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The Twitter trap
Associate Programs Newsletter #421
Have you fallen into the Twitter trap?
I did, years before Twitter was invented.
Don't make the mistake I did.
CONTENTS:
1. The Twitter trap
2. Do you agree?
3. SpeedPPC end of financial year - 3 day 40% sale
4. Craig Beckta's Secret Cash Blueprint
5. Thought for today: Friends and enemies
===================
1. The Twitter trap
===================
A trendy thing to say these days is that good marketing is a conversation.
Instead of a monologue, talking TO people, we're told we're supposed to be talking WITH our potential customers and maintaining social contacts on Twitter, blogs, Facebook, forums, and social media sites galore. We're supposed to be everywhere and be involved. And don't forget SMS and Skype.
Careful.
I fell into this trap way back in 1998 and 1999, back in the days when "The Cluetrain Manifesto" (remember it?) was telling us that "markets are conversations".
I fell for that hook, line and sinker.
I'd stay up till midnight or later trying to reply to every email that arrived and help everyone who asked for help. Well, that's madness. Been there, done that. It was wonderful for my business but it very nearly killed me. It might kill you, if you attempt it.
Constant contact is OK when your business is SMALL but as your business grows, conversations can become too numerous to handle.
Microblogging and social media sites make it easier to speed up the conversations. You can reply faster - and then get a fast reply to your reply, etc.
Pretty soon, you've spent half a day on conversations and exactly how much has it added to your revenue or reputation? Probably nothing or not much.
I know it's not trendy to say it, but a lot of very good, highly efficient marketing is ONE WAY.
To be sure, good marketing is all about making a connection with your reader, but you can do that through your writing, by being you and letting a bit of your personality show.
You DON'T have to try to befriend half the universe. There aren't enough hours in the day.
All that frantic rushing around is REALLY bad for your health. I hope you're not getting sucked into it just because other people are doing it.
Let's remember that one of the beautiful things about affiliate marketing is that as affiliates WE make the rules. We design our business to suit our skills and interests.
As well as not handling inventory or postage and packaging, in many cases we DON'T have to have conversations with our potential customers. We can just flick them on to the merchant.
We can reduce the number of questions we receive by writing comprehensive reviews. We can also create FAQs that predict questions customers might ask.
Let the merchant do all the frantic rushing around, emailing and tweeting, and suffering from burnout. You don't have to - unless you want to.
If you like spending most of your day having "marketing conversations" - that's great. Design your business accordingly. If you're promoting high-ticket items or residual income products, perhaps you have a good business plan.
But if you're wasting most of the day rushing around and earning only $20, your time might have been better spent writing an in-depth product review or creating a case study.
If you do decide you want to be a Twitter king or queen, hire an assistant to help you, as soon as you possibly can. We all need to take time to relax, unwind and do nothing.
Doing nothing is good for your health and good for your business, too, because your best business ideas are likely to come when you're NOT working.
Don't let the Twitter trap rob you of that.
If you follow me on Twitter, don't expect a lot of frantic rushing around, me-too stuff. I haven't decided yet what I'll use Twitter for, but it won't be me-too stuff.
You can follow me here...
http://www.twitter.com/AllanGardyne
================
2. Do you agree?
================
Do you agree that Twitter and "marketing conversations" can be an inefficient waste of time and a health hazard?
Or have I got it all wrong?
If YOU are having brilliant success with your marketing on Twitter, I'd love to hear from you.
You can always comment on articles in this newsletter simply by going to the main page at AssociatePrograms.com where you can see a link to the latest newsletter.
Find the latest newsletter archived here...
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com
I'd love to hear what you're doing - or not doing - on Twitter.
[UPDATE: Many thanks for all the interesting feedback and tips on how to use Twitter.]
==================================================
3. SpeedPPC end of financial year - 3 day 40% sale
==================================================
For those of you serious about your pay per click marketing, SpeedPPC has just launched its yearly sale to see off the Australian financial year.
We're offering a whopping 40% saving on the patent-pending SpeedPPC Affiliate Pro package, with an exclusive bonus for the first 50 people through the door.
This year, there's a special bonus, exclusive to SpeedPPC.
