How to Add an Opt-In Box to Your Facebook
Welcome back! Have you joined my mailing list yet?
Steve Schuitt from TubeNinja.com made a great video about how to add a mailing list opt-in box to your Facebook page. Yes, I did this. Yes, you should also!
Here's the video. Enjoy. Learn.
If you like these posts and want to stay in the loop, please subscribe to my RSS feed and follow me on Twitter. And if you really like this stuff, you can buy me a coffee! Oh, and if you like being an insider, be sure to join the mailing list...I never spam, but you will get some insider specials!
Twitter Followers Versus Blog Subscriptions
Sometimes you can find some pretty interesting things on Twitter, provided you are following the right people. Here's a little nugget that popped up in my timeline, and I thought it was interesting enough to write a blog post about.
@danschawbel QUESTION OF THE DAY: What would you rather have 100,000 Twitter followers or 30,000 blog subscribers?
For me, this was a no-brainer. I had to go with the blog subscribers.
Sure, everyone would like to have tons of Twitter followers, and they are great to have. One of the advantages of a legion of Twits is traffic. These people are usually following you for a reason. Some of them for marketing purposes, others to grow their follow count, but a solid chunk of them will be following because they are genuinely interested in what you may have to say. When your tweet gets retweeted, that just spreads your comment around to more potential followers. And as any good marketer knows by now, twitter followers are sort of like a mailing list with less work. Of course, it is also far less targeted than a mailing list, so your percentages will most likely be lower than if you stuck with the mailing list.
While having lots of twitter followers does have its advantages, I dare say that people who subscribe to your blogs RSS feed have far better advantages.
First, people will not subscribe to your feed to boost the amount of feeds in their readers. That is just silly. People grab a feed because they want to read the content, pure and simple.
Second, there are many Twitter users out there who follow people just to get the reciprocal follow, which gives them another person to market their products or services to. RSS feeds don't work that way. Somebody who wants to market to you will not do it through feeds (unless you subscribe to theirs).
Third, blog posts stick around. Tweets are probably not viewed beyond the 'current' timeline of a Twitter user. They can be gone in a matter of seconds, whereas a blog post will remain on a blog for a while in most cases. And since a post has a title, it is usually easier to find in the archives than looking for a tweet that was issued a few months ago.
Another advantage that feeds have over twits is that tweets are only visible while you are logged into Twitter (or on a client). Again, persistance is key. When you use Twhirl (or a program like it), you are only getting recent tweets (usually within the last minute) whereas with a feed reader, you are presented with posts that you have not seen that go back as far as the feed settings will allow. And while RSS readers may not actually visit your site, they are still getting the content, whether it be your commentary, marketing, or whatever.
I'm sure there are people that would rather have the Twitter followers, and that is fine. But from a marketing standpoint, it makes more sense to build your RSS feed than your follower count. Also, when you develop a loyal reader base, they will most likely follow you on Twitter, so focusing on the feed yeilds benefits that far outweigh focusing on the followers.
If you like these posts and want to stay in the loop, please subscribe to my RSS feed and follow me on Twitter. And if you really like this stuff, you can buy me a coffee! Oh, and if you like being an insider, be sure to join the mailing list...I never spam, but you will get some insider specials!
Amazon Associates: How To Get More Customers
I'm sure that there are many of us who are members of the Amazon Associates program. We all know that it can be tricky to get sales, especially in a down economy. However, I've found a way to provide some good deals to your customers that will be like a call to action, thereby spurring your economy.
First, you need to find good deals on Amazon. There are a couple of ways to do this, but for the sake of making this super easy, I've found a tool online to take the hassle out of URL hacking. This tool is called Amazargains, and it's actually great for finding those items that have been given deep discounts.
Fire up Amazargains and use it to generate a link to items in your chosen category with discounts applied. Then, select the discounted items and create a link to them in your Amazon Associates account.
You know, things like computer RAM, flash drives, and other memory is hard to pass up when it's 80-90% off...
I think you can figure out how to make this work from here. Good luck, and happy selling!
If you like these posts and want to stay in the loop, please subscribe to my RSS feed and follow me on Twitter. And if you really like this stuff, you can buy me a coffee! Oh, and if you like being an insider, be sure to join the mailing list...I never spam, but you will get some insider specials!
Magpie Announces New Payment Modes
I kind of dig the Magpie scene. I mean, it's a pretty cool way to make some extra money from that Twitter list you've spent weeks building up. Today, I got an email from Magpie announcing some changes that they would be making to the system.
Dear Wess Stewart,
First of all at Magpie, we would like to say thanks for taking the plunge and getting involved first. Over the last few months, we have been overwhelmed with the enthusiasm by Twitterers wanting to get onboard. In fact, as a result we have found that we couldn’t satisfy the demand.
And so, we have been working really hard to turn this around.
