start a discussion or make a response. It happens automatically.

The easiest way to make your first friend is to sign up on someone's referral link. That will automatically make you that person's friend. This is my referral link if you haven't signed up for myLot yet. Use this link and you will automatically have a friend--me! That means I commit to helping you be successful and will answer as many of your questions as I can.

However, one friend is not enough. You need to let other myLotters get to know you. Think about how you would make friends in real life. You would meet them at school or work. You might join a club with a special interest. You can do that at myLot, too. Pretend before you respond to your first discussion that you are at a giant cocktail party and everyone is gathered into little groups. You walk from one group to the next and listen in before you decide which one to join for conversation. At myLot you would click on one of your interests and look at all the discussions that have started and see if one looks interesting enough to participate in. Or, if you want to be sure of getting into a discussion with people who are still active, click on the "discussions" tab on the menu under the page banner and select "today's top." Then pick a topic to join.

Once you join a discussion, read it carefully and then read all the responses written so far before you add yours. That's in the guidelines. As you read, don't forget to rate the various responses you think are good with a + or really bad with a - or just ignore if you are neutal. You should not give a minus just because you disagree or because the response was written in broken English.

Make an intelligent response you have thought through. It should not repeat what others have said, nor should it just be a few words. It should add something positive to the conversation. As you read how others interact you will get a feel for what's acceptable in a response, and a comment to a response.

Now that you are visible, there are two ways to make new friends. Send a friend request and wait to be accepted or accept a request someone has sent you. The easiest way is to accept requests sent to you. You might want to check the profiles before accepting to make sure these people are the type of friends who are active and have some common interests. Be sure to set your notifications to get an email whenever you get a friend request or someone accepts a friend request you sent.

When you send a friend request, be prepared to wait for acceptance. Some people have stated they don't accept friend requests until the person has an activity score of 100 or has been noticed being active on some common discussions. People are afraid to accept requests from people who might send spam. No one can send a private message to anyone who is not a friend, so that's why they are so careful to look over possible friends before accepting. Other myLotters have stated they accept every friend request and then delete anyone who sends a spam private message (PR).

Now, go to myLot and be sociable, participate, and make intelligent and thoughtful responses in discussions, and you will soon have lots of friends. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I do.