There are certain techniques that I put into the worthless, “busy work” category…

1) Spending several hours per day on directory submissions

2) Re-writing other people’s content and submitting them to other sites

3) Posting worthless (“Great Post!”) comments on people’s blogs

Be careful of spending too much time on empty promotional techniques.  Measure the results of everything you do.

If you aren’t seeing a direct benefit after a period of time, either adjust your strategy/technique or move on to something else.

For example, people are obsessed over obtaining links, but all links are not created equal.

Compare the person who spends 10 hours per week hunting for link exchanges to the person who creates one useful video or article that rewards them over and over again with traffic and sales.

I’ve learned that publishing one useful video is worth more to me than submitting multiple ezine articles on any given day. So the task that takes less time actually gives me the greater benefit.

If you take the time to evaluate and track everything you do, you may be shocked at how you can make better use of your time.  That way you can do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

Tweeting Just to Tweet

Many marketers are becoming obsessed with Twitter. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great tool. But if you aren’t measuring the results, how do you know how beneficial it really is to you?

Just because you have 2,000 followers and you tweet 10 times a day doesn’t necessarily mean much if you aren’t measuring the effectiveness.

For example, did you know that you can track many of the URL shortening services (bit.ly, etc.) if you sign up with an account?

That way you can see how many people are clicking on your links. Many of you probably don’t do this, so you have no idea how your tweets are performing.  Doing this is useful because you can learn what type of tweets get the most clicks.

Then there’s the “how-may-people-are-following-me” obsession.  This is not a popularity contest, folks. If your followers are not engaged in what you’re tweeting about, then how valuable are those followers really?

Is there proof Twitter is helping you build credibility?  How about your sales?  How responsive are your followers to what you tweet about? Have you seen an increase in referral traffic from Twitter? Are you reaching your goals? Did you set any to begin with?

I don’t do a lot of direct promotion on Twitter, but I do monitor overall responses and referral traffic. I’ve learned what kind of tweets generate the most interest from my followers.

Plus, the RT’s (retweets) I receive from my followers alone have made Twitter worthwhile for me.

Even though I don’t use Twitter as much as many marketers do, I’ve found a way to use Twitter that is worthwhile for the time invested.

So if you are tweeting just because you just feel like you should be doing it and you aren’t measuring the benefits, you could be wasting your time.

Everything you do should have a strategy behind it and you should be tracking the results at all times.

You don’t measure the success of Twitter or any strategy by how many followers or subscribers you have.  You measure it by how responsive the people are to what you publish.

Are you getting more sales?  More traffic?  Is it opening up new connections with others?  Are you building more credibility?  Do people respond and give feedback?

I hear people say things like “I’ve been promoting my site for 10 hours per day for the last month and I’m not seeing any results.”

My response is always, “What are you doing and have you been measuring and tracking the results?” All busy work is not effective work, and unfortunately there are no rewards or honors for “time spent online.”

How well are you making use of that time online? THAT is the key.   Successful marketers work smart.   They track and evaluate every task they perform.  Then they keep the best and drop the rest.

Is it time for you to do a self audit on your marketing techniques?

A gentleman named Stephan asked me last week…

Lisa, how much money do you make from Twitter?

My short answer…

Nothing.

However, if I were to answer that question more indirectly, I’m sure it would be greater than that.

Here’s what I mean.

I promote my sites a lot of different ways online (through my forum, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)  However, I don’t do much direct selling on any of these sites.

In fact, I tweeted an affiliate link once on Twitter and I just felt dirty.   I personally don’t like hard selling on Twitter.  It feels a little cheap to me.

Nothing against people who do, and if it works for you great… keep doing it.  I just prefer to use Twitter to inform, educate and connect with my followers.

Now let’s talk about my forum, Website Babble.

This may surprise you, but I didn’t create it with the intention of making a lot of money.  Sure, I make some money from banners and sponsor ads, but it is hardly anything to brag about.

So what’s the point of creating a forum if you don’t plan to make a lot of money? (I can hear you thinking that.)

One thing I’ve learned about earning a full-time living as an affiliate marketer is you have to learn to build a brand…

A brand of Y-O-U.

Website Babble is just another site (like my YouTube channels and Twitter) that allows me to help and connect with my audience while I continue to build my brand and enhance my credibility.

