Archives for October 2009

How My Friends Handle Twitter Spam

By Christian

I get a lot of spam on Twitter. Maybe you do too? Ha. If I get one more “ray of sunshine” or “high five” from you guys, I’m gonna puke, alright?

If you spend any time on Twitter you know what I’m talking about. Not sure what the actual appeal is here or why ANYONE thinks I’m actually going to click on their link “How to Get 10,000 Followers on Twitter in 5 Days”, but nonetheless, spam is here to stay 🙂

That said, deciding how to deal with Twitter spam is a concern I wanted to put to rest for a bit. So I did something crazy…I asked all my friends on Twitter what they do, and I got some great feedback!

Since a lot of us use Twitter daily, I thought it would be worthwhile to share the results of my little quiz with you and let you in on how I plan to handle the spam I get on Twitter.

Options of How to Deal With Twitter Spam

There are really only a few options, and I was surprised to hear that many people don’t seem to realize how they work, so I wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page. Here are your options:

Report the spam to @spam. This is highly recommended, and I was surprised that not one single person mentioned this. Are you aware of this option? I thought it was common knowledge 🙂 It takes just a second, and if you use Tweetdeck, it takes just two clicks.
Unfollow them. If you’re following the person, it’s simple to just quietly unfollow them. This doesn’t completely eliminate the possibility of receiving spam from the offender again, but it decreases the chances of it. If you’re not following them, at least they cannot send you a direct message. They can still send you replies though.
Block them. This actually may not accomplish what you think it will. I think blocking is not presented clearly on Twitter, because when you block someone, all that really happens is that they can no longer follow you. But of course, if someone wants to see your tweets, all they have to do is go to your profile, so blocking doesn’t really do much other than put a tally on the offenders profile. I don’t know what the parameter is, but word on the street is…if a spammer gets enough blocks, their account gets deleted. That’s how you sometimes end up seeing that cool page with an owl on it that says “nothing to see here…”.
Verbally assault them. Try to scare the crap out of them, so they’ll learn the error of their ways and never spam again. This is actually a great idea, and it usually works *sarcasm*. Some choose to engage in this pointless fun though. Hey, if it lets you blow off some steam… 😉

When Friends Spam You

There were mentions of a distinction when an actual friend (or just about anyone you talk with who you feel really ought to know better) sends you something that is technically spam. Like being a little tactless or overzealous about promoting their new landing page or MLM opportunity, etc. Most people including myself, tend to shrug this off. Between friends, what’s a little spam, right? Just as long as it doesn’t get too crazy. Even friends deserve a smack down from time to time though…am I right, or am I right?

How I’ve Chosen to Deal With Twitter Spam

When it comes in, and I don’t know the person…and it’s clearly spam. I report it to @spam…every time. This clears it from my timeline and gives Twitter a heads up.
Many of the stupid DM’s I get from friends I just ignore and laugh them off. Being light hearted as often as possible in life pays big dividends. It’s like when a coworker forwards me some stupid cat picture. Am I going to report them to their ISP? Probably not. As long as it doesn’t happen too often 😉
I’ve only ever blocked one person, and it was a situation where this user was actually being persistently obnoxious and almost scary. Screw that noise. If someone is actually making you physically uncomfortable…that’s block-worthy.

A Final Word

Don’t let spam get you down. It’s a minor inconvenience in my opinion when placed up against the huge advantages of using Twitter as a communication tool. If you have any questions about Twitter, place em in the comments. I’ll help however I can!

Basic Tips to Monetize Your Blog Without Ads

By Christian

One of the biggest concerns people have about their blogs is how to make money. That’s fair. It’s reasonable to want to get paid for your time!

Yet this is one of the biggest challenges for most bloggers. You may have noticed, I spend time focusing on sales strategy, because that’s my foundation. The thing I like about sales is the simplicity of it. If you follow the rules and work hard, you get paid. Period.

Making Money from Your Blog is Not Black and White

Many people are convinced there are only two types of blogs out there:

Low traffic blogs that live out their days in obscurity, making no money.
High traffic blogs that enjoy high income, tons of comments, etc.

It’s not black and white. Yes, there are these two kinds of blogs. No doubt. But there are also many types in between, including my favorite…low to mid-traffic blogs that make a high income. They quietly make a killing. To me, this is ideal.

If you want to be a well-known blogger, get several hundred thousand visitors a month, etc…go for it. I’ll be honest with you…that’s not my forte. If you were to look at the back end of my sites, you’d not find a single one that gets more than 10-20k page views a month. But they are profitable. And they are duplicable. They offer a range of valuable services to highly targeted customers. To me, traffic is over rated. It’s all about quality. That’s my focus.

Success Hides a Multitude of Sins

It’s easy to make money with a blog that gets a ton of traffic. Sort of. As the saying goes, “Success hides a multitude of sins”. In other words, if you have traffic pouring in every day, it’s hard to not make some money. Unfortunately most bloggers are not in the “more traffic than I know what to do with” club.

