Buy Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time (Hardcover) at Amazon

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Twitter is an awesome tool for connecting with people personally and professionally.  You can talk to others in your niche or area of interest, share advice, provide resources, and network with people all over the world.

I love it and I’m becoming a total Twitter addict.

It’s so much easier to write a short 140 character post on Twitter than to write an entire blog post… especially when I only want to make a quick point and move on.

I have several different accounts that I use for my different niches.  After all, it wouldn’t make sense to use my Arvada Yates Twitter account to communicate with my friends in other niches unrelated to internet business and marketing.  And having all these different accounts is what made me realize how obvious it is that internet marketers don’t know how to Twitter right.

In my other accounts, I can:

• Communicate directly with like-minded people and tweet back and forth.
• Have online disagreements with others who have a different point of view.
• Post cute jokes or comments about current events.
• Add occasional links to interesting blog posts, news stories, or videos.

In my Twitter accounts directly related to internet marketing, I get a constant barrage of links to affiliate programs and promotions from other interent marketers.  There’s nothing that I can have a conversation about, make a comment on, or connect with.

It sucks!

And it totally takes the fun out of using Twitter… so I don’t spend much time on those accounts and opt to participate in the accounts that allow more interaction.

And that’s where internet marketers are totally missing the point of Twitter.

Twitter is about interacting with others and creating relationships.  It’s kind of like email… you have to build rapport with others and provide useful information before you start slamming offers to buy stuff down their throats.

So here’s my top three ways to improve your results with Twitter:

1.  Start a conversation.  It’s easy to do if you’ve got followers that are real people instead of automated accounts.  In addition, you can always join another conversation that’s taking place… just jump in and be a real person!

2.  Stop posting links every time you Twitter.  Links take time to follow and pull followers out of Twitter… plus too many links undermine any hope of having a relationship with your followers.  If you’re going to post links, post links to articles on your blog.  That’s what I usually do.  In fact, I never post links directly to products.

3.  Post tips and real information to your account.  People love short tips and they can also double as a conversation starter.

I’m sure there are a few self-declared internet marketers out there that are trying to Twitter the right way… but the majority of them seem to see Twitter as an opportunity to spam us all with sales materials.

It’s a shame… Twitter can be so much fun!

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Your followers represent the people who are interested in you, your business, or your product.  For the most part, it’s very similar to email or RSS subscribers.

More Followers = More People to Market To

With Twitter, there’s often a reciprocation of following.  In other words, “If you follow me, I’ll follow you.”

Personally, I don’t always follow everyone that’s following me… it depends on what kinds of things that they post to their account.  On the other hand, I don’t expect that everyone that I follow to reciprocate and follow me either.

There are some people that I follow because I just enjoy the things that they post… simple as that.  I don’t mind that they might get some traffic from me because I think that the things that they post have value.  It’s kind of like when you put a link to something in your blog, even though you know that you’re sending traffic away from your site… but the info is just that good.

In fact, a lot of people will start following you just so that they will get a link from your Twitter page to their Twitter page.  Once you start following them, they remove you from the list of people they follow so that they get the benefit of a one-way link.

Not cool.

That’s why it’s important to keep an eye on the people you’re following to make sure that you want to continue following them and to make sure that they are still following you if you want them to.

I call it “Removing the Deadwood,” and it can be very time-consuming if you try to do it manually… but there’s a website that will give you a list of all the people you follow that don’t follow you.  It’s at:

http://friendorfollow.com/

Once you get your list of non-followers, you can then go out and “unfollow” whoever you want to stop following.

It’s a simple way to make sure that you’re not giving away links that don’t benefit you or your followers.

If you’d like to learn more great Twitter Marketing Tips,

Get the Twitter Trick now!

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You probably never really thought about all the pre-selling tools that are available to today’s online entrepreneur, but technology makes it possible to connect with your potential customers in tons of new ways!

I’ve written about what pre-selling is before, so I won’t go into the details again.  Here’s a short definition to make sure we’re all on the same sheet of music:

In the online world, pre-selling is the art of warming up your visitors, building trust, and putting them in the frame of mind that they want to do business with you.

If you need a more in depth explaination, check out the article, “What is Pre-Selling?”

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s start talking about the actual tools you can use to pre-sell your visitors and turn them into customers.

Of course you already know that basic written content is one of the best pre-sellers.  In fact, you probably already write and distribute articles, load your website up with relevant content, and send your content out in a newsletter.  That’s kind of the “standard internet marketing” that everyone does.

So let’s think out of the box a bit and take a look at some of the pre-selling tools that you may not be fully utilizing…

Pre-Selling Tools

1.  Blogs

Well-done blogs go beyond the basic website and take pre-selling a little more seriously.  Generally speaking, blogs show a little more of the personality of the owner than websites do because they’re less formal, more spontaneous, and friendlier.

When you visit some blogs, you feel like you’ve entered the inner sanctum of the writer… this can be a great pre-seller when it’s done correctly!  A great blog that welcomes visitors with a smile can go a long way toward turning visitors into customers.

2. Reviews

It surprises me how few people take advantage of the great pre-selling power of writing reviews.  Keep in mind that I’m not talking about the kind of candy-coated reviews that claim every product is excellent and worth buying or the bogus reviews pre-written by merchants for affiliates.

I’m talking about buying a product and writing a genuine review of what you liked and didn’t like about the product.  Believe it or not, I often sell more of a product when I write a less than stellar review!

People appreciate and reward honesty.

3.  Commenting

I kind of lumped this one all together to mean several different things so this article wouldn’t be soooo long.

