Twitter Treasure Chest
By Paul Mihai Pavel
https://www.tradebit.com
LEGAL NOTICE:
This book is © All Rights Reserved. You may not sell this book, give it away, display it publically, nor may
you distribute it in any form whatsoever.
While reasonable attempts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided in this
publication, the author does not assume any responsibility for errors, omissions or contrary
interpretation of this information and any damages or costs incurred by that.
The author does not warrant or represent at any time that the contents within are completely accurate
due to the rapidly changing nature of the Internet.
This book is not intended for use as a source of legal, business, accounting or financial advice. All readers
are advised to seek services of competent professionals in legal, business, accounting, and finance field.
While examples of past results may be used occasionally in this work, they are intended to be for
purposes of example only. No representation is made or implied that the reader will do as well from
using the techniques.
The author does not assume any responsibility or liability whatsoever for what you choose to do with
this information. Use your own judgment.
Any perceived slight of specific people or organizations, and any resemblance to characters living, dead
or otherwise, real or fictitious, is purely unintentional.
In practical advice books, like anything else in life, there are no guarantees of income made. Readers are
cautioned to reply on their own judgment about their individual circumstances to act accordingly.
You are encouraged to print this book for easy reading.
Use this information at your own risk.
Please do not spam Twitter or any other website mentioned herein, the information provided in this
guide is for you to responsibly use Twitter as part of your marketing arsenal, to provide value to your
followers as well as gain traffic to your website!
Contents
1. Introduction
2. What is Twitter?
3. How to Setup Your First Account
4. How to Pimp Your Profile
5. Using Twitter Effectively
6. How to Build a Hoard of Loyal Followers
7. Stealth Techniques
i. Stealth Research
ii. Subconscious marketing
iii. Stealth Affiliate Sales
iv. Stealth Tweets
8. Multiple Twitter Accounts?
9. Twitter Tools
10. Final Thoughts
11. Resources
Introduction
Twitter is a global phenomenon with hundreds of thousands of people joining it every month,
that is hundreds of thousands of eyeballs that you have the chance to get to your blogs or
websites!
As with anything online then you need to make sure you are not spamming the site, the
internet certainly does not need any more spammers! But I'm going to teach you in this guide
how to go about it the right way and be seen as a trusted advisor rather than a ruthless
salesman.
It will require some work, this is not some spammy automatic traffic system that you can turn
on and forget about - then again neither is it low quality spammy traffic (if you do it right).
Using these techniques you can get high quality, qualified traffic eagerly heading over to almost
any link that you send.
Forget open rates on email messages, in Twitter every message is already 'opened' for your
audience to see!
Let's get straight into this guide by talking about exactly what Twitter is…
To your profits!
What is Twitter?
Unless you have been living under a digital rock for the past year or so then you can't help but
notice the meteoric rise of Twitter into the public limelight, it is being talked about everywhere
now!
Almost every blog has applications active for it, the news adores it, people are addicted to it,
and as always, new ways to market with it are born.
For instance Namecheap, a popular domain registrar, did a Christmas competition where they
would ask a question every hour on Twitter, and the first couple of people who gave the correct
answer as a reply in Twitter would get a free domain registration. I know this bagged them a lot
of followers, which is a captive audience they can now market to again and again!
So what is Twitter?
Well the owners say:
"Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay
connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question:
What are you doing?"
But Wikipedia gives us a clearer idea with its definition:
"Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send
and read other users' updates (known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up
to 140 characters in length."
So it is a micro-blog where you make micro-blog posts called tweets. Its popularity stupefies
most people, you either love it or you hate it, and most of the world still cannot understand
why anybody would want to know that you are 'having breakfast' or any of the incredibly
mundane things that people post.
Yet it does have a silver lining, 'simplicity' is a word I see the guys behind Twitter use a lot, and
that is definitely part of the appeal, no groups, no clicking around constantly to find things,
nobody changing the text to huge red letters as they type…
Just a window when you go in where all the messages pop up so you can see what you want to
read, and the length of them (140 characters) makes people get to the point quickly!
If you use it for business then you can quickly keep your finger on the pulse of what is going on
in your market, if it is for personal use then you can quickly chat with hundreds or thousands of
people across the globe at once - think of it like instant messaging on steroids!
So who uses it?
Well for this question I was going to say that only web-savvy people would be using it and you'd
be hard pressed to find people in say the 'crochet' niche to market to (not saying that people in
the crochet niche are not web-savvy, but I wouldn't have thought there would be many people
on Twitter discussing it yet).
However that theory was blasted out of the water when I checked my premise and found page,
after page, after page of results for the keyword 'crochet'. I was too bored to carry on after
page 8 of results because there was no end in sight!
Therefore it looks like anyone with internet access can be found on there, nobody is safe from
the Twitter bug.
