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Chapter 2: The Best Service Out There Here I am going to use TalkShoe as an example.

Viral Marketing Strategies

Some strategies are obviously going to work better than others. The Hotmail campaign in which “free” services are utilized with no apparent cost to the end-user, are no-brainers. Approaches where some initial up-front costs are charged to credit cards or where “future” charges will be incurred are much less likely to generate active involvement.

• Go to www.TalkShoe.com and click on signup at the top left.

• Fill in the account signup form.

It is recommended you use the phone number you will be calling in from for your PIN (Personal Identification Number). Agree to the terms of service and click the “Create User” button. That’s it for sign up. On the next page you will see a large blue “Continue” button. Click continue button to proceed. You will be returned to the home page but you will be logged in.

• Check your email. You should receive an email.

If it doesn’t appear you received the email, check your junk/span folder. If it is there white list the TalkShoe email address it came from. File the email where you can find it if you need it. Now go back to your web browser which should be still opened to the home page. You will see your user name in the top right of the page where it will say, “Hello YourUserName”, indicating you are logged in. In that same area of the page click on help.

You can click on the link in item “A.” or go directly to the video tutorial page here: www.talkshoe.com/se/help/videoDemos.html

On this page should watch each of the video tutorials from left to right. Don’t miss the video tutorials down on the right as well.

You will see the following content on the page and I want to explain something about what is stated here:

Connect with Your Audience.

TalkShoe is a unique website for people to participate in live interactive podcasts -- called Community Calls™. You can host, join or listen along to a live or recorded Community Call. Hundreds of people can talk and chat live, thousands can listen in (audio streaming to computers), and an unlimited number of people can download or podcast the recorded talk show.

Participants can use the TalkShoe Live! Pro software, which has a number of unique features including: 1) integrated live talking, and text chat, 2) see-who’s-talking indication, 3) request-totalk, and 4) listen-only mode. Hosts have additional controls including start/stop recording, muting, censoring, and request–to-talk queue management.

Note the first sentence in the 2nd paragraph above makes reference to the “TalkShoe Live! Pro software”. It is no longer necessary to use this software if you are calling in using any type of telephony device such as regular landline, cell phone, cordless phone etc. You can use the new Web Client that starts automatically when you enter a call/chat episode. But you will have to have the JRE JAVA Run Time Engine installed on your computer.

However, if you are using a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone you may have to use the “TalkShoe Live! Pro software”, to host your show. While VoIP works well for some people, that technology hasn’t quite come up to commercial standards yet as far as I’m concerned. I do NOT recommend you use VoIP or SIP systems to host your shows. As the technology continues to evolve and improve, I’m sure I’ll be changing my mind on this issue.

Below is a group of step by step directions for different features you have to set up and control your calls. I could have just put a link here to each of the individually, but if you have this open you can more easily go down through the list or directly to the directions you need by clicking on the Table Of Contents at the beginning of this guide. It will make it easier for you than going through FAQ’s.

If you want to skip down to the section on setting up your first test rehearsal call, you can CLICK HERE to skip past these instructions below. Don’t forget they are here for future reference: TalkShoe Step-By-Step Instructions

October 5, 2008 at 11:16 am | Author: Dave Nelsen | In Announcements, What's New | We’ve seen many former Skypecast users show up on TalkShoe recently. Let me be the first to welcome you! Below are simple step-by-step instructions for a variety of basic actions on TalkShoe. First, here are some of the advantages of TalkShoe:

1. TalkShoe is built on the best conferencing technology on the planet, same as used by NASA and 80 telcos worldwide for their best business teleconferencing customers. On TalkShoe, you can have 300 simultaneous callers while being in complete control just like a radio talk show host.

2. TalkShoe allows voice over IP (VoIP) callers from its own integrated ShoePhone application (download and install TalkShoe Live Pro) or any SIP-standard alternative including Gizmo, SJPhone, and X-Lite. Skype is not SIP-compliant but if desired you may use SkypeOut to call TalkShoe at 724-444-7444.

3. TalkShoe also allows callers from VoIP softphones, plus landlines and cell phones. That enables a whole world of participation.