My primary and most successful website has always been 2CreateAWebsite.com.  I use my blog, other websites and places like YouTube and Twitter to provide more advice, help, and drive traffic back to my main site.

Because of the credibility and trust I’ve gained through helping others on these sites, this strategy indirectly drives more affiliate sales in the long-run.

Maybe you don’t like Twitter and other social networking sites because you don’t see a direct way to make money from them.  But you’re failing to realize the compounded value of using multiple channels over time.

You may not be able to generate many direct sales from these microblogging and social networking sites. But if you do a good job of educating, teaching, helping, etc. you can use these tools to drive traffic to your sites and make more money in the long run.

It’s not always about getting the sale, at least not right away.  It’s a process.

Stop looking for quick, worthless traffic.  Develop your brand. Seek trust.  Become accessible.  Use the available free sites and tools online to develop relationships, connections and educate your audience.  Then watch the targeted, loyal followers that will develop over time.

These are the people who will come back to your site over and over again.

These are the people who will trust you the most.

They are more likely to buy what you recommend.

They will tell their friends and family about your site whenever they get a chance.

They will email you before buying and make sure they are purchasing from your affiliate link so you get the credit.

These people will become your bread and butter as an affiliate marketer. 

So are you just pitching products or taking the time to build your brand? Position yourself today to earn a steady, long-term income that will reward you forever.

A Twitter user, (we’ll call her Jane Doe), sent me an email last week because she doesn’t understand why she receives very few @replies and RT’s (retweets) on Twitter.

Just for the record, she is using Twitter to promote her craft related blog by networking with other people in her niche and announcing her blog posts.

To begin my investigation, I visited “Jane’s” Twitter landing page and instantly noticed that 65% of her tweets were related to her personal, day-to-day activities.

Another 30% were dedicated to her blog updates, and the remaining 5% were posts about random web-related tidbits.

So even though she claims to use Twitter for site promotion, you wouldn’t know it by examining the balance between her personal and site related tweets.

Be Careful of Twitter Vanity

It’s tempting to make a lot of your tweets about yourself and what you’re doing.  However, if you’re using Twitter for site promotion, most people are following you because they are looking to see how you will provide value to THEM.

So if too many of your tweets are about you, it can get monotonous and people may start to ignore you.

In Ken Evoy’s first e-book, Make Your Site Sell (which is now free) Ken reminds us…

No one cares about you until they know how you can help them.

Sounds a bit blunt, but it’s true.  (I love Ken’s tell-it-like-it-is approach.)

Remember, most of your followers don’t know you personally, so the mundane updates may create a “who cares” attitude among many of your followers.

Some will ignore.  Others may even unfollow you.

As I’ve said in other posts about Twitter, a fun or personal tweet is fine every now and then, but balance is key.

Engage Your Readers

One thing I’ve noticed is that people LOVE to give their opinions.

Also, when you ask a question or poll your audience, it makes people feel important and connected with you.

Not to mention, it’s a great way to generate ideas and drum up a few interesting TWIT-versations. (Did I just write that?) 

Are Your Tweets Insulting?

Not all of Jane Doe’s tweets were self related.  There were a couple that provided links to other resources.  However, there was one that really caught my eye.  It was a link to download Internet Explorer 8.0.

There was no explanation. No reason why you should update.  Just a link to the download as if it just launched this morning.

Providing a free resource link is fine, but when it is outdated or out of place, this can be confusing or insulting.

Sure, there may be a few IE7 users who may find this useful, but as a general rule, make sure your information is current and useful to the majority of your followers.

Engage With @REPLY

This sort of goes back to the vanity point above.   If you’re using Twitter for site promotion, it shouldn’t always be about you.  It never hurts to reply and make conversation with the people you are following.

If someone posts something interesting, retweet it.  Or take the time to tell them how much you enjoyed their post.

People take note and appreciate it when you send them an @reply or RT their tweets.  These people are more likely to reply to you or even RT some of your tweets in the future.

Lighten Up

One thing I like about Twitter is that the environment is very casual. When you do post something not related to your site/business, make it fun or witty. It’s a great way to display your personality.