Meanwhile businesses, politicians, even the US government have perked their ears up and
started to take notice, Twitter is a hotbed of celebrity action as well with celebrities like Britney
Spears taking advantage of the Twitter madness. She has over 200,000 followers now which is
an incredible amount!
And anyone who doubts the viability of using Twitter to help your business should have a look
at https://www.tradebit.com where recently 200 leaders in the field of social media were asked what
social media site they would recommend businesses to use if they all started charging for their
use, Twitter came out on top with nearly 40% of all the votes, nearly double the votes of the
site in second place - https://www.tradebit.com.
So let's not keep you waiting any longer - now we'll move on to how to set up your first account
so you can get tweeting/twittering with other tweeple (yes it is developing a language of its
own and people on it are called tweeple!).
How to Setup Your First Account
Ok to start off with then head to https://www.tradebit.com and click the following button…
Then you'll have to enter your details.
Quick Tip: Your username is important, if you can get it then it is probably best to use either
your own name or your business name. If you are in a niche where you don't want to use your
real name then either use a pseudonym or something related to your niche, some people even
suggest making it keyword rich to see if you can rank in the search engines!
The key is to keep it -
a) Short & catchy, people have to type out your name if they want to say something to you (not
when replying, but if they just want to start a conversation) so making it hard to type is not
good!
b) Professional, yes you may want to use DarthVader_79 as your username, but remember this
is one of the first impressions people have of you - so make it a professional and good one!
So fill in your details on the screen below, if you can't read the captcha words then click 'Get
two new words' until you can.
Then you'll be presented with a screen asking you if you want to check to see if your friends are
on Twitter using your email account contact lists:
Now that is up to you to decide, but it means giving Twitter access to your email account and
also maybe finding all sorts of people you'd forgotten were ever in your contacts! (you can skip
it if you want).
After that it will ask you if you want to follow some people, I don't know how it picks them, the
CEO of Twitter is an obvious one that they would try and push, but the rest seem pretty
random!
Choose anyone you like and continue or skip the step, then you'll be on your homepage which
will look something like this:
1. You can see in the middle are all the messages from the people you are following, plus
all your messages will go in there when you post them.
2. This is where you type out your messages, 140 characters max - it counts down your
characters at the top right of the box
3. This is just where you can view your profile - to see how other people will see you when
they check you out.
4. Allows you to find people by accessing your email accounts, or searching by
username/name/email address - even suggests people you might like to follow.
5. Allows you to edit you profile, change the design of the page, setup updates by mobile
phone etc
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6. These three are just your stats, if you click on any of them it brings up a list of just that
info - useful if you are looking at someone else's page and want to see who they are
following
7. This shows just the messages which are a response to one of your tweets (messages)
8. These are direct, private messages that people can send you
9. Here are all your favourite tweets that you have stored
10. Unless you specify that you posts only go to people who are following you, then every
time you post it will go into the 'public timeline', clicking here allows you to see that
timeline and see what everyone is tweeting about
11. This shows pictures of some of the people you are following, below that are the options
for 'service updates' via sms and your Twitter RSS feed - that is a bug which hopefully
they will fix soon!
So there you have it - you are fully functioning tweeter now! But before you start making
tweets then read on to find out how to get the most out of every single tweet.
How to Pimp Your Profile
What are the first things people check when they get to your page to see if they want to follow
you?
Your profile information/picture, your background, and your messages.
We'll deal with the messages in a minute, but for now let's concentrate on that all important
profile…
So first head over to 'Settings' and you'll be presented with this:
1. Put your real name in here - unless of course you are hiding it for a niche, in which case
put a full business name or pseudonym, just expand on your username, you don't want
people thinking you have something to hide by just repeating your username…
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2. You can change your username here, so if you do decide your first choice was ill advised,
then you can fix that here.
3. Your contact email where all your notifications go when people follow you etc.
4. Your timezone just so people can see when you are posting etc
5. This is important - this is your chance to advertise yourself! Don't put a link to a product
there though, that makes you look like a cheesy salesman, put a blog link there, even if
it is a free blogger blog! But ideally make it your own website which you can drive
people to and monetise in some way.
6. Now the bio - this is 160 characters of goodness - you might need to rewrite this a few
times to get it to fit, but introduce yourself, make it personal, put in something about
your niche. If you are in the dog niche then mention your to dogs, if you are in the
fitness niche then mention your daily runs etc, anything to make them connect with you
and decide to follow you.
7. Your location, just put country here if you don't want people homing in on you, or put
somewhere near you but not your actual city if you don't mind people knowing more
about where you live - remember security, don't give people too much info about where
you live and if you are going to be on holiday etc!
8. Choose different language setting here
9. Finally this stops your posts going into the public area, as you can get followers from the
public area then I wouldn't really advise ticking this, not unless your tweets are more
private. Note it doesn't stop people following you, only them seeing all your tweets in
the public area.