SpeedPPC is already enormously popular because it solves so many PPC problems. Now Jay Stockwell, who invented SpeedPPC, has added a specially developed Dynamic Landing Page plug-in for Wordpress blogs. Originally created for inhouse use, this extra tool makes its debut at this end of year sale and the release will be limited.
You've got 3 days to take advantage of this offer, so get in now before 11:59pm, Thursday 25 June EST.
Grab it now at 40% off...
=======================================
4. Craig Beckta's Secret Cash Blueprint
=======================================
If you've laid down hard-earned money to get people to your offers, then you'll know that traffic generation can be one of the most significant costs you'll face as an affiliate marketer.
Bringing quality traffic through your doors and then converting it can turn into an expensive art, until you've got it right.
Craig Beckta has recently launched his Secret Cash Blueprint training, and while covering a lot of ground in the affiliate marketing process, in particular he takes you through savvy traffic generation strategies - both free and paid for any budget.
Using clever and uncommon (even controversial methods), he explains how you can increase your profits relatively easily by spending less on acquiring quality leads and customers.
See the full Secret Cash Blueprint course outline and review here:
Secret Cash Blueprint Review
=========================================
5. Thought for today: Friends and enemies
=========================================
"We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies." - Roderick Thorp.
All the best
Allan Gardyne
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I agree with your Twitter/Social Media burnout stance. The best art of affiliate marketing is NOT having to deal with customers like I do in my day job.
That said, I do create a Twitter account every one of my sites, and then do the following:
1. Use TweetDeck to search for anyone that has tweeted my keyword (IE "guitar" for my www.MyGuitarGuide.com site)
2. Follow that person
3. Use Tweetlater to automatically Tweet every day for about two months. Each tweet has a link to one of my pages.
I find that my number of followers always closely mirrors the number I'm following
I don't get a TON of traffic from Twitter, but it does create a bunch of one way links to my internal pages and exposes me to potentially interested parties.
Time investment? About 20 minutes to set up, and another 20 minutes every two months.
Maybe this will help some of your readers or be food for thought.
Thanks,
-Devin Elder
I totally agree with your "take" on this. All marketing has a place and knowing what that place is can sometimes be difficult. It is important to understand that the internet moves very fast and with every new trend there is an evaluation period and an opportunity cost.
I see way too many people IMHO worrying about the "numbers" and not the quality of their followers, and the belief that if your account has the most followers you can blast your link.
Sad really, social networking is to connect with YOUR audience, not just casting a huge net and hoping some of those fish will bite. Quality over quantity is my rule, and it also cuts down on the twitter noise.. I don't have time to look at thousands of useless promo links a day and to me it is just that... noise.
I know that some are using twitter very effectively for networking, finding not only customers but people who can fit within their business model and with whom they can JV, partner, barter, or pay for services.
I think this is the best use of twitter, real communication with an audience that wants to hear your message and those that you want to help with your product or service.
Happy Trails...
(I'm reposting because I think I left it on wrong newsletter reply page)
You actually could benefit by growing a presence on Twitter & posting links to helpful info ... like your newsletters. I went to your Twitter account at http://twitter.com/AllanGardyne and noticed that you actually didn't post an update to this newsletter so I did from my Twitter account -
The Twitter Trap http://bit.ly/XMaI3 by @AllanGardyne (Give Allan Feedback)
Now I'm pretty confident that some of my 56,000+ followers will come & visit your site (some may even follow you on Twitter). You do make some money from people visiting your site on occasion.... don't you? Many of these people that will visit your site are people that don't know about you or your site. When they do come & like what your site is about (which they will) they will come back, subscribe to your newsletter, join some affiliate programs, buy some recommended products....
Now - let us look at your Twitter account & I will share my honest opinion that some may disagree with. You have 383 followers and 0 following #s. Many people will think that because you don't follow people back that you may be snobbish & don't care what they have to say. I personally recommend you go thru and follow everyone back and either set up an additional Twitter account to follow select people or use tools like Tweetdeck or seesmic Desktop to filter people into groups. Obviously there is no possibility I could follow 56,000+ people's tweets... but I insist on following them back (unless they are camgirl/adult-oriented accounts).
There are many ways to grow the amount of followers if you choose (which you should) - some people use software (I don't). I'm a firm believer that if you want to develop many contacts via Twitter - contact them first.
RT @LarryWentz Twitter Tip - "If you want more followers... reach out & shake their hand by following them first."