4. All TalkShoe features are free. If you’re not using VoIP, please check with your phone company to see if they charge you (incrementally) to call 724-444-7444. Many people have flat-rate calling plans (Vonage, etc.) and free cell phone minutes.

5. TalkShoe calls can be recorded and distributed as podcasts (listed in iTunes), completely automatically. This can increase your audience by 20X on average.

6. People can listen and chat live without downloading or installing any software. These folks will show up as “guests” in your TalkShoe Live display.

Keep in mind that like a radio talk show, TalkShoe is built on the philosophy of dictatorial host control. You can enable or block any text chatter and mute or un-mute any caller; you may do so individually or all together (e.g., mute all).

Here are step-by-step instructions for a variety of tasks. Start at www.talkshoe.com, then: Sign-Up:

1. Click the white “Sign Up” button in the upper left header area.

2. Fill in the six mandatory fields, hovering over the “?” next to each field for more detailed instructions.

3. Complete by clicking the green “Create User” button. Click the Continue button when the system indicates “user created successfully”. Downloading the TalkShoe Live Pro client is optional at this point (see topic below).

Sign In:

1. Click the white “Sign In” link in the upper left.

2. Enter User Name and Password and click “Remember Me” if you are working from your own computer.

3. Complete by clicking the white “Sign In” button.

Recovering Your Username and/or Password:

1. On the Sign In page (as above), click the link that says “forgot username or password” and enter the email address you specified at sign up.

2. Complete by clicking the green “Send Password” button.

Creating and Scheduling Your First Call:

Keep in mind that TalkShoe uses the term “Episode” to describe an individual call, and “Call Series” to refer to all episodes that are for the same group or theme. Think about a TV “series” (Gilligan’s Island) and individual “episodes” (Gilligan finds another way to screw up their rescue). To create a call episode, you must first start from an existing or new call series as follows:

Creating a New Call Series:

1. Click the green “Create” button in the upper left header area. The first time through, you’ll see a short overview of the process on the first screen. Click “Get Started” to continue.

2. Enter a title for your Call Series or use the default title selected for you. This can easily be changed later.

3. Set the desired options or accept the defaults. Notice the orange link for “Advanced Options”. Again, these can easily be changed later.

4. If you’re ready to do a call immediately, click “Start Now”, otherwise select “Schedule” and fill in the episode options.

Regarding Start Time and Episode Duration, these are just to set audience expectations. You may actually start any time during the scheduled window or up to 15 minutes early; once started, you may run as long as desired up to 5-hours of recording or 24-hours of talking. You’re in total control.

Creating a New Episode:

1) When “Signed In” to TalkShoe (notice your user name in the upper right), you will see a white button labeled “myTalkShoe” in the upper left area. Whenever in doubt, click it. Notice the nine tab topics down the left side (lots of good stuff here). By default, you’ll see a list of “My Calls” (meaning “Call Series”).

2) Click the title of the desired call series.

3) Across the top, you’ll now see four tabs. Click the second one to “Schedule Episode”.

4) Complete the fields and click “Next”. Click “Complete” unless you want to “invite guests to your call” using TalkShoe’s email engine.

Accessing Any of Your Call Series (and accessing recording archives, scheduling episodes, etc.):

1. Click the white button labeled “myTalkShoe” in the upper left area.

2. Click the title of the desired Call Series. You’ll be able to access a wide variety of callspecific activities from this “Call Series page”.

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Chapter 1: “Exponential Resource Management”

Exponential resource management isn’t just a fancy name. It’s a really underestimated, under used marketing method that works incredibly well. So much so, this section is one of the main reasons we’re only letting 500 copies of this go. I don’t want my competition to be able to manage their customers correctly if it means I’m going to get them instead. What we’re looking at here are your five primary resources. The lifeblood of any online business. That’s your affiliates, your list, your customers, long term customers and joint venture prospects. All of which we’ll refer to from this point onwards as your resources, or your promotion power.