Now you have filled that out and saved that then you should head over to 'Devices' and you can
input your phone number and then use txt messages to update your Twitter account. Please
note that you will probably be charged for every text you send and receive depending on your
plan, so make sure you have lots of free txts on your plan!
Then you can head over to 'Notices' - this regulates what you are notified by email about. If you
start getting a load of people following you (the aim of this guide!) then it might get a bit tiring
to see hundreds of those emails coming in as you are trying to work, you can turn that off here.
You can also change the @Replies setting, by default it is at '@ replies to the people I am
following' what that means is you only see the replies people send to you, or people you are
also following. So if someone replies to one of their friends who you've never heard of before,
you don't have that clogging up your tweet area.
Picture & Background
If you go to the 'Picture' tab then you can upload a picture, it doesn't have to be any specific
dimensions, but it does have to be under 700k in size, so you might need to resize your pictures
to get them down to that.
You'd be best off using a square picture as the image area they give you is square, and make it
as big as you can because although Twitter automatically resizes the image to the small area
they give you, then if someone clicks on the picture they can see the full sized image, and that
helps to build rapport when they can see a bigger picture of you with all the extra background it
shows etc.
The one I used was 450 x 450 pixels and came out at a measly 88k as a jpeg - it took awhile to
upload though so you need to be patient!
Put a picture of yourself on there if you can as you need to be personal and approachable to
connect with people. If you are using a pseudonym in a niche then you are best off using just a
picture related to your niche as most of the stock photography sites have rules against you
using their images of people to appear as if you are the person in the photo.
Adding a good photo will get you clicks, people can see your picture every time you tweet as it
will show up in the public timeline alongside your message which will hopefully catch
someone's eye and get them to click (along with good message content of course!).
Now let's get to the good stuff, the profile background.
Everybody starts off with the same light blue background, and if you want then you can choose
from about 11 other standard ones as well, but the real fun starts when you use a custom
background!
They have started to pop up all over the place and they can really help you to stand out, you
certainly notice anytime someone has one, and it should help attract followers as it gives a
much better impression when people get to your page than having a standard one.
Now the problem that most people seem to have is that they put information on the left and
the right-hand side of the Twitter message area, but they don't account for different screen
sizes and it all gets messed up!
You want the picture to be about 1600 x 1200 pixels, and work correctly on screens of 1024 x
786 and up because according to https://www.tradebit.com then 36% of users are at 1024 x 786, and 57%
are at an even higher resolution, so you need to make sure you cater to the majority.
Don't worry about all that resolution gobble-de-gook - I've done the hardwork for you! I made a
background with lines on like this:
Then I've been through all the most common screen resolutions of 1024 x 768 and above, and
mapped where the page gets covered up by the Twitter content, it turned out like this:
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You can see some definite overlap between them, but also a lot of horizontal movement, so the
mistake most people make is to put things on the right that they assume people will be able to
see, most of the ones I view on my screen have been showing badly with most of the writing
hidden behind the content area.
So you are best to put your URL in area 1, maybe at 90 degrees so it flows up the page, or
squash it in so it doesn't go too far across the page, for a good example look at Britney Spears
and you'll see a compact url at the side with some decoration, but little else.
An even better one is The Barefoot Exec which utilises the text at 90 degree like I mentioned.
That custom background means the name at the side is visible even at 1024 x 768, yet with
larger resolutions then more opens up as her name and her feet are revealed - a great example
of how it should be done.
So keep it simple, maybe avoid putting anything on the right and just concentrate on the left,
you can still get a lot in, check out this example - Lee Collins, you can see he has a lot of text
there to connect more with visitors, give out other people to follow and have a little fun too!
Also notice that most backgrounds have a larger picture of the owner than the small image
space they give you, again this helps to make you 'real' to visitors and create a bond, we'll talk
more about that later.
So you can experiment with that, or find a designer who can do you a custom design if you are
not comfortable doing it yourself (or visit https://www.tradebit.com for some great free ones!),
after you have a file ready just go to Setting > Design > Change Background Image, then a box
will pop up further down the page where you brose for your picture, then click to save your
changes.
Voila!
Now you need to tweak the colours on the right-hand menu bar to match your new
background, if you go to Settings > Design > Change Design Colours. There you can click on any
of the coloured boxes as seen below:
That will activate the colour wheel on the right, just click around the wheel to the colour you
want, then use the middle to fine-tune the shade of that colour - you can see the results realtime
on the menu bar to the right of where you are clicking (if you have a custom background
active then ignore the 'background' colour!).
After all that you will have a fully loaded and beautiful page which will hopefully attract a lot
more followers and help you funnel them to your site!
Now onto getting the most out of how you use Twitter.
Using Twitter Effectively
Using Twitter is pretty straightforward, apart from posting tweets then you just need to try and
get out there and get more followers, those are pretty much the only two things you can do
apart from pimp up your page and profile! But let's look at posting here, then in the next
chapter we'll get you a loyal crowd of fans!