Yes - Twitter can be time consuming but if done properly it can bring your sites targeted traffic & customers with a limited amount of time. Your business is a perfect fit for Twitter.
[Good grief! You're following 61,000 people! That seems crazy to me, but if it works for you, go for it! I like your bio. Thanks for the tips and the tweet. I really appreciate that. I've now added a tweet to this newsletter. Allan.]
Building a following on Twitter is similar to list-building, and should be done in the same manner. Meaning you should work toward building a very specific following, and keep your tweets (ie your content) focused on what those followers expect.
Some people view it as a 24/7 chatroom. Others as a marketing tool. Everyone uses Twitter differently. If you're using it for business, know what your plan is going in... else you'll get sucked into a black hole of non-stop off-topic chat!
[Good tips. I need a plan for Twitter, but I'm still wondering what the best plan is. :) Allan.]
I blog, write books, teach classes and coach people who make and sell handmade crafts. I have found Twitter to be an excellent way to identify with great precision, people in my audience. Twitter has also grown my social capital, which has led to financial gain, if via a circuitous route.
Just in the last month, growing my Twitter followers and followees and tweeting about my blog posts has increased my Alexa ranking from 480,000 to 345,000. I have been contacted and interviewed by a reporter at e-commerceguide.com, attracted a potential JV partner, and made contacts at important sites I blog about, who could eventually promote my books.
If you view Twitter as a conventional marketing tool, you may be disappointed. If you view it as an online party and people shmoozing about what they love, then enter it with that in mind and enjoy making new friends. People like to do business with people they like.
[It's that whole "enjoy making new friends" thing that scares me. I tried it online a decade ago and ended up spending all day answering emails. I suspect the people who are really cunning at this have a team of assistants helping them. Allan.]
I spend a couple of hours a day on Twitter. It's interesting. And I can see _some_ marketing capability there.
But the thing that bugs me most isn't actually on Twitter. It's the number of marketers asking me to spam my tweeple - tweople? - in order to get some quickly-hashed-up ebook on how to use Twitter for marketing.
The people following me, unlike those on mailing lists, neither asked nor gave permission for product offers from me. And when I've checked the marketers, who seldom provide a Twitter ID, I've seen little, if any, evidence that they've successfully utilized the product they offer me - usually a way to rapidly and significantly enhance my follower count. Basically, they want me to enhance their mailing list(s) by importuning folk who, mostly, follow me for reasons far removed from marketing.
From available evidence the IM folk look at Twitter as nothing more than a numbers game, a lead source, and fail to see anything beyond that.
There are a lot of folk on Twitter that are involved in Internet Marketing, but they're mostly of the consulting/seminar/presentation ilk - at least, the ones I follow are. And I don't see a major portion of their tweets devoted to their work life. They talk. They have casual conversations on topics far removed from their vocation(s)
It's refreshing, indeed, to see someone in the marketing venue referring to Twitter as something other than a numbers game or a lead/sales source.
[P.S. I won't be following you. My rule-of-thumb for following, while not a hard-and-fast rule, is
* a non-default avatar
* a bio that's a bit more than a business description
* a reasonable difference between following & followers.
Uh ... you kinda fall down on the bio and totally fail on the last item. The bio is brief, but acceptable. However, if you're not following anyone, you're not actively engaged at all.]
[Many thanks for the tips. What do think I should put in the bio? Hobbies? Likes and dislikes? That sort of thing? I'll have a another look at it. Allan.]
[Yep. If you're "following" thousands of people you're certainly not having conversations with them. :) Allan.]
If you like the social aspect of the service and your into, say, "furball art", then keeping your like minded followers informed about your Kitty's next masterpiece is the way to go. I just don't see it being very effective in terms of converting customers to your product or service. With blogs, websites, and other services that provide social bookmarking, I really have not been able to wrap my head around as to why you need twitter in the first place.
I guess I am still stuck in the Web 1.0 world. The provincial in me thinks that article marketing, good content, LSI, profit proven keyword research, pursuing back-links with the right anchor text for ranking in the SE's is the way to go in terms of converting customers. People are reading your article or clicking that link in Google because they are searching for a particular product, or have a "desperate" need to solve a problem.