Each one of the big five have the power to make you sales, and thus big profits. However, imagine being able to take those five and manage them in such a way that you never have to carry out the expensive act of paying for new customers, a bigger, list, more affiliates or JV contacts ever again, but still having countless thousands of them flowing into your lap. It sounds unthinkable, but with the right management of your resources, you’re going to be seeing their usefulness double, multiply by three, four, sometimes even five. What does this mean or your profits? Well, have you ever worked it out in your head how much you’d make if you doubled a penny every day for a month or two? The principal here is the same, but instead of money, you’re using your resources. The more you have, the faster they build each other. The true power of real exponential growth is at every marketers fingertips. They just have to know how to realize it’s there and understand how to use it to their advantage..

Chapter 2: Goals of This Section (And Method)

To demonstrate how to take your existing resources and cross them over in such a way that they begin to build themselves. The ultimate in marketing strategies allowing you to boost your promotion power exponentially, when others are having trouble even building a list that makes a single sale.

To display a diagram to demonstrate this method helping you commit this to memory and act on your knowledge.

To discuss each resource in depth and to define specific roles for each one, opening up the ability to cross your resources and to start the snowball effect rolling.

To avoid the pitfalls that other marketers are making as we speak with their crossing of resources, if they've even discovered such a method in the first place.

To inspire and to demonstrate ideas for the crossing of your resources, both enabling you to follow the examples we've laid out for you, and to come up with your own as your resources start to flood in when you launch your products.

Exponential Resource Management (One)

Welcome to the section entitled exponential resource management and treating your customers right. As well as a selection of literal ways to get the most out of your customers without giving them the earth for free, we'll also be taking a little bit of a lateral detour here. You see, when I say treating your customers right, I'm not just talking about how to keep your customers happy. Although this is important, what I'm going to show you is much more important, and much more beneficial to you, and it should alter the way you think about what you're doing and how you're doing it.

Resources. Your five main resources. Joint Ventures, Affiliates, Standard List, Standard Customers and Long Term Customers. That is exactly what this section is about. Not just being nice to people so they trust you more, we're going deeper than this to start with. We'll leave the easier stuff until afterwards.

The Working Concept (An Overview)

The whole idea of this section is based around kind of a cross promotion strategy, which is nothing new products wise, but when we look at it in terms of the five main resources you've been gathering it becomes a different matter entirely. What we're planning to do here is take the whopping promotion power of the big five, tie them together and double what they're doing for you without bringing in anyone new. We're simply referring each type of member to different sections.

Now, you may have seen this circle of five before when talking in terms of website promotion, using the site itself as a base to launch each resource onto the next stage in the ladder where possible, whilst at the same time bringing in new blood. This time around, we're taking that circle, and moving people around so that they can reside in multiple places, which in turn, can double, or even triple your promotion power simply because one person becomes two, three and up to five different resources on their own. Powerful stuff. For quick reference, here's that basic resource circle that we’re talking about. We’ll be adding to this in a moment.

Now, this is going to become a big part of the circle, because it's going to add to it internally, as we're moving people around here without bringing in new people, increasing the productivity of the people we already have, so please do take a careful look at it right now, or the rest of this section won’t make any sense. The main thing I want you to keep in mind is the above diagram, as that will form the basis of your whole web based marketing outlook. It will however be added to at the end of this manual, so that you have five large diagrams at the end of the course to base your marketing off of.

What we're going to do now is go through each resource, and look at the most effective ways to cross them over to another resource, whether it's worth doing, why you should or shouldn't do particular things with each section, and most importantly, which ones are going to make you the most cash.

Even if you don’t have all of these resources at your disposal yet, don’t worry. The aim here is to show you what’s going to go on when your promotions do go out and be prepared. Let me assure you, the speed that the five main resources come in may turn around and surprise you, It’s going to come in very handy, very soon.

What To Do With Your List?

So first up, let's start with your list. Think first about what your list is. It's your first contact, and it contains pretty much everyone that's passed through the system you've set up, from the freebie hunters, to the people that didn't know what they signed up for, those who had friends that signed them up for a joke, and of course those who are going to progress through the circle and make you a whole load of cash in several different ways. It's the most numerous of all the five resources, and is also in this instance of the lowest quality compared to the other four, however is essential if you want to fill the higher ranks.