Posting
There is an art to marketing with your posts, we'll discuss that in a future chapter, but for now
then there are just a few functional things we need to discuss:
1. Replies, you can easily reply to other peoples tweets by either hovering over their tweet
and you'll see an arrow - just click that and enter your reply, or you can type the @ sign
before their name in a tweet and type in your text.
2. Favourites, the other icon you'll get when you hover over a tweet is a star, that will save
the tweet into your favourites so you can find it again, great for keeping good links
people give out!
3. Hashtags, the hash symbol is this one # and that allows people to find groups of
associated messages. So say there is a seminar going on in LA on marketing, someone
can allocate a hashtag to that seminar, like #LAseminar (not original but it works) and
then when people speak about it they use that in their tweet at least once.
Now when that shows up in as a message people can click the hashtag and get all the
latest messages with that in it - it helps you keep on top of that topic/event. There is
more you can do with them but there are special commands to learn so let's keep this
simple to avoid confusion!
To make a new tag then go to https://www.tradebit.com to check if the one you want is
available - if it is then follow @hashtags and send them a tweet with your hashtag in to
grab it.
Being active
You want to set aside 30 minutes in the evening and 30 minutes in the morning to reply to
people who have sent you messages/replied to your tweets and also to reply to other people's
tweets, not forgetting a fresh tweet of your own of course!.
There is a balance between being active - so you get more followers and build a relationship
with your current followers - and wasting time. You have to limit your activity so it does not eat
up more time than is necessary as I know how easy it is to get sucked into conversations and
rants about things which then kills an hour or so of valuable work time!
You can also use plugins to help you stay active - I mean if you have a blog that you need to
keep up to date then you don't want to have to also keep Twitter up to date - why not combine
the two? You can grab the Twitter tools plugin from here:
https://www.tradebit.com
Which allows you to pull tweets into your blog as micro-posts and also post tweets straight to
Twitter from your blog posts!
You can also use this website here:
https://www.tradebit.com
To schedule future tweets! So you can put in all your tweets for the next few days if you are
going to be out a lot, then just logon at the end of the day to reply to people so you don't look
antisocial!
Ok so that one is harder to find a use for, but how about this site:
https://www.tradebit.com
Where you can post simultaneously to the following sites:
Bebo
Blogger
Brightkite
Delicious
Diigo
Facebook
FriendFeed
Friendster
GTalk Status
hi5
https://www.tradebit.com
imeem
Jaiku
Koornk
kwippy
https://www.tradebit.com
LinkedIn
LiveJournal
Mashable
Multiply
MySpace
Plaxo Pulse
Plurk
https://www.tradebit.com
Rejaw
Tumblr
Twitter
TypePad
Utterli
Vox
https://www.tradebit.com
Xanga
Yahoo 360
Yammer
YouAre
How is that for some updating power??
And what about the power to sort through all your messages so you don't miss things?
Introducing:
Tweet Deck
A beautiful desktop application that can sit on your screen and sort through all the tweets
coming into your account for you. It can separate out your replies & direct messages into
different columns on the same screen so you don't have to hunt for them, but more
importantly then it can sort your main tweet messages by topic and/or by groups of your
followers!
So say you have a specific group of people you are corresponding with about a project etc, then
you can set them up as a group with their own column, and when a message comes in from
them it goes straight into that column so you can read it! Think of it as a tweet filtering system
so you can make sure you keep up with important (or just fun!) stuff.
Ok - onto how to build up your own hoard.
How to Build a Hoard of Loyal Followers
Building up a hoard of followers is actually easier than you'd think, you then need to make sure
you treat them right to make them loyal, which we'll talk about in the next chapter.
Now Twitter is a viral system - as you get more followers then you have more chance of getting
their followers to follow you as if they reply to you on something then that shows up in their
message area for people to see when they are on his/her page.
Plus people love to follow the crowd and once you have a big following people will
automatically think you are an important person in your niche so they had better follow you ;)
Laying the foundation
Ok, now nobody wants to follow someone who has a page that looks totally dead, not unless
they are just trying to get you to follow them back (had that happen loads - even that example
profile I just setup for this guide is having people follow it, I haven't even made a post on it
yet!).
Now those people will probably never read anything you say anyway, the motivated people are
those that come to your page and think, 'this person is interesting' and then start following you.
So to get the ball rolling, first I recommend you make 5 tweets, make them about anything, say
hi and introduce yourself, then talk about your day or something, then maybe throw in a couple
of cool YouTube videos for people to watch. At this point just make them a bit interesting and
they are just fodder to make sure people think you are really posting and not just some spam
robot signing up followers, make the posts over about two days as well.
You should already have all your profile and design setup, but if you haven't done that by now
then you need to be sure it is done before moving on.