Don’t take yourself so seriously.  Crack a joke one in a while.  It reminds people you are a human and not just a 48×48 pixel avatar with a Twitter account.

Be Valuable

There are many ways to show your value as a Twitter user…

1) Give away relevant, useful freebies that are only available through Twitter. (Relevant and useful are the key words in that sentence.)

2) Post industry news that your audience will find interesting.  Know your audience and keep them relevant.

3) Use Twitter to announce your new content and videos

4) Keep selling to a minimum

You Can’t and Won’t Please Everyone

Let’s face it.  People follow others on Twitter for different reasons.  Your follower’s expectations will always vary.  Some may be OK with your mundane updates, others may not be as patient.

You’re never going to please everyone all the time.  But if you follow the guidelines above, it will keep many of your followers interested and engaged.

We could sit here all day and discuss the best ways to use Twitter for promotion, but I bet most of you would agree that it starts with providing value to your followers.

Start with that, and there’s less room for error.  Also, people will be much more accepting of your less desirable Twitter habits.

The Self Promoter

Some people join Twitter and have absolutely no intention of providing value or developing meaningful relationships.

They look for popular users and blast them with @replies about their own products and services.

I checked out one guy’s profile and he was doing nothing but sending self promotional @replies to me, Oprah and Barbara Walters.  (Well, at least I was in good company.) 

This is NOT the way to use Twitter. To me, it’s even worse than e-mail spam. If you want people to notice you, create value and people will come to YOU.

It’s bad enough when people promote their site/service in every tweet, but to @reply someone with an unsolicited offer is taking it to a whole other level.

Not cool.

The Obsessive Compulsive Return Tweeter (O.C.R.T.)

This is the person who rarely (if ever) comes up with content of their own and spends most of their time on Twitter RT-ing what other people tweet.

Certainly nothing wrong with an RT every now and then, but if you really want to gain a loyal following, you should also work on generating your own content.

The Stalker

This person will do anything to make contact with you, even if that means @replying to you multiple times per day about absolutely nothing.

Occasional small talk on Twitter is fine.  I’d like to think I’m a pretty friendly gal.   However, 8 tweets in a row from the same individual asking personal, irrelevant questions is not.  So stop.

(I’m not speaking from personal experience or anything.) 

Random Roger

Every now and then I get @replies from people I don’t know, about very random topics and articles. I’m not sure what the strategy is behind this, but it’s very odd.

Anonymous Andy

It’s 2009.  So the I-don’t-have-a-digital-photo excuse doesn’t fly anymore. Unless you resemble that brown square with the blue circles (which is a whole other problem) , you really should take the time to add a picture or logo.

If you’re using Twitter for fun or personal reasons, that’s one thing, but if you are promoting a business you must pay attention to the smallest of details.  Yes, even your Twitter icon (or lack of one) makes a huge difference.

The RT Begger

I don’t have a problem with people asking for a RT every now and then. If your tweet is useful, exceptional, or compelling, then it’s good to encourage people to spread your message once in a while.

However, adding “Please RT” to the end of every tweet looks a little desperate if you ask me.

Here’s the deal.   If you tweet good stuff, many people will RT without you even asking.  If your tweets are useless/boring, adding “Please RT” to the end won’t do you much good.

By the way, don’t forget to RT this post.

Just kidding.

Even though I’ve had a Twitter account for a while, I didn’t become active until about 6 months ago.  Here are a few things I’ve learned.

Keep in mind, many of these tips are only relevant if you use Twitter for site or blog promotion.

1. Your Last 20 Tweets Say a Lot!

When someone goes to your homepage on Twitter, the first thing they see is your last 20 tweets (your recent Twitter stream.) So you have 20 chances to sell them on following you.

You want your Twitter stream to exude value and give potential followers a glimpse of what they will get as a follower.  You will be surprised at how many people use your recent Twitter stream to make the follow decision. I sure do.

Take a moment and look at your last 20 tweets.  Now look at them from the viewpoint of a potential visitor who may be thinking of following you.  See anything you might want to change?

Note: A lot of people use Twitter clients instead of Twitter.com, so they may see fewer than 20 tweets when they view your Twitter landing page.  Keep that in mind too.

2.  Make Your @replies Useful to Everyone

When you reply to someone, make the most of that reply so other followers can benefit.