An Important Tip

Keep in mind that it's not always possible or even in your best interests to subject a particular resource to this type of cross promotion. This is especially true for your more valuable moneymakers. The reason being is that they can be lost, just like any other resource, but when you take the regular customers who have spent many thousands of dollars on your products in small numbers, compared to a large list that have yet to spend, it's much more devastating to lose one or two percent of your big spenders than it is to lose one or two percent of your freebie seekers.

What To Do With Your List (Continued)

So, getting started here, what do we want to turn your list into? Well, everything really. Your lists are there for one thing, and one thing only, and that's to act as your own media outlet, and increase your other four resources. (something that many business miss). Turning your list into customers and long- term customers is quite straight forward. You'll be sending them announcements relating to your new products and services. It's as they should be used, and most often are.

Two more extremely profitable things that your list can do that people rarely ever seem to catch hold of (even more profitable than making direct sales) is build your affiliate base and on top of that build your joint venture base. First up the affiliate building. Remember we talked previously about promotion to build resources instead of make the profits? Well this works in exactly the same way. The reason we don't see it too often, aside from the people that have been told about it, or sussed it out already, is who in their right mind would promote, and in fact spend the two most important things (their money and their time) on promotion when they're not going to make any cash out of it directly.

The sooner that you, as an business-person, online or offline can see how important it is to look beyond immediate profits from ad campaigns, the sooner you will start to make some real money. I guess it's overlooked by so many simply because in today’s age of the internet, everyone wants something right now, they don't want to wait. The longer it takes to carry out, the more they overlook it as something that won't be an immediate fix for their situation.

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Chapter 1: Viral Marketing for Your Online Businesses The Elements of a Successful Viral Campaign

When you're planning your viral marketing strategy, it's important to keep in mind the basic requirements of every viral campaign. Without these, your stampede might turn out to be more like a leisurely stroll.

To build a good viral campaign, make sure your plan includes

A free product or service

The product has to be easily transferable to another person

It has to be able to scale easily

It has to take advantage of other people's resources

It has to be unique, original, and relevant

Over the next few pages, we’re going to take a look at each of these elements, and examine how you can use them to design and launch your own viral campaign. Don't worry. It's not as complicated as it looks!

There's A Free Lunch, And You're Serving It!

Every single viral campaign begins with giving something away. Every one. It could be an ebook, a piece of software, an instructional video, or even a few laughs, but it has to be free. And when we say free, we mean free. Not free with an opt-in or a free trial. It has to be really free, because you're going to encourage your customers to share it with their friends, and no one wants to tell their sister she has to sign-up for your list to get the cool thing you're giving away. Now that doesn't mean you're giving away the farm. But you do need to give away great stuff. There's lots of ways you can do that, while still leaving your customers wanting more.

For example, if you build and sell a software package that helps bloggers find free photos for use on their blog, you could offer a free version of the software that only searches one database instead of several. Or if you've written an ebook, you might release one chapter for free.

One thing to remember, though, is that the free product must be useful all by itself. You're not releasing a free trial, you're essentially building two products. One which you'll give away and one which you will sell, and they both need to be valuable to your users. Free software that is so limited as to be worthless is not a good candidate for a viral campaign. The same is true for a chapter of an ebook that ends with a question.

Some marketers pull just this sort of trick to "force" customers to upgrade, but very often it will backfire. Customers are savvy, and they dislike being manipulated this way, so don't make the mistake of thinking you'll lose sales by giving away too much information, because the opposite is actually true. You'll gain sales by giving away great stuff. Especially if your great stuff is easy for your users to share among their friends, family, and colleagues.

Share and Share Alike

The second element of a fantastic viral marketing campaign is the ability of your customers to share your product with their peers. Think about the hundreds of email forwards you get in a year. That's because people love to share great stuff. Good marketers know this and take advantage of it by providing their customers with what they want, and then they sit back and watch it spread.