Any time you leave a comment on someone’s blog, on a forum, in a message board, at YouTube, etc., you are pre-selling youreself.  It pays to make your comments useful and timely because visitors will often follow the links in those comments to learn more about you.

It’s kind of like pre-selling them on YOU, inviting them to your little part of the world (your website), and then using other pre-selling tools at your disposal to pre-sell them on products that you promote.

4.  Newsletters and Ezines

Newsletters and ezines are a really great pre-selling tool because they give you the opportunity to build rapport with potential customers over the long term.  This long-term relationship with your subscribers allows you to pre-sell them on a wide variety of products and services over the lifetime of the relationship.

5.  Freebies

There are soooo many freebies that you can put together to pre-sell whatever you want to recommend to your visitors.  You can create ebooks, audios, videos, reports, ecourses, or just about any other freebie that you can think of.  Each free product that you create helps to establish a relationship with potential customers and increases your pre-selling potential.

6.  Podcasts

Podcasts are a great way to instantly build rapport with potential customers and establish an immediate relationship.  There’s just something about hearing another human voice, no matter what they’re saying, that establishes an immediate connection.  All you need to do to use this great pre-selling tool is to provide great information.

Just remember, it’s not a radio commercial!

7.  Videos

Just like podcasts, videos are also a great pre-selling tool.  Not only can visitors hear your voice as you’re helping them solve a problem (that ultimately leads to a product available for purchase), but they can also see either you or your visual props in the video to help solidify the message in their minds.

In addition, well-done videos go a long way toward promoting you as a professional who is credible… all worthy goals when you’re pre-selling!

8.  Social Networks

This is probably the most important pre-selling tool in your toolbox because of the very nature of a social network.  Pre-selling and social networks fit together like hand and glove.

In a social network like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, or Twitter you’re building a social relationship with others online… the very definition of pre-selling.  In other words, you become friends with others through these social networks, pre-sell them your products, and your “friends” buy the products that you’re pre-selling because you have an established relationship with them.

And that’s my short list of the best pre-selling tools available to online entrepreneurs.  If you aren’t taking advantage of these options, you really owe it to yourself to start taking a look at how you can integrate some of these pre-selling opportunities into your business… especially social networks.

If I’ve missed a really great pre-selling tool here, I hope you’ll let me know!

I can virtually guarantee your pre-selling success
with this one tool… read more.

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If you’ve been watching the news, you probably heard the news that a HUGE snow/sleet/ice storm blew through my neck of the woods last week.  We lost power at our house on Tuesday night and spent two days in below zero conditions.  (luckily, our house held the heat pretty well the first two days and it didn’t dip below zero until the second day!)

As we were about to pack up the kids and move to a hotel to wait out the power (it was just too cold to stay here), my husband lucked into finding a generator (a long story… but he just happened to be in the right place at the right time.  I think it was divine intervention!).

We hooked up the heat and waited it out until the power went back on Saturday night.  Boy did we have a lot of laundry to do!!!

Anyway, let’s just say that I have a new appreciation for all our modern conveniences… especially electricity!

I can’t believe how much I missed my work on the internet too! Cable was out.  Dish was out.  Cell towers were out.  Even landline phone lines were missing in action.

What did we do in the old days (you know when we were kids) and didn’t have access to all that technology 24 hours a day?  It was kind of like stepping back into “Little House on the Prairie.”

Enough about my cold week…

SMM FAQ

Let me ask you a question… How much do you know about SMM?

I have to admit, Social Media Marketing (SMM) is an area of interent marketing that I’m still learning about, so I’ve been doing a fair amount of research into the subject.

To that end, I came across a Social Media Marketing FAQ put together by Steven Snell that comprehensively answers a lot of commonly asked questions about SMM.

It’s really well put together… just in case you’re looking for a few answers of your own!

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I came across an article written by Steve Hodson over at The Inquisitr called Is Twitter the next affiliate link hunting ground? In the article Steve talks about someone who placed an Amazon affiliate link in one of his Twitter posts using one of the “tiny link” services.

Apparently, it kind of ticked him off.

His argument against putting an affiliate link in the Twitter post is that:

“Affiliate sales are one of the largest money makers on the web but typically users visiting a site or blog will be able to tell that the links are indeed affiliate links; whether it by by disclaimers by the author or other means.  Sure there are the unscrupulous ones who do everything they can to hide them but in general most bloggers are up front about this sort of thing.”

What?!?

Since when do you need to put a big sign on every one of your affiliate links to let every visitor know that the link goes to a product that they might be interested in, but it’s not yours?

Obviously you have to have terms of service, legal, and privacy statements on your blog, which Twitter has too, but this guy is a bit over the top!

After all, no one is holding a gun to anybody’s head to make them click on those links!

On Twitter, if anyone was putting too much junk out there, no one would follow them and they would eventually lose out on any marketing momentum they gained from using Twitter in the first place.

“With Twitter though there is no room for disclaimers or notices about affiliate links regardless of how honourable the person posting might be – or might not be. how are we going to know that the link we just clicked isn’t going to take us to some marketing page that we never wanted to go to.”

I’m not sure you ever know, with absolute certainty, where any link is going to lead you.  It’s just part of internet life.

Since Twitter is built on a social system where no one gets noticed (followed, indexed, etc.) unless others are following them, spammers will never really make any headway there.  Twitter has been around since April 2007, so if the spammers were going to really sink their teeth into it, they would have already.

I think the idea of putting affiliate links on Twitter is kind of rude, but it doesn’t really bother me when it only happens once in a while…  What do you think?

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