Then go to 'Find people' at the top and 'Suggested users' - there you will find about 20+ users
you can follow straight away, and hopefully some of them will automatically follow you back.
Once you've followed some of those people then reply to a couple of posts from them, now you
have a page with your posts, the replies you made, you are following people and should have
some followers yourself - you are now an active part of the community and can go forth and get
more followers!
Quick tip - the way people automatically follow you back is to use a service like Tweet Later
which allows you (for free) to integrate it with your Twitter account and have a custom thank
Danger:
As with everything on the internet, then spammers are starting to abuse
Twitter with automated systems to follow huge amount of people and try to
spam the heck out of them, so Twitter is vigilant for people following a lot of
others in a short space of time.
Now we're not spammers (or at least you shouldn't be after reading this guide!)
and we actually provide value to our followers, but you still need to take things
easy, maybe only follow 200 people a day… maybe less? The rules are changing
all the time, but I know that you can't follow more than 2000 people total
unless you have 2000 following you.
Don't go crazy and get yourself banned!
you message sent to every person who follows you as well as it automatically following them
back. Saves a lot of time at first when you just want as many followers as possible!
So you have everything ready now, time to get some people following you! Let's look at the
different methods you can employ:
People you know
If you have any friends you think may be on Twitter, or clients etc - then use the 'Find people'
function and you can search by name, username, email address etc to find people and start to
follow them.
Keyword hunting
Getting followers is good, but they have to be targeted to the niche you are trying to market in.
There is no point having a huge following of people who have no interest in the main topic you
talk about!
So if you go to 'search' at the bottom of the screen, then you can search for a keyword related
to your niche and it will bring up all the tweets with that keyword in.
That is a goldmine of people to follow! They are talking about the topic you want them to be
interested in, so as long as it is not a negative tweet about the niche then start following these
people! They might not all follow you back, but then you can use the next technique to try and
get them to follow you.
Interaction
If you reply to someone's tweet then you show up in their 'replies' inbox if they are not
following you. So this can be used to try and get people who you are following but they are not
following you back, to follow you. If you spot a tweet from them you think you can make a
friendly and intelligent reply to, maybe help them out with something they are asking etc, then
you might make a friend and get a follower!
The more powerful version of this is if someone who you contact replies back to you. Your reply
to them will not show up in their message area when one of their followers views it, it just goes
to them. But all the replies you send to people show up in YOUR message area.
What does that mean?
It means if you can get someone with lots of followers to reply to you then your name becomes
a nice clickable link in their message area and all their followers get to see it, along with the fact
that the person they are following seems to like you… which hopefully will get people clicking
and checking out your profile and following you!
Try replying to their tweet, and asking a question of them, who can resist replying to a good
question? ;)
Utilising Your Virtual Real Estate
Another great way to get targeted followers is to get people who come to your website or blog
to add you to Twitter.
The best way is to ask them in a post (or every post, use it as a p.s. under your name!) or you
can find various 'Follow me' icons round the net that you can link straight up to your profile so
people can click through and see if they want to follow you.
You could also put up a Twitter Counter - which resembles a feedburner counter and shows
how any followers you have! That then goes through to your profile when people click it. It is
probably best to wait until you have 500+ followers before you add that in though as people
tend to follow others that seem popular.
Go Celeb Hunting
I've said it before, but I'll say it again - you need targeted followers! So what better way to do
that then go seeking people in your niche who are the 'celebrities' of your niche, the big
companies or names. If they really are at the top of your niche then you can bet that they are
on Twitter, and you can bet they have put some effort into getting followers too!
Now they won't all be targeted to that person, but most will - and if they like what this person
has to say then they must be interested in your niche - so go and follow them!
You can click on the number of followers someone has and it will bring up a list of all their
followers, then you can go through and start following away! Remember what I said about not
appearing like a spambot through, only do so many at a time and try to keep the follow
requests spread out at least slightly so you don't follow a person every 2 seconds like a
spambot would!
Another great thing to do is go and visit a shop, there are loads of shops on Twitter that use it
to announce offers etc - if someone is following a shop on Twitter, and that shop caters to your
niche… then they are ultra targeted!
This technique applies to anyone in a niche who has lots of followers - so you can just do
keyword searches too and when you stumble across someone with a lot of followers then you
have hit a goldmine!
Run a contest
Do you have a new product or something else you can give away some copies of for free? Then
run a contest! Announce it to your followers a few days before it happens, which also gets put
into the public timeline so hopefully you'll gain the attention of new people - who will then
follow you.
Post about it a few times a day - you know, 'Been working hard on the contest page - check it
out here' and 'I have just added some more cool prizes to the contest!'. Build up anticipation
and you stand more chance of snagging people from the public timeline as they want to be a
part of it.
Then on the contest day/week etc use questions or tasks for people to choose a winner, like the
first person to answer a question correctly, or the first person to tell you who is wearing a green
t-shirt on a certain website, anything like that.