If someone asks me what software I use to record my screen, I could simply reply with…

@username Camtasia Studio.

There’s a slight problem with this answer. My followers did not see the original question. So even if they know what Camtasia Studio is, they have no idea what I’m talking about unless they click the person’s username to find the question.

A better reply would be…

@username I use Camtasia Studio for my screen recording videos.  You can download a free trial here…

Not only have I helped a curious follower, but I’ve provided information that my other followers may find useful.

Thorough replies like this also add value to your recent Twitter stream as I mentioned above in #1.

Note: Twitter made an update in May so that when you begin a tweet (reply) with @username, the only people who see it is the person you are replying to and anyone who is following both of you.

So if you want everyone to see your reply make sure you do not start the tweet with @username.

3.  Use a Customized Landing Page

I used to link to my blog in my Twitter profile, but realized that doesn’t tell potential followers a lot about me.  At this level, most people really just want to know who you are and why they should follow you.

So I created a Twitter landing page to give people a quick overview of who I am and what they can expect if they follow me.

Some will argue that it’s best to link to your homepage for the “link juice”, traffic and earnings potential.  I guess my approach is more indirect.

I think it’s important to gain new followers and build credibility through content.  There will be plenty of time to promote my sites as I build up credibility.

Most people who buy from your site are going to be visitors who have grown to trust you — not potential Twitter followers who are just trying to figure out if they should follow you or not.

Get the follower now.  Make the sale later.

4.  Take Advantage of Direct Messages

If you get a lot of questions on Twitter, you don’t have to reply to everyone publicly.  Not to mention, a bunch of replies can clog up your Twitter stream.

I have been using direct messages a lot more since I read Marko Saric’s book, Twitter Marketing: How to Go Viral on Twitter, where he encourages you to “pick your tweets wisely” and to be careful about tweeting too much as it may become “white noise” to your followers.

5.  Mix It Up!

No one wants to follow someone who continuously brags about themselves or promotes their site in every tweet. (Yawn!)

Learn to mix it up and give your Twitter stream some variety.  Poll your followers, engage them, offer some words of wisdom, be funny. The key is finding the right balance.

Never lose sight of the fact that your goal is to provide VALUE to your target audience.  However, a fun or off-topic tweet here doesn’t bother most people, and many welcome the variety.

6.  Twitter is Not the Place for Hard Selling (For Most People)

If you’re going to promote products, affiliate links, etc. you really have to make sure your brand is solid and people respect you.

I don’t do a lot of affiliate link dropping on Twitter.  Quite honestly, I’m not comfortable with it.

I prefer to let my tweets do the PREselling and hope that my earned credibility will turn my followers into loyal site visitors and customers in the long-run.

Nothing wrong with an occasional site promotion or affiliate link here and there, but you definitely have to choose your promotions wisely and build the credibility first.

What have you learned from using Twitter?

I was reading, Darren Rowse’s blog, TwiTip.com, and came across an article that struck a chord with me. It was written by Skellie of Skelliewag.org.

The article is called How to Follow Everyone Back on Twitter Without Ruining Your Experience.

Skellie suggested that you follow everyone who follows you in order to grow your number of followers.  She admitted that once she began “returning the follow”, her follower rate increased.

Then she goes on to explain how you can use various tools like TweetDeck (which I love!) to group/filter the people you’re following.  In other words, put the people you are REALLY interested in in one group and the “others” in another group.

I interpreted that “other” group as people you really don’t care as much about, but you are mainly following them because they followed you.

Now, in Skellie’s defense, she DID mention that you will get the opportunity to meet new and interesting people with this approach, so she wasn’t just saying to use this technique for the sake of growing your followers.

But if I’m just going to filter most of them out into the “other” group with TweetDeck, what’s the point of following them if I probably won’t read most of their tweets anyway?  Over time, that “other” group could get massive!

Now, maybe some people who use this “follow all” strategy actually do read most of the tweets and if that’s the case, that’s great (and amazing). It just doesn’t seem very useful to follow hundreds or even thousands of people whose tweets may not interest me.

Of course, I understand the importance and advantages of having a large following, but it just seems a bit disingenuous to follow people I’m going to basically filter (ignore) to potentially boost my own following.