Social Networks Traffic 101

Viral campaigns thrive on the Internet largely because of the social networks that exist. Ten years ago marketers had to rely on telephones and email (maybe) to get the word out about a new product or a great service. You can imagine the results were unpredictable and slow to materialize.

Today, we have dozens – maybe even hundreds – of social networks to use to get our message to the masses. But for some, that means having the opposite problem: where do you start? For an online marketer, the first place to start is with your very own email list. These are the people who already know you, like you, and buy from you. They're your biggest fans, and they're the ones who are most likely to pass your great products on to their family and friends and social network. So make sure you're keeping them informed about the latest products you're developing, any contests you're holding, or any other thing that's going on that they might want to share.

You probably have an account with several of the more popular social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter. But for viral marketing to work in these venues, you have to be hanging out with the right crowd. If you use Facebook primarily for friend and family interaction, trying to launch a viral campaign there is probably not a good move.

The same goes for Twitter and Google Plus. Do you follow those in your niche, or those who are other marketers? If it's the latter, your niche campaign won't have very good results here either. Instead, make an effort to follow those who share your passion for your niche, instead of those who are simply marketing their own online business. Now if your niche is internet marketing, then you should be following other marketers, but that's the only exception. Concentrate on following – and being followed by – those who are in your niche, but who are not necessarily selling in your niche. In other words, you want to be hanging out with the buyers, not the sellers.

For strictly social interaction, Google Plus, Facebook and Twitter are your number one choices. If your target market is other business owners, though – say for example you sell a product aimed at accountants – you need to get on LinkedIn. If you're not familiar with it, LinkedIn is basically a database of business professionals in all areas of expertise. It's similar to Facebook, but without the games and other social activities.

LinkedIn allows you to network with other professionals in your area of expertise, form groups, organize meetings, and develop a vast network of colleagues you can reach out to through private messaging or by posting status updates. You can automate your LinkedIn updates just like you can with Facebook and Twitter, and even link your other social network accounts so everything is up to date. If your product is geared toward professionals, LinkedIn is the social network of choice.

For viral campaigns built around funny videos, great photography, comic strips, or other visual media, StumbleUpon is the social network of choice. A combination of a social application and a bookmarking service, StumbleUpon is where you go when you're looking for new stuff on the Internet. Just click the button on your toolbar, and you'll be transported to the next interesting thing as determined by the choices you made when you signed up. Like animals? StumbleUpon will serve up a random cat video or heartwarming dog story. Into sports? You might land on a video of Tiger Woods hitting a hole in one, or an ad for a new kind of practice ball.

Of course, getting your content to go viral on a social network involves more than just putting it out there and hoping for the best. Later on we'll discuss how you can give your campaign a virtual push to get it started, but for now, just be aware of the options available in the social networking world. Each has its own purpose and followers, so pay attention to where your customers hang out to determine the best social networks for your needs.

Learn To Utilize Your Friends And Their Resources

Leveraging the power of your own network is an important aspect of any successful viral campaign. Chances are some of your friends are marketers just like yourself, and chances are they've got mailing lists, blogs, and Twitter followers in related, complementary niches. These are powerful assets you can use when it comes to launching a viral campaign.

Here's a short list of ways you can leverage the resources of other marketers to get the word out about your new campaign:

• Buy ad space on related blogs

• Guest post on related, but non-competing blogs

• Buy ad space in newsletters or networks in your niche

• Offer affiliate commissions for lead generation

• Make yourself available for interviews about your product or business

Under that you will see a breakdown of the traffic by country. This gives you an idea of the national demographic you may be targeting. You may think all sites are geared towards the US market, but that's not so. Once you understood who is coming to visit your competitors' sites, you will have a better understanding of how to build and market your own sites.

Make It Special

The final element of any viral marketing campaign is its uniqueness. The same old eBook offering the same old, seen-it-everywhere plan for planning a destination wedding isn't likely to go viral. But add a new twist or your unique take on it, and suddenly it has potential.

That doesn't mean you have to invent a new way to train dogs, though. It just means you have to offer a unique view. In other words, be yourself. You'll get a lot further by giving your eBook or video or podcast your own voice than you will with simply rehashing what others have already said many times over.

