Some Unconventional Twitter Advice

by Chris Garrett on September 30, 2009

It’s getting a little silly now …

Make a fortune with Twitter!!

Grow your followers by gajillions a day!!!

ZOMG! Secret Ninja Twitter System Runs On Autopilot!!!!!!

Well I have to say, I have done my research … and these “systems” are junk.

Do they work to increase your follower count? Yes. I have checked some Twitter accounts who use these systems and they do have big Twitter follower numbers.

Can you make money with Twitter? Yes. I do and I know others who do.

Can you make money using these Twitter systems? I very much doubt it!

Confused? Don’t be, I will explain.

These systems exploit and promote a certain behavior that is present in Twitter use. That of “follow me and I will follow you”.

If someone follows you, you follow them right back, all automated.

OK so far? Sure, there are legitimate rationalizations for doing this. I tried it once and didn’t like it, too much direct message spam for my liking, but others I know like this approach so fair play.

This alone can increase your follower numbers because people will follow you to get a follow back. You might even get onto a list of “people who will follow you back just for following them”.

See where this is going?

So the next step in “Teh Todally Awsum Ninja Style Follow Count Boosting Strategy” is to go and follow a whole bunch of folks who are guaranteed to follow you right back. Turn the tables and get some of that reciprocal follow lovin’ for yourself.

Can you see the problem with this?

“I have zero interest in you or anything you have to say, but by following you I get an additional follow on my follower list which in some way will pay off down the line and make me look more popular than I really am - win!”

There is a third step, another “Ninja Move” … ready?

Unfollow anyone who doesn’t follow you back.

Why waste following folks who do not follow me, the theory goes, that is a “wasted follow”.

Erm … is that what Twitter has become? A search for an inflated follower count?

So, ok, you now have a gajillion+ followers, where does the money come in?

In this system? It doesn’t.

At no point have we grown a follower base of people who know, like and trust you. None of these folks care about what you have to say, and certainly will not take your recommendations or buy what you have to sell.

Why would they? They are not even human many of them!

It is automated bots following automated bots.

The correct approach is to engage real human beings and interact. Show some value, have conversations, and most of all … avoid the short cuts.

What do you think? Have I got it all wrong? Are you about to buy your next beach front property with all your Twitter millions? Please share in the comments …

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Unlock Your PDF Content for a Visibility Boost

by Chris Garrett on September 22, 2009

In social media we are told that it is all about the content. Content is King!

Content really is a large part of our success in social media, but it is not the only thing. We have to be clever about the content we create, how we create it, where we put it and most of all, how we promote it.

A common strategy in traditional marketing is to create a white paper. Usually this would be a report that would position a business in a favorable way while explaining a solution. So there would be “10 ways to choose a designer”, with all ten points showing how the company that sponsored the white paper is the ideal choice.

In the social media world this became an ebook or special report, and while the phrase “white paper” is less often used, they are pretty much the same thing. The difference tends to be in packaging and delivery.

In social media the appearance of the report will be more vibrant, more consumer-friendly. While the traditional white paper might be locked behind an opt-in form, the social media report would be free to download instantly, but with call to action to share the report widely through email and social tools.

This sharing causes a viral effect of visibility, and is a key way to get your message out to a wider audience.

Lately though people have taken it even further and taken the content out of the PDF and into the web site. Readers have a choice of reading directly online or downloading. This encourages immediate reading and skimming, and also allows people to link to key parts of the material.

If you have old ebooks and reports lying around, I suggest you consider repurposing the content this way.

What if you do not have the original document any longer? If your PDF is locked tight, you can extract the content with some online tools - there is even a PDF to Excel converter for extracting tabular data. You can use scribd.com to upload and share your PDF, and embed it in web pages using the handy online viewer.

Once you have your content up on the web and it is being shared, consider a Creative Commons license to encourage sharing within other webmasters sites. This will generate even more links and visibility, and people are going to scrape your content anyway so you might as well benefit from it!

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Kieron Donoghue Affiliate Interview

by Chris GarrettJuly 21, 2009 Interview

Today I got the opportunity to grill Kieron Donoghue about his affiliate empire, his addiction to Spotify, and his love of automobiles … 
Q: You are a well known face in the affiliate scene. For those who do not know you though, please share some information about who you are and what you do?
I’ve been an affiliate now [...]

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What’s the Future of Social Networking?

by David DaviesJuly 15, 2009 Social Media

It’s easy to get carried away….

Perhaps, in the future, we will all wear cameras on our heads, emblazoned with our social network of choice. We will be like clans, and people will be able to watch us walk about on their computers, and the cameras will have built-in speakers which anyone can access from their [...]

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