Hopefully you'll stir up some buzz! You'll have all sorts of people replying to you which will
increase your chance of their followers checking you out, and hopefully there will be a glut of
responses into the public area which will have you username against them, that should grab
people's attention!
Get suggestions
When you go to 'Find people' then you can get some basic suggestions of who to follow there -
but lets face it, they are just pushing the most popular people on you, people who'll never
actually read your tweets! If you use the sites below then you can get more useful suggestions:
Twubble - looks at your current followers and suggests other people you may want to follow
who have similar friends/interests as you.
Twitter Grader - grades everyone and if you follow @grader then you can get friend suggestions
based on your posts and followers.
Mr Tweet - again suggests people to follow
Sort through a directory
That's right, sites have been popping up all over the web giving you different features to help
with the twitterverse, and the following sites:
Just Tweet It
Twellow
have actually started to allocate profiles to categories in a big directory! It is usually done by the
content of your bio box, but they also take manual submissions too.
Twellow also allows you to search through people's bios on Twitter, which Twitter themselves
don't give you the ability to do!
There are two more ways to find people in your niche you can follow!
The next step
So you have some followers now, and you are following lots more people, you'll get to a point
soon when you reach 2000 people you are following, and you can't follow anymore until you
get over 2000 followers yourself - what do you do when you hit that ceiling?
Easy. Unsubscribe all the people who you are following who have never followed back!
Now you want to give them at least a few days to follow you back, they might be away, or
dealing with lots of requests etc, you don't want to waste a potential follower by unsubscribing
them too early.
But when you have left it a few days or a week, then head over to:
MyTweeple - make sure you login, THEN sync! The sync button is huge compared to the login
one, so the first time I used it I sat there pressing the sync button and it doesn't do anything or
tell you that you are doing it wrong! Expect it to take awhile as it syncs - go get some coffee
while it does its thing!
Then what you can do is find people that you are following who are not following you back -
and mass unfollow them all! That would take you months by hand, but you can do it right from
that website.
You'll have freed up some breathing room then so you can repeat the actions above to get
more followers!
Now onto getting some traffic and sales from all these followers, let's talk stealth techniques!
Stealth Techniques
Marketing on Twitter is all about stealth, if you put up a link saying, 'Hey my product is cool -
buy it here'. Then you'd be breaking twittiquette (I made that word up!) and people would
instantly be turned off and probably unfollow you or worse - block you (get enough of those
and your account gets investigated…).
So let's look at some of the ways you can use Twitter for your own purposes, while looking like
a trusted friend and not some snakeoil salesman.
Golden Rules of Twitter
Twitter is about relationships, just like an email list, if you feed me crap then I'm ignoring you, if
you feed me good stuff then every time I see your email address I open it up quickly!
The three golden rules of Twitter are:
Attract > interact > and give back!
By that I mean - attract followers, interact with them by replying to their tweets and joining in,
and give back by giving them good content and links to explore, not just trying to sell them
stuff.
If you can do that then you can make more money with a small list of followers than someone
with 5 times as many!
Stealth research
Let's start off with the treasure trove of research that you can gain from Twitter - research is
invaluable for helping you to understand the needs and wants of your market so you can better
cater to them and make more money.
Using Twitter is like having your finger on the pulse of the market at all times!
First you'll get everyone's problems come through in real time in your niche, anybody who is
having trouble with anything, like in the dog niche - if someone is having trouble housetraining
their dog, then you'll know about it! You'll get to see what people are trying, what is working,
what isn't, what they need, all from just watching what they post on a day to day basis!
Then there is the fact you have little mini-scouts out in the market for you, if there is some kind
of new website or product out that is causing a stir then you can bet the people on Twitter will
talk about it!
Or you could take the direct approach and ask for feedback on things, like just ask casually, 'Hey
I am compiling a list of the top problems people have looking after their dogs - what would your
top 3 be?' Then I'd probably give my top 3 (giving back!) in a separate tweet as you need more
room.
That should spark some lively debate and it makes you look interesting, active and
knowledgeable!
Plus…
When you get the results in you can give out the link to the page on your site with them on and
people will be interested in the results, especially if they gave you their top 3. Then you can put
a link on that page to some sort of dog product special offer ;)
You can even ask for feedback on a product - build up the anticipation of the product with
people (discussed in next section) and then as you are getting near completion, ask for some
volunteers who are willing to give you feedback and a testimonial in return for a free copy of
the product. People will love getting something for free, and you get valuable feedback and
testimonials ready to launch.
You can also get ideas for blog posts - if you are struggling one day to think of something to
write about, just go to Twitter, have a look at what people are talking about, and you are bound
to find something you can write a post about!
Subconscious marketing
Onto some ninja marketing techniques here to get people to your site, so first of all - why are
you using Twitter? It's to make more money and get valuable intel right?
