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Avoiding The Social Media – Salespage Disconnect In Your Advanced Twitter Marketing

Doug Champigny — Sun, 02 May 2010 03:25:59 +0000

Avoiding The Social Media – Salespage Disconnect In Your Advanced Twitter Marketing

There’s a noticeable disconnect between social media sites and salespages, one that a lot more Internet marketers and affiliate marketers should be taking notice of – and it applies to anyone marketing on Twitter as well…

When people, even targeted prospects, are visiting social media sites they are in a headspace that reflects that – social. They are not, generally, in a shopping frame of mind at that point, or they’d be cruising shopping sites and salespages instead. Makes sense, right?

So if that’s so obvious, why is it that so many marketers are complaining these days that marketing on social sites isn’t working for them when they consider posting links to salespages the extent of their necessary social media marketing strategies?

No matter how well written a salespage is, it’s still just that – a salespage. And to be effective it needs to be put in front of targeted prospects when they’re in a mood to buy! Ken Evoy long ago pioneered the concept of pre-selling your prospects before passing them along to your affiliate marketing links, and in most cases that’s just as true for your own Internet marketing activities too.

Common sense tells us that you can’t overcome that disconnect – can’t expect to reframe a potential customer’s mindset – in the 140 characters we have at our disposal in our Twitter marketing efforts… But we can STILL use that ‘headline marketing’ platform to build sales – and our lists – with a slight change in tactics.

Take a lesson from the current affiliate marketing playbook – right now the highest-performing affiliates are building squeeze page systems. They offer a free download aimed at their target market, then followup with an autoresponder course to sell the prospect into the product they’re promoting. Since the prospect signed up for their list to get the download, they know that person is a targeted lead – otherwise the gift wouldn’t appeal to them.

Take a look at the psychology involved – the free e-book, report or video demonstrated their expertise in the niche, the squeeze page got the prospect to trust them enough to provide their e-mail address, and now the followup will provide more helpful information on the topic and ‘warm up’ the prospects – many of whom could eventually end up buying the product through the affiliate’s link.

So as an online marketer, use that system for your own products. Write a complimentary report on a related sub-niche and set up your squeeze page funnel. Once it’s in place you simply drive targeted traffic to it – the site, download and followup all run on autopilot so the system itself doesn’t require any ongoing effort on your part once it’s in place. And now it’s not a salespage you’re directing traffic to, but instead to a free report full of good info for those interested in the niche you serve.

Next, write a blog post about the same topic as the report and link to your squeeze page from it – tweet the blog link too! Think not so much of your Twitter marketing experience, but of your usage of Twitter yourself – how much more likely are you to click through to a free download or a blog post than to a salespage?

And the same is true of any of the other social media and social networking sites too – you’ll do much better offering free downloads and linking to helpful blog posts than you will by linking directly to salespages – and you’ll be building your opt-in list along the way for the future benefits a larger list brings.

So if you’ve got a lot of experience online and know all the ins-and-outs of reports, squeeze page systems, autoresponders and the like, start with your current or best-selling product and get the funnel online for it – then send it traffic while you focus on the funnel for your next product. Rinse and repeat til all your products have funnels specific to them, then open up those funnels to your affiliates as well!

If you’re not up to speed on those technologies and/or aren’t that well versed at driving large amounts of targeted traffic, I suggest you consider enrolling in our PowerStart Internet Marketing coaching classes, a 4-week crash course that teaches all of the above and a lot more. Weekly webinars and over 1.5 gigs of custom step-by-step training videos are combined to ensure your success, no matter how new you are to marketing online. Classes start the first Monday night of each month, so start by checking out the video testimonials sent to us by some of our Internet marketing coaching program graduates – see you after you enroll!

Technorati Tags: Twitter marketing, marketing on Twitter, social media marketing, Internet marketing, affiliate marketing, tweets, Twitter, PowerStart Internet marketing, Internet marketing coaching classes

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Using Twitter But Not Retweeting? How Gauche!

Doug Champigny — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:13:33 +0000

Using Twitter But Not Retweeting? How Gauche!