I’ve read about a lot of people doing this (not just Skellie). I guess everyone has their own Twitter habits and tolerance. (Mine must be pretty low.)

I am just not interested in following an obscene number of people with the main goal to boost my own follower count.  Also, I hope that people follow me because they value my tweets instead of just hoping I’ll follow them in return.

Actually, I turned off the “new follower email notification” that Twitter sends out because the emails were clogging up my inbox.  The downside to doing that is I could be missing out on interesting people to follow.  (Not to mention I didn’t even know my mom was following me! Oops.) 

So I may turn that notification back on to stay in the loop and return more follows to people who tweet about things that interest me.  But as far as Skellie’s “return all follow” strategy goes, I doubt I’ll be using it.

What do you think?  Do you return all follows?

I have really grown to love Twitter in the last two months.

I must admit, when a friend told me about it a few years ago, I thought it was kind of dumb. But now I see the value of it from a marketing/researching/networking standpoint.

At first, I only used it to announce my blog posts (through Twitterfeed), but now I do a lot more manual updates.

Yes, I’m officially hooked!

Even though I’ve had my Twitter account for nearly 3 years, I just started actively promoting it in the last 2 months.  I’m seeing some pretty decent results.  Not to mention my follower count has increased by over 300 in just a couple of months.

But there’s one aspect of Twitter that I struggle with, and that is finding the balance between personal and business.  I’d love to get your opinion on this.

Currently, I use Twitter for my website and blog-related tweets, but have noticed that many of the Net Marketers I follow, use one account for their personal and business tweets.

On one side, I can see the benefits. It gives people a glimpse inside your personality and offers a nice break from the regular routine.

Plus, Twitter updates are only 140 characters or less, so a personal tweet is not as distracting as reading a 10-paragraph blog post on an unrelated topic.

But on the downside, it can turn a lot of people off if they followed you because they wanted to keep up with your business/website, and you are tweeting about walking your dog or combing your hair. Sometimes I find it distracting, but maybe I’m in the minority.

Most people who search for me on Twitter, know me from my websites and/or blog. So I assume the majority want to keep up with what’s going on with my sites.

Personally I would feel a little odd posting too many mundane updates throughout the day. A few here and there are OK, but I think you have to find a balance.

Now of course, if you are using Twitter to keep up with your friends and family, the mundane updates are understandable because your followers are people who know you personally. But if the majority follow you because of your business, I feel there is a difference.

I go back and forth on this. Sometimes I don’t mind the personal tweets from people I follow because it is a good way to show your personality.

But I will admit, there are some who go overboard on the personal tweets. In fact, I have stopped following people for that very reason.

So I’d love to know your thoughts on this.  No need to answer all the questions below, but I added them to kick-start the discussion.

1) If you have a business online and use Twitter, do you tweet about personal things? If so, how often?

2) Do you like it when people you follow post a lot of personal/mundane updates?

3) What are your expectations when you follow someone?

4) Do you have a separate Twitter account for your personal updates?

One of the biggest challenges I face with teaching people how to market their sites online is the constant comparing.  People want to know exactly what I did to draw in so much traffic over the years because they are convinced if they do the same, they’ll have the same (or similar) results.

One guy even accused me of keeping my REAL traffic tips a secret because he just couldn’t seem to get enough traffic to his website.  He requested that I write out a list of everything I did from day one to generate traffic to 2 Create a Website.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to learn from someone who is already seeing success, but you have to remember the Internet has evolved.  Yes, many of the techniques I used years ago still work, but a lot of them don’t anymore.

In the video below I discuss why new Webmasters have to be careful about doing direct comparisons with more established websites when it comes to traffic building…

And just for the record, there are no secrets when it comes to building traffic.

JohnnyInArizona is having dinner

Helen12345 just got a traffic ticket

KristenWilliams is late for work

If you’re a Twitter member, these are the kinds of updates you might see when you login to your account.

Ahhh yes, good ole’ Twitter — the official place to spy on people you know (or don’t know) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

So what’s all the hype surrounding this free application and what does it have to do with promoting your Internet business online?

What The… ???

I’ll be honest.  When I first heard about Twitter I thought it was the dumbest thing ever.

However, I became more intrigued a little later when I saw other Webmasters and Bloggers talking about how they use it to promote their sites and blogs.