Visitors coming from Social Media sites, at least in my view, tend to make lousy customers. Bravo if you got a gazillion hits from your Digg blog post or article. But, how many of those "diggers" convert to cash? If I have missed the boat on SM or SB marketing and there are people who are making a ton of money using Twitter, SM, or SB, would love to hear your strategy.
Bottom line, I just think that the "basics" will always be the backbone of any effective web campaign as long as there are search engines. Links, content, anchor text, and profitable keyword research are the "mothers milk" of the Internet, even if we are in a Web 10.0 environment. However, there might a role for Twitter if you already have a customers base, or are building one. You can refer your customers to your twitter page and "tweet" about new products, policy changes, etc.
But, here again - isn't that what websites and blogs are for?
Perpetually confused..
I am..
Robert C - The Wholesale Products Guy
[Actually, I don't think you're confused at all. I think you're on the right track, concentrating on the basics. I've made a very good living online since 1998 by concentrating on the things that matter most. Allan.]
There are already hundreds of twitter "make money with twitter" ebooks, programs etc.. online today. Most in my opinion are B.S.
However if you use it to give your followers what they are really looking for you can profit and make gain more followers by doing so.
I have found Facebook to be an even BIGGER time sucking pit than TWitter.
Totally agree with you on this... I know there is obviously a way to use TWitter correctly. But who has the time, patience or energy to figure it out? Some do. Just not me...
Glad I'm not the only one who is not totally sold on social media. I was starting to think I was the crazy (or stupid!) one.
Cathy Y.
It's nice that Twitter is so malleable. For a lot of people, it's a big chat party in the sky, and yes, some big business deals start in a social setting. (For me, it sure beats a golf course.) There is also non-monetary gain to be had from it. I recently found and followed a couple of my childhood heroes, Bob Shane @KingstonTrio and Astronaut Buzz Aldrin @TheRealBuzz. @BarackObama won the American election because he had every journalist in the country following him, and every so often he could reach out and touch their cell phones.
Ya want the pope? @PopeBenedictXVI ... Well, really it's an unofficial aid tweeting pope headlines, who will happily hand over the passwords as soon as the Vatican decides to ask for them. But he's doing pretty well, and I particularly like the way his icon gives a blessing every time it scrolls by.
So yes, definitely be careful and choosy who you follow/talk to. Do only what you enjoy.
Obviously there are useful ways to use Twitter and other Social Media websites, but the time it takes and sometimes the quality of the conversations leave me all the time wondering whether these type of websites are really as useful to businesses as some people want us to believe.
My experience has been that of being followed by people who actually want to converse about a niche/topic that's not really related at all to the one I Twitter about.
My personal opinion, as far as marketing Affiliate Products, Twitter is the worst platform. Sooner or later, no one is going to follow you because they think all you are interested in is to push some affiliate product!
Let's see how popular Twitter will be in THREE years time from now!
Fortunately you can do a search on twitter to find those who look for news relevant to affiliate marketing and sign on to follow them. Test the waters again for any fish biting at your posts. Once you have some who do follow others will slowly join. The really good blogs that don't immediately send you to a clickbank page but give good content are working. So many posts on twitter are link to news stories from other sources.
I've "followed" you since 2000 and remember your newsletters being full of comments about how much time you spent on marketing. When I found out how seriously ill you were, I began to wonder if Internet Marketing was right for me!
There are some great comments here and tips on using Twitter. I've been tweeting for a friend for several months and am still unsure of the best way to use this. I've looked at Tweetdeck and think it's a good product but I don't have the time to spend on this site right now. I didn't know what I was getting into!
I definitely agree that you should have a plan in place about the best way to use it and use Tweetdeck to narrow down your market. Other than that, I have no idea what to do.
Without a plan, Twitter is just a giant mess of unrelated comments that frankly, is painful to wade through. I'm not sure if I will keep at it or not.
I'm heartily glad you survived the early years. Your site and this newsletter have been invaluable to me.
[Thanks. It took me while to figure out that to succeed online you don't need to be an expert in every type of marketing. You do very well just by concentrating on a few. You're smart if you can learn from my mistakes. Allan.]
You sound like my future husband. I got caught up in the whirlwind of starting a blog and trying to cram in all the knowledge and learning I could and after I was done reading and reading I was so burned out I didn't even want to go to my blog and work on it.
I totally agree with you Allan.