The Advanced Twitter Marketing System makes proper – and heavy – use of the Retweet aspect of Twitter. But even if you’re not using Twitter for Internet marketing or using Twitter for affiliate marketing, you should really be retweeting tweets each and every day. Not retweeting anything is egotistical and, well… gauche!

First, let’s look at what retweeting is, and why it’s necessary to fulfill your implicit promise to those following you on Twitter. The tweets you see streaming by on Twitter are from those people you’ve chosen to follow – and only those people – you create your own Twitterverse that way. And so does everybody else, including those who choose to follow you.

As a result, unless you’re both following the exact same people, each of you is seeing some tweets, probably a goodly percentage, that the others aren’t seeing. And that’s where retweeting comes in. If you see a really helpful, positively encouraging or funny tweet, pass it along to your followers so they can learn from it/visit the site/laugh at it too!

Obviously this passes along greater value to your Twitter followers than just sending them your tweets alone, since they get these as well as your own original tweets. But just taking someone else’s tweet and passing it along as your own is not only in poor taste – it’s one of the specifically prohibited activities that Twitter states it will close your account for. So just what is the correct Twitter etiquette for retweeting the messages you receive?

Assume the tweet in question came from my @SuperAffil stream. Simply highlight and copy the tweet, then in the update window put ‘RT @SuperAffil ‘ (without the quotes) and paste my message in after that. That first bit shows it’s a retweet of a tweet you received from @SuperAffil, and then it shows them what the original tweet said. While this is a bit clumsy in the Twitter.com user interface, 3rd party software like TweetDeck makes it much simpler – in TweetDeck, for instance, hovering your cursor over the tweeter’s avatar brings up 4 small icons, one of which is for retweeting. By just clicking that icon your retweet is put into the update window, ready to send with the proper formatting already done for you.

Hopefully Twitter will eventually add that function directly into their interface, but with most users already interacting with Twitter through 3rd-party software there may not really be a need for them to do so. Twitter growth has been so swift that they have their hands full with server upgrades, spambot checking and now fighting off Denial-of-service attacks, hackers and developers of blackhat software trying to get an unfair advantage at Twitter. However, Biz Stone and his crew have done a fantastic job keeping Twitter intact, growing safely and becoming more and more powerful in it’s usefulness to Twitter users, so don’t be surprised if a retweet function and other user-interface improvements show up from time to time.

So now that you know HOW to retweet, the big question is WHY should you retweet. Let me restate my belief that not retweeting is overly egotistical – you’ve decided no one but you has anything of value to offer your followers, and that they should be left on their own to find valuable tweeters to follow. Conversely, when you pass along the best of the tweets you receive you’re adding more value to the equation, making your stream that much more valuable an asset to those following you. And it also gives your followers a heads-up on other users whose tweets are good enough for you to pass on, giving them an easy way to follow that person as well.

Further, the ‘law of reciprocity’ is alive and well online – when you’re retweeting others, since their @username label is in the tweet they’ll see it too, and that you’ve retweeted them. This gives them a good reason to follow you too, since you’ve shown you feel you’re sending similarly-targeted tweets to your followers. And often they’ll then watch for your tweets, retweeting the best of them in turn and exposing you to their following as well. This ‘Twitter networking’ can be a powerful strategy too, especially if the people you’re retweeting are at the same or higher level in your particular niche. Most Twitter users find having their tweets retweeted flattering, and a bit of flattery to those above you, when genuine and not overdone, can never hurt!

So as you can see, retweeting helps your followers, enhances the value of your own tweetstream, helps to make the movers & shakers in your niche aware of you, and often leads to your tweets being spread to a wider audience, bringing you more followers and expanding your sphere of influence. This is a win-win situation for anyone using Twitter, but especially powerful for advanced Twitter marketers.

Put the power of retweets to use in YOUR daily Twitter marketing activities today!

Technorati Tags: retweeting, retweets, retweeting on Twitter, using Twitter, Twitter etiquette

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Free Advanced Twitter Marketing Case Study Ready To Download!