Finally, more Magpie-Tweets!
We are really excited to announce that all of our hard work has paid off. We have recently signed contracts with a number of award-winning communications agencies – working with renowned global household brands.
So what does this mean for you? Well obviously initially more tweets, but another exciting opportunity that this presents is the opportunity for you to earn more money per tweet.
New Compensation Models
These new alignments allow us to implement additional models of compensation, which as a Magpie-Twitterer, you will have a choice to be involved in. Starting today, the Magpie Network will be offering the following new compensation models. These are: Pay-per-Click; Pay-per-Lead; and Pay-per-Sale - in addition to the Pay-per-View model (which has been used to date).
These new compensation models are linked to certain actions performed by your followers and each come with compensation rates that are up to 20% greater than currently offered through the Pay-per-View model. Such an action may simply involve clicking on a link within the Magpie-Tweet ("per click"), the purchase of goods ("per sale"), or the request for services, the registration on a website or the subscription to a newsletter ("per lead").
At the pre-approval stage, you will be made aware of the compensation model linked to a particular campaign – enabling you to make an informed decision as to whether you want to participate or not. To keep you in control while introducing these new models, all accounts that previously had pre-approvals deactivated, will be altered and pre-approvals activated.
If you have any questions, comments or feedback please contact us on hello@be-a-magpie.com or check out our updated FAQs at http://be-a-magpie/twitterer/faq. Also, please take a moment to check out our modified Terms and Conditions at http://be-a-magpie.com/twitterer/terms.
At Magpie we are all really excited about being able to offer you these new income opportunities as we are dedicated in converting your tweets into bling-bling!
Kind regards,
Jan Schulz-Hofen, CEO
It sounds like Magpie is merging with more common affiliate marketing-type compensation types. This could be a very good thing - especially if you have a very active bunch of Twits following you.
I also like the part about getting more Magpie tweets. I mean, I've been a member for a while now (read: months) and haven't had all that many. I think my account is up to about six Euros. Heck, I've even got it set for a one-to-one tweet ratio, and I've still only had one tweet in the past two months. To me, it's a big complaint. To Magpie, that might be a business thing. I do wonder if they cut back the amount of tweets posted to accounts with more twitter followers. The last tweet posted to my Twitter account (@wwstewart) grabbed over two Euros...which isn't all that bad, especially since the price goes up in relation to the number of followers you have. Still, I'd love it if they are able to stick to their word in this email and send me more tweets.
I'm always interested in finding out ways that I can make money with Twitter. Hopefully Magpie will come through for me in the long run.
If you like these posts and want to stay in the loop, please subscribe to my RSS feed and follow me on Twitter. And if you really like this stuff, you can buy me a coffee! Oh, and if you like being an insider, be sure to join the mailing list...I never spam, but you will get some insider specials!
Affiliate Marketing Via Twitter
I'm sure that there are tons of web-savvy affiliate marketers that are already using Twitter to push their offers to the masses. In fact, I have even started doing this as well. My question is this: do you feel that using Twitter to market stuff is ethical?
Personally, I see nothing wrong with using Twitter. It's easier to maintain a list of followers than it is to run a mailing list, and opting out is easy for people who do not want to be bombarded by messages - they simply unfollow your sorry marketing butt.
Also, finding potential customers is far easier when using Twitter. You simply have to follow people, and the ones that stick are your 'subscribers'. I would recommend using Twitter Karma to unfollow all of those people who just aren't cool enough to follow you back.
Another tip that is working for me as far as getting followers (which worked enormously well a couple of weeks ago on @wwstewart) is to find someone who is using Twitter in a similar way (for example: marketing freebies, blog updates, you get the idea) and follow the living crap out of all of their followers. Odds are, a lot of them will stick around.
Twitter may not bring you the most targeted audience in the world, but if you are smart when selecting people to follow, you can make it more effective and accurate when it comes to marketing stuff.
As for the ethics of it all, I'm pretty sure that there are a few affiliate networks who do not want to see their links strewn about the Twitterverse. While I personally see nothing wrong with driving traffic via Twitter, be sure to read your Terms of Service with your affiliate networks before launching into the marketing abyss.
What do you think? Have you used Twitter for evil marketing purposes?
If you like these posts and want to stay in the loop, please subscribe to my RSS feed and follow me on Twitter. And if you really like this stuff, you can buy me a coffee! Oh, and if you like being an insider, be sure to join the mailing list...I never spam, but you will get some insider specials!
Recent Posts
- Multiple Income Streams – Getting Pumped!
- Setting up my savings goal.
- Harry Potter and the Child Support Payment from Hell
- Reinventing myself – setting goals.
- It’s time to do some house cleaning.
Best of [ ! ]
- A Page Without Page Rank Ranking on Google's First Page
- The Importance of Good Employee Relations
- Twitter Followers Versus Blog Subscriptions