This isn’t to say that even high traffic sites don’t need to optimize and carefully watch what they’re doing. They do. And please don’t assume, as we’re so often tempted, that a site that’s getting a lot of traffic is doing well financially. It’s just not a safe assumption to make.

Running a business on any level is a lot of work. But many A-list bloggers out there are still giving the old stand-by advice when it comes to making money with you blog. And it all boils down to putting ads on your site. This just isn’t a good solution for most bloggers.

There are various types of ad services and various techniques to optimize them, and I won’t argue that advertising isn’t a good way to make money, but unless you’re getting mad traffic, you can optimize your ads all day long, and you’re still going to be making $5 a day.

Sales Basics are Where to Start!

If you want to monetize your blog, and you don’t have a ton of traffic, here are a few very simple ideas to keep in mind that will help you monetize your blog. After implementing these basics, there are many ways to tweak and optimize what you do, and I will be going over these principles in later posts, so make sure to bookmark this page or subscribe, so you can get the following posts on this topic as well!

Make sure your visitors know what you do! This may seem like a complete no-brainer, but when I’m working, I come across blogs left and right that offer great, helpful information, but I don’t see any products or services offered in any clear way.

If you want to make money with your blog, make sure you’re following these basics to start:

Do you have a clearly visible services page?
Where is your “products” or “shopping” page?
Do you tell your buyers about what you do on occasion and why they should buy from you?
Do your blog posts occasionally mention your services, products, etc?
Do you email your list with offers from time to time?
Have you asked your visitors point blank if they are interested in what you’re selling? This is easy to do with a simple survey from Survey Monkey, and it accomplishes two very valuable things. One, it tells your visitors what you’re selling. Two, it helps you gauge whether you’re offering something people want to buy or if you need to make changes to what you’re selling.

I’m just sayin…there are a ton of bloggers saying they want to make money…and there are also a ton of blogs that have no clear offerings. I believe this is because many, many bloggers are still trying to figure out a way to get more traffic and make money with advertising.

Forget SEO, forget page rank, forget traffic…learn how to sell, and address these sales basics! More tips in more detail will follow in future post… but don’t forget the basics will always work! Remember, if you’re making no money with 1k visitors, you’re going to easily make 100 times that much when you get 100k visitors. Do the math 🙂

If you want to get your blog kicked into the next gear, I encourage you to hire me for a consult. In one hour, we can erase months of the learning curve and get down to business, so you can do what you love and start actually getting paid to do it!

Are you struggling to make money with your blog or website? Tell me what you’re struggling with, and I’ll make sure answers are included in future posts!

Selling vs Marketing

By Christian

The mentality that selling is bad or loathsome is pervasive. The more I talk about it, the more I’m confronted with the misconceptions people have. Even blogging A-listers and well-known social media consultants proudly express their preference for marketing over sales. Sales is broadly viewed as distasteful, and that is simply unfortunate, because it spells a huge number of missed opportunities. Marketing and sales overlap in fundamental ways, and to think you can do one or the other, especially when it comes to social media marketing where personal engagement is a key component, is a big mistake that will dilute your effectiveness to no end.

Marketing Works. So Does Sales.

Marketing works. So does sales. They are different skill sets, and a business owner needs to know how to use both. Surely many businesses have operated purely on marketing in the past. And this is what has allowed a fear of sales to develop. But social media marketing is becoming more and more crucial, and the more social media becomes an indispensable component to business, the more sales skills will become a requirement for success.

That’s why I’m using Next Level Blogger to spread the word about the importance of learning how to sell while most other bloggers are still focusing on ads. This is the direction business blogging is going.

As business owners, we need to learn that selling is not manipulation. It is not some black hat, malicious tactic. It is not the act of underhandedly trying to extort our customers. What a simplistic and inaccurate way of looking at it! Sales is a skill set. Nothing more. Nothing less. It teaches you how to engage people on a personal level, effectively and skillfully matching problems and solutions to a mutually beneficial end. It can be used to truly offer an invaluable service to our customers and clients.

Sales is Not Evil, but it IS a Super Power >:-)

Like any skill set, sales skills can be used for both good and evil. It is no different than the skills an attorney learns for navigating our legal system or that which a physician learns for solving problems of the body. Any skill set can be used for good or harm. Unfortunately sales has been abused (as is the case for ALL fields of expertise, but I digress), and it has been misunderstood for many years.

Traditional business models have allowed this misconception to perpetuate. But of course, traditional business models are crumbling these days, and that is why I’m preaching the importance of learning these essential skills, which I teach to clients. Marketing works. But combining sales and marketing in a skillful manner makes you invincible. It is a super power!

Seriously though, if you know marketing you can make a great living, and that is a beautiful skill to have. But if you know how to sell, you are recession-proof. Period. And that is a killer skill to have as well. Why would you not want both?

If Sales is Evil, then So is Your Car

You can use a car to destroy property or even kill someone. That doesn’t make driving evil or underhanded. I find it ironic that sales gets a bad wrap while marketing is touted as a more ethical and honest way to conduct business. Give me a break. I’m tempted to accuse people who say this crap of being high-minded and elitist, but I know it’s not the case. It’s just that they haven’t had the same experiences I’ve had. They don’t know the power of sales. Marketing has been abused and used to convey inaccurate and misleading messages for generations. It is no less a means of distraction and coercion than anything else.