[Endless research is definitely a trap, especially for perfectionists. I like to think of myself as a reformed perfectionist. Sometimes you just have to dive in and do stuff. Nothing ever gets done if you don't take the first step. Allan.]
Twitter has replaced my Feed Reader, and has also replaced a lot of my email subscriptions. A good strategy for you, given that a lot of our readers are also moving in this direction, is to use Twitter as an updating system: a way for your 'fans' to get timely bite-size updates from you about new issues, new affiliate programs in the directory, news in the industry, etc.
It doesn't have to be a 24/7 conversation, but the feedback/discussion aspect can be incredibly useful as well. Check out my post if you like, I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Lynn
[Thanks. I'm catching on to the idea that Twitter can be whatever you want it to be. I appreciated all your ideas. Allan.]
http://www.programselection.com
Personally, I begrudgingly agree. You see, I love the feeling of helping folks out. I know a personal response will go a long way in terms of reputation, but it doesn't come close to the feeling I get when I am able to respond in a helpful manner.
The problem is feelings don't pay the bills! This struggle has nagged me for way too long now. And it hits on another big issue for many of us, and that is outsourcing. I find it very difficult to outsource and yet I know my ability to grow an online business really depends on outsourcing and scalability.
Thanks for taking the risk to be controversial. I appreciate it. Now back to Twittering... :-)
[Thanks for the feedback. I think it's possible to use Twitter wisely, just as it's possible to use email, forums and RSS wisely. The danger lies in the extremes. Allan.]
As you, I remember the 90's (and before) :)
But interestingly enough I have preached the method of sales building is restaurants via connection with people for many years. Being available in the front of the house as a manager / owner to give easy access and have maximum awareness of people's attitudes is a key ingredient.
Here we are in the age of "social media" and I believe it is the same. I believe any time you can make yourself highly accessible, put yourself in a position to have awareness of topic at hand, there will be a better success. Twitter has done this for me and clients in several occasions. I too will be doing business as a buyer and would not have made the contact except for twitter.
Listening & connecting to customers is time consuming regardless of brick & mortar or virtual world. Yes, there are some who overindulge just like AOL, ebay, texting and other platforms in the past. There is benefit and with the tools, more time budgeted to listening will improve the decision making and have less trial & error.
Net result? More time listening and interaction with new tools, less time testing and trial & error. trade-off?
Life is a buffet for all things. New buffets will come. There will be gluttons. There will be learning curves as a balance is found. Personal discipline and good judgment always needed.
I will conclude with one thought: Hubspot makes the point that outbound (one-way) marketing will continue growing (overwhelming). The consumer can now has or can purchase tools to block, delay, screen, etc. the outbound marketing. Between the growth of outbound (one way) marketing and the blocking/screening options, the importance of connecting is increasing. There are good tools for one way marketing... but creating synergy with twitter and the like will maximize opportunity. It is time to re-budget the time for twitter and the like. (next year it will be croak?) :)
Outstanding with your thoughts! (reading your thoughts as a result of blogging and twitter) :)
Mike
PS
Scholz & Friends made a cartoon a fun video which makes a point: http://bit.ly/16LGOL.
I find it the most annoying tool every created and do not see it as a social media tool at all. The only thing you are getting is people posting promotional "tweets". More like spam tweeting to me.
Rinus
[ I think you're seeing only part of the picture. Some use it for spam, some for chatting, some as an image/reputation builder, some as an announcement service. For example, I follow Twitter.com/aus_business to get tweets about Australian business news from a newspaper. There's no spam from that service. Allan.]
I started to ask myself if I had ever or would ever take what someone tweeted and make a useful decision based on it. No.
It is far too easy to fall into the trap.
These days, I treat twitter like a bull horn just blasting comments to twitter all on autopilor and while that's not an effective marketing tactic either, at least it doesn't occupy a lot of my time.
Having said all that, there are still some people who I see using twitter effectively to engage and interact with their customers, to build relationships and to get results. Many people use twitter to effectively reach out and find new customers and others use it as an effective means of providing customer service and getting feedback on their product. I think it all comes down to what you want to make of it and what you want to get out of it
Bottom line with twitter. Establish some goals and objectives and ways to effectively measure those objectives. If your efforts aren't working, be prepared to reexamine your efforts and start over or to eventually move on.