Doug Champigny — Sat, 30 May 2009 10:14:36 +0000

All along Teri & I have been promising people we’d release the Advanced Twitter Marketing System Case Study”, detailing the creation, tactics and results achieved by the Captain Affiliate beta test – and it’s finally ready for downloading!

For those who have been watching the Advanced Twitter Marketing System evolve, you’ll remember that the intent was to find a way to reduce the time marketers had to spend at Twitter to achieve success, while finding ways to increase the targeting of their Twitter followers WITHOUT the risk of spamming the system or the users.

The Captain Affiliate (@CaptnAffiliate) account was created to allow us to test and tweak our system before releasing it to the inital beta-testers, and even we were surprised at how well that initial testing went. Even better, the results were then duplicated, and in some instances surpassed, by the beta testers. (Reference their testimonials here and here.)

And now, finally, we’ve had a chance to compile the information, along with the screen captures, into the Advanced Twitter Marketing Case Study. And to make it even more valuable to Internet marketers and affiliates, we’ve even included a copy of the squeeze page and download page so you can add your own opt-in form and distribute the case study from your own sites to build your opt-in lists… See? We told you it would be worth the wait!

So go ahead and download your free case study now, read it to help you make more money marketing on Twitter and distribute it to build your lists and make more money with your e-mail marketing – a nice profitable double-barrelled attack, don’t you think? Knew ya would!

Technorati Tags: Advanced Twitter Marketing Case Study, free Twitter marketing report, Advanced Twitter Marketing download, free case study, free download

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Common Newbie Mistakes on Twitter

Doug Champigny — Tue, 19 May 2009 11:03:44 +0000

Twitter is an exciting, cool, and extremely profitable social network site. Millions of people are now using the site to talk about various subjects. Indeed, it is a micro-blogging site for those who can’t stop talking. There are also common mistakes that most new users commit on Twitter. Before you start sending tweets, you must be aware of these common newbie mistakes.

Mistake number 1 – the picture on your avatar is not yours. Most new users don’t post their real picture. They often use cartoon pictures, company logos, or their pet’s pictures. Although the pictures are quite cute, most Twitter users will appreciate a real picture of you. When you post your true picture on Avatar, others will think that you’re real and that you’re confident enough to let others see you. If you’re going to upload a photo, choose the ones where you give a beautiful smile. A smile can easily brighten the day of others.

Sending direct messages automatically through the AutoDM; direct messages are often impersonal and pushy. If you send this type of messages, you can lose your followers. When you use these tools, messages are automatically sent to those who follow you. A message saying ‘thanks for following me’ is fine but sending automated messages promoting your business or product is not a good idea until you’ve established yourself on Twitter and most people will just ignore them until then.

Do you have any followers? If you want to have followers, you need to follow people or you can at least create an interesting profile page. You can get followers by regularly posting updates. If you keep on following people and yet you don’t make updates on your page, you won’t get enough followers.

If you see qestions from other tweeters that you can answer with solid, helpful information, be sure to respond to it. Remember that twitter is a 2-way street, and you’d want good answers to your own qestions, right?

Check your numbers regularly. It’s not good to follow many people when you have very few individuals following you. Try to achieve balance. Make sure that the one you follow will also follow you back and you should also appreciate the ones who follow you. This is the easiest way to make progress on Twitter. In general, Twitter will only let you follow up to 10% more people than you have followers, so follow others judiciously.

Use tools like Tweetdeck so that you don’t need to stay online all the time. Through this application, you can divide your followers into groups. Now, you can easily track them especially when they send direct messages and replies.

Above all, keep your tweets polite & G-rated. You must remember to respect others at all times. As you may have forgotten, Twitter is a social network.

You must learn how to communicate and build good relationships to make the most of your Twitter Marketing – when you see good information from others, be sure to ‘retweet’ it so your followers see it too!

These are the common mistakes committed by new and old tweeters. Take note of them and don’t commit the same mistakes.

Technorati Tags: twitter, using twitter, twitter newbies, twitter etiquette

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Twitter Marketing – Learning the Twitter Lingo