So if you are wondering about Twitter and how it can benefit your business, here’s a video demonstrating how it works and how you can use it.

By the way, you can follow me on Twitter here.

Sometimes it’s the little things you do that help build loyalty, and I’ve made a vow to come up with more ways to reward my visitors — particularly the ones who continue to add value to my blog and forum.

With the emergence of the social networking scene, developing connections and acknowledging regular contributors is an important part of marketing (particularly if you’re a blogger).

Having said that, I thought I’d discuss a few of the ways people publicly reward their visitors…

EntreCard – Top Droppers

Many EntreCard members make the occasional post to their blog with a list of their top EntreCard droppers.

If you aren’t familiar with EntreCard, it’s a free service that allows you to promote your blog by dropping your card (a 125×125 image) on other blogs.

You earn credits for every “drop” you make and you can use those credits to buy advertising space on other blogs.

I haven’t posted a list of my top droppers as of yet.  On one hand, I like the idea, but on the other, it opens the door for a bunch of empty drops by people looking to make my “Top Dropper” list.

Nevertheless, it can be a good way to build up loyalty.

Top Commenters

I read every comment posted here and often follow them to view the person’s blog.  But I pay even more attention to the people who take the time to craft insightful posts.

Blog comments are important because they make a blog look active and they encourage participation from other readers.  So I appreciate it greatly when people take the time to make a thoughtful comment.

WordPress has a plugin that allows you to display the top commenters as a widget on your sidebar.  While that’s a very generous thing to do, you still have to monitor rewards like this very closely.

People are competitive, and any time there’s a reward for quantity, some take advantage of that and the quality of the content begins to suffer.  So you have to evaluate if it’s worth implementing.

Your top commenters may not always be your best contributors. Personally, I’d much rather reward someone with a few good comments than someone else with a bunch of empty ones who is just looking for first billing on my widget.

That’s why I’m a fan of the new partnership between SezWho and EntreCard.  Hopefully this will enhance the commenting community and encourage more productive discussions across the blogosphere.

As an EntreCard member you can now earn credits for leaving comments on SezWho-enabled blogs.  The catch is you only earn credits for quality comments.

This keeps people from flooding other blogs with quick comments like “nice post” or “great info”, just to drive up their credit totals.

Just for the record, this blog uses SezWho, so if you’re an EntreCard member, get to commenting and earn those credits.

vBulletin – Top Posters

There’s a hack out for vBulletin 3.x that allows you to show your forum’s top posters for the month.  I’ve installed it and posted a link to this list in two places on my forum Website Babble.

While the quantity vs. quality issue could come into play here as well, I’m not as concerned about that with my forum due to the high number of regular, quality contributors.

As many of you know, it takes a lot of work to build and maintain an forum active, and I am truly grateful to the active members who have helped Website Babble grow.

My forum is nowhere as active as Digital Point or ABestWeb, but for someone who has launched 3 forums that failed in the past, you won’t hear me complaining.

When I first launched Website Babble, I held 2 contests and gave away cash prizes ($300 and $150 respectively) to the the MVP (Most Valuable Posters).

I do believe that incentive helped my forum grow in the early days, and I do have plans to offer more prizes in the near future.

The great thing about this reward was that it was based on quality of posts, not quantity.

Even though I had to manually review several posts to determine who was eligible for the contest, it was worth it. It’s important to recognize and give back to quality contributors.

You can join my forum here.  I’d love to get to know you.

If you’re thinking of starting your own forum, think of ways you can reward your members.  It doesn’t haven’t to be money.  Perhaps it’s free advertising space on your blog, or you could give away EntreCard credits.

Public Response to Tweets

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net is good at this.  Anytime someone poses a question on Twitter that he feels is best answered publicly on his blog, he’ll post a link to the person’s Twitter account in the post.

When you get a link from a blog with over 50,000 RSS readers, you’re bound to get some kind of reward, even if it’s just a few extra Twitter followers.

I just started using my Twitter account in the last week to announce my blog posts, and plan to come up with more useful ways to interact with my followers.

————-

The bottom line is people love to be recognized, and it’s important to show your audience that you appreciate their support.

Do you reward your visitors?  If so, how do you do it?