The reason marketing has become the preferred method of building a business is not because it’s “better” or “more effective”. It’s only played out this way because it allows business owners to run their businesses from a distance…without getting emotionally or personally involved with their customers. Put more simply, it’s less messy. I don’t mean to downplay the power of marketing here. But marketing does allow you to remain detached, while sales puts you in the thick of it. It’s scary, and when something is scary our minds come up with all kinds of excuses for not doing it. But excuses don’t build successful businesses, do they?

Well, the days that we will be able to get away with running our businesses without personal engagement are numbered. This means we need to learn how to engage people on a personal level and help them solve their problems. There’s a word for that. It’s called “sales”. And if selling makes me evil, baby I don’t wanna be good >:)(just kidding)

Do you avoid selling to your customers, clients or blog readers? Do you find it difficult to ask for people to buy things? Do you feel selling is selfish, unethical or rude?

Speak Your Mind

By Christian

I just wanted to thank you all…everyone who has taken a minute to respond to my user survey for Next Level Blogger. One of the key things I preach to clients is to get all the data you can from your visitors, customers and clients…and then don’t skip the crucial next step: FOLLOW THROUGH ON IT!

Don’t just get information from your visitors and then fail to implement it into your plan! You guys and gals are AWESOME for speaking your mind and letting me know what you think about Next Level Blogger. I want to confirm with you that I AM listening to your feedback, and I am already in the process of following through on what you’ve shared with me 🙂

So far, you’ve given me input on what type of issues and concerns you’d like to see addressed here, and you’ve given me some awesome ideas for upcoming articles on blogging, monetizing, internet marketing and more, so be on the look out for them!

If you read my articles or ebooks, and you haven’t submitted a survey yet…please do so! It will take you about one minute. Seriously…and I absolutely WILL read your input, and I absolutely WILL follow through on it 🙂 Speak your mind! Let me know what you love about Next Level Blogger, what you hate and what you’d like to see next. Thanks again!

Take the Next Level Blogger Survey 🙂

Who are Your Advocates?

By Christian

Every business has them. Most business owners are oblivious to them. That’s where you and I need to be different.

What is an advocate? An advocate is a fan of your business. Someone you’ve worked with or someone who has bought from you. They know what you do, like what you do and truly believe you bring real value. They have no problem sharing their belief with their friends and peers. When someone has a question about something that relates to what you do, they don’t hesitate to say “You should really talk to so-and-so. They’re the best in the business.” You gotta love an advocate!

But ironically most business owners DON’T love their advocates! Mostly because they don’t know about them. This is a step we cannot afford to ignore.

Identifying Advocates

I mentioned every business has advocates. Is this true? It really is. If you’ve done business for any length of time, you no doubt have some real fans. See if you really sucked and everyone you work with is disappointed, you’re simply not going to be in business for very long! So if you’re in business, yes you have advocates. And it’s essential to take measures to identify them.

How do you find them? There is a highly specialized technique I use that I was taught by a guru many years ago. I ask. You should too!

When someone buys something from you or subscribes to your newsletter or works with you as a client, etc…ask them how they found you. This is old school, and oddly enough many businesses just don’t do this.

Are you going to get an answer 100% of the time? Absolutely not. It truly is impossible to get perfect results with this. The beautiful thing is that it doesn’t have to be flawless. You just need to make a concerted effort. It will pay off for you.

The Power of Advocates

The reason your execution doesn’t need to be perfect is because just by catching up with a percentage of your advocates can have a beautiful effect. You don’t have to snag all of them (although the more the better); you just need to snag SOME of them. Do this, and you’ll be writing me a thank you letter at some point. I guarantee it!

The cool thing is that an advocate can be turned into a real asset. Let’s say you get a new client. You ask them how they found you, and they give you an interesting answer. They tell you that their coworker had worked with you about 6 months ago, and they told them you were the person to call. You’ve officially received a referral client. That is an awesome thing.
You’ve already done one great thing. You asked. Now you have an answer, and you have a name. The next thing you need to do is contact that person who referred your new client to you, and you need to thank them personally. I recommend even sending them a gift of some kind if appropriate.

Reward this behavior. Don’t let their gracious behavior that led to you getting a new paying customer go unnoticed. Let them know in a very clear way that you appreciate it. And let them know that you want MORE!

It’s easy to see that big companies are understanding the power of advocates more and more. Referral programs are growing in number. Vonage offers a month or more of service for free to every customer you refer to them. That’s just one of many examples. Vonage understands that word of mouth advertising is powerful, and they want to harness as much of it as possible. That’s smart.

Like I mentioned, this kind of activity is most likely happening behind your back. If you believe in letting things like that go on without you having any control over them, then that’s up to you. But if you can harness and encourage and make it worth their while for people to continue referring business to you, do you see how powerful that can be?

Are you asking your customers how they found you? Are you taking this (or any other steps) to identify your advocates?