Well the best way to get people to buy stuff is to subconsciously make them motivated to buy
your stuff…
So first of all, what image do you want to portray? You need to think of that before you even
start putting in your first tweets, then your whole page, and all the tweets you make should be
based around that image.
Think about it, if you are trying to conquer the weight loss niche, then you need to be
motivational, you need to be positive and encouraging, and you profile had better not have you
looking like you need to lose weight unless you are an affiliate for weight loss products and
people know that you are trying to lose weight and you are documenting your journey on
Twitter.
If you have a product about weight loss then you need to be an ambassador for eating healthy
and living healthy, be helpful and knowledgeable on the topic. That is the kind of person that
people would respond to.
In some niches you need to be professional, like business to business, but in some you can be
more outrageous like the skateboard niche, in fact if you were too professional in the
skateboard niche it would probably hurt your sales and image.
So you need to decide what kind of image you want to portray, then stick to it - always think
before you tweet, 'Does this match my image?'. There is no point having a healthy image in the
weight loss niche then posting about how you just ate pizza followed by ice cream all week,
sure you could cover it up and turn it to your advantage by saying you were having a bad week
and does anybody else get them etc, but these are the things you need to think about!
If you are in the dog niche then maybe avoid posting about how you hate your partner's dog as
it is ugly, keeps drooling on you and jumping up you!
Remember mistakes go out to a whole lot of people so if it doesn't go with your image then
don't post. But remember to do things that bolster your image so you can post about them,
maybe go for a run so you can post about it, get your dog groomed etc, things to do with your
niche that will make you look good.
Then think about the content that you want to provide, you should be providing good content
at least a few times a week, try to mix in these four things:
1. Replies to people
2. Personal tweets about you and your life
3. Tweets directing people to good content on your site (which you have offers embedded
in or near!)
4. Good solid content on other people's sites (even YouTube etc)
In equal measure, so you look helpful with number 4, but people get to know you and connect
with you via 1 & 2, and you get payment via number 3!
Subconsciously you want to build up the image of being a trusted advisor, so don't push people
to buy things, use the following techniques to let them decide for themselves that they need
the products you promote, that way they don't feel they are being sold to and don't try to
resist!
Stealth affiliate sales
Twitter is about sharing and interacting, I've already said that you can't just come out and send
someone straight through an affiliate link, so how do you do it? With some sort of story…
People love stories, and posting a tweet about a story you have to tell people, or interesting
facts etc, will hopefully get them to click through, and don't forget these are not cold prospects,
these are people who know and hopefully trust you, so they are more likely to trust your
recommendations.
So you can see this in action if you are on the list of any of the big names in internet marketing,
they post with a story about their day or even just to talk about a product, the email from them
is just a teaser, then you go to their website.
Then on their website you'll find an interesting story, then a link to a product, or a video and a
link to a product etc.
It could even be a straight presell, tell people about how you bought this new toy for your dog
and how your dog loves it so much they've even been carrying it out on their walks with them -
put in a photo of your dog with the toy, then casually mention that if they want one they can
get one by 'clicking here' which is of course your affiliate link.
Nobody can accuse you of being spammy, you are providing value, building rapport and
instilling trust by showing you own the product and your dog likes it, you appear as a friend
who is helping them out by pointing them to cool stuff!
Isn't that 10 x better than a straight tweet saying, 'Hey I found this cool toy you can buy, get it
here [link]' - which provides no value, builds no connection and doesn't make me want to buy
at all!
The same works with videos, you can take a video off YouTube and embed it into your page,
then put a link below it to a product related to it.
For stories then you just need to have something you can connect to a product, and tell it in a
story. For instance say you trained you dog using clicker training, now I am not in the dog niche
so I don't even know if that works, but I have heard the term before! So you have successfully
trained your dog using that technique, and you want to get people through your affiliate link to
a product on clicker training…
You could put a tweet up saying something like, 'You'll never guess what happened to me at the
supermarket today - get the full story here [link]'. Then link through to the story about how you
were outside the supermarket and someone had tied their dog up and he jumped up on a guy
just coming out who dropped his groceries all over the floor and the owner ending up paying
for them all after some heated words. Then you can talk about how your dog used to do things
like that but you are so glad you used clicker training to train him/her not to do it so you can
avoid situations like that one, then let them know if they want to find out more about clicker
training then they can visit this site - [link].
Again you look like you are just talking about your day, but in reality you are subconsciously
saying 'if you dog doesn't behave then look at all the trouble he could get you into, I cured the
problem with clicker training and think you should try it'.
That is why this is subconscious marketing, you are letting them subconsciously draw their own
conclusions from the story that the training works and that they need it. You are not saying you
think they should buy it, as that would make them turn off as they think you are trying to sell
them something, you are just recommending a site for further information…
You can also do mp3's or videos of your own, this creates an even greater bond between you
and your followers as they have seen your face and/or heard your voice. Say you have a
product on homemade dogfood recipes - then video yourself making one of the recipes quickly
and your dog enjoying it.
What does that say subconsciously? That they are easy to make, as they've seen you doing it,
and that their dog will love them, as they saw your dog loving them! Then hit them up with a
link at the end to a product so they can do the same for their dog ;)
Stealth Tweets
Although on Twitter you don't have to worry about open rates as all your tweets can be seen
straight away, then with only 140 characters if you want them to click through you link then it is
almost like an email subject line or the headline of a salespage, you have to get their attention
and arouse their curiosity in order to get that click!
So what you can do is learn a few copywriting skills, in particular about writing headlines, so
that your tweets have the maximum impact possible and get the most clicks, here are some
resources to help you out:
- 127 Advertising Headlines
- Write Magnetic Headlines With These 7 Tips
- RIP Elvis Sightings & Exploding Preachers
- Kick Your Headlines Up a Notch
- The Truth About Mega Headlines
Stealth Product Promotion
Let's say you are creating an infoproduct that you intend to sell to people in your niche, and you
also want to try and sell some copies through Twitter, what can you do to increase your sales
and not alienate your followers?
First, get them involved in the process and talk about the process. The primary question on
Twitter is 'What are you doing?' - so if you are working late on your project then you are
allowed to say so!
You could just say something like, 'Working late on a very cool report I'm writing, have to get
some shuteye now though as I'm falling asleep at the keyboard'. It is personal but peaks their
curiosity too and introduces them to the fact you are writing a report.
Then a few days later you can get them involved subtly, so say, 'Hi guys, I am writing a report on
clicker training and I need some good ideas for a title - can anyone help me out and suggest
one?'. Make sure you interact with people when they respond and get some ideas flowing.
Announce the final title some days later, and say when it will be finished… maybe ask for that
feedback and those testimonials about now (getting people involved again).
Then say thank you for the great feedback you've had and you are working hard now to get it
all updated (subconsciously saying it has now had public approval as the people looked at it and
suggested how it could be improved, so the final copy will be even better).
Later thank people for the great testimonials and maybe try to talk about one of the people
who used it who is getting great results (go out and get as many testimonials as you can so you
can guarantee that one of them will give you the great results you need for this) -
subconsciously saying that people are getting good results so they can too if they buy your
product…
Then on launch day maybe link to a story about how this all started, give a catchy tweet that
leads people to your blog/website, where you tell them the story about how you decided to
create the product, and all the stuff you've had to endure along the way, then offer them a
Twitter special price so they feel valued - then ask for the sale, or ask them to go to your main
salesletter.
Overview
That should give you a good understanding of how to give value (content/entertainment) and
get it yourself (money) without being blacklisted, in fact probably building a better rapport with
your followers than those people who just sit there chatting all day on Twitter - but remember
to give value!
Multiple Twitter Accounts?
I just quickly wanted to touch on this topic as I know lots of people are wondering about it.
There is nothing physically stopping you from having multiple accounts, apart from needing a
fresh email address for each.
But it is at your own risk of course!
I can't say what Twitter will do in the future, but at the moment they are still refining their
spam rules and don't seem to track what IP addresses log into accounts, for instance I logged
straight out of one account today and into another. I am sure that would be easy to trace if they
wanted to!
But for multiple niches then you will need multiple accounts so your page will match the niche.
However unless you have some help then running two Twitter accounts properly will be a lot of
work!
Focus on your main niche for now, the one you would choose if a gun was held to your head
and you were told you had to drop them all but one.
Twitter Tools
There are a crazy amount of tools out there, and in the end, they make things far more
complicated rather than simplifying things, so I won't list a million tools for you, I'll just give you
some lists other people have made and you can have a look through and see what you fancy:
https://www.tradebit.com
html
https://www.tradebit.com
That should give you more than enough!
Final Thoughts
So there you have it, from start to finish how you setup and profit from one of the fastest
growing phenomena in the world today!
You know how to stop people thinking you are a spammer, how to wrap people in a warm
blanket of good content so you can charge them for the cocoa with little marshmallows in it!
How to disguise your sales messages so that people don't even know you are selling them on a
product.
But will you now use it? Or will you abuse it? I have seen too many people corrupted by the pull
of easy money, who start off doing things the right way but in the end just turn into nothing
more than pitch-fest filled spam machines.
Set aside the time each day to do this properly and you'll stand out among the sea of scum that
will certainly begin to form as it does on any popular website, so that people can navigate to
you like a safe haven against the storm of that sea.
They'll see you as their rescuer - and will hang on your every word!
Good luck and good profits!
Paul Mihai Pavel
https://www.tradebit.com
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Resources
My Affiliate Center – Here you will find a lot of products you can promote. Commissions rate is
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platform: Delavo™
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Amazing Software Store – Premium quality software for webmasters and marketers:
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