Another way to add a unique flair to your content is by giving away checklists, printable workbooks, and other user-friendly features that can't be found elsewhere. We'll talk about that some more in the section on creating viral eBooks, but for now just remember that unique and unusual products and marketing campaigns will spread faster and farther than anything else. You can see that all these elements go together like a jigsaw puzzle. Without all of them, the picture is incomplete, and they all rely on each other to work. Without the resources of your friends, your social networking strategy won’t work as well or be as far reaching. Without a good product, your friends and readers won't be likely to share it with others. Without a great distribution network, it won't matter how good your product is, because no one will see it.

Software

Free software lends itself quite naturally to a viral campaign. It fits all the requirements we discussed earlier for successful viral marketing – it's free; it's easily transferable; it's easily scalable; it uses other's resources; and it's unique. Some examples of software that's gone viral include

• Article submission programs or automation programs

• WordPress plugins – and WordPress itself!

• Games (they don't have to be big or elaborate)

• iPhone or Android apps

• Browser add-ons

• Note-taking and organizing applications like Evernote

But before you decide you want to write a software package, you need to consider the special requirements of software. First, it has to work across multiple platforms. Unlike video hosted on YouTube or a pdf file, software has the added problem of so many possible configurations of computers to deal with. Is your end user running Windows XP? Vista? Or even Windows 97? What about the video adapter? You can see that a lot of thought has to go into the development of a large-scale software package, so it's not something to be taken lightly.

The second obstacle to software creation is ongoing support. You can't just throw out a piece of code and let it drift off without a support plan – not even a free piece of code. If you don't have plans to upgrade, fix bugs, and improve your software down the road, you might be better off sticking with eBooks and videos.

That doesn't mean you have to invent a new way to train dogs, though. It just means you have to offer a unique view. In other words, be yourself. You'll get a lot further by giving your eBook or video or podcast your own voice than you will with simply rehashing what others have already said many times over.

What's In It For Me?

With that said, though, software can quickly go viral and build a fantastic revenue stream for you, even if the software itself is free. Here's a few ideas you can use to monetize free software:

• Offer a limited functionality free version, with an upsell to the fully functional paid version. Remember though, the free version must be useful as it stands if you hope to get a viral stampede started.

• Sell ad space in the software itself. Evernote does this well, with one small, unobtrusive ad in the corner.

• Use a link-back strategy to build brand awareness. This is perfect for WordPress plugins. Distributing free software isn't much different than distributing other forms of content. You can host the files on your own server (remember to use caution here if you plan on going viral!), host them on free file sharing sites, upload them to CNET or ZDNET or SourceForge servers, or – in the case of WordPress plugins – distribute them through the WordPress Codex.

The Basics of Going Viral

Can you force a viral stampede? Probably not. But there are things you can do to give your marketing tactics a nudge that might just send them over the edge.

Great content. This cannot be stressed enough. Without this, no matter how much effort you put into your marketing strategy, people are just not going to pass on links or eBooks or newsletters that aren't any good. Make an effort to go the extra mile for your readers, and they'll reward you by bringing in new customers for you.

Before we get into the specific aspects of viral marketing, what it means and how to implement it, let’s spend a little time discussing the concept of traditional marketing, what it is, how to implement it.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

What Is Twitter, And Why Should You Be Interested In It?

Why indeed? Because, after all, isn’t it just another social networking site?

I think it is a little more than that. It IS a way of networking with other people, that much is true, but you could also call it a phenomenon. Sharing knowledge, advice, updates and much more in just 140 characters is a challenge that thousands of new people are taking up every single day. Twitter has hit the headlines more and more in recent times, and revealing just a few of the stories that have been published should give you an idea of just how important this site can be to you.

When the Presidential race was on, both candidates were making good use of Twitter to garner support for their campaigns. Barack Obama is still the most followed person on the whole of Twitter… although he hasn’t been tweeting much since he started running the country. He still has well over 600,000 followers at the last count however.

And celebrities are using the site more and more too – to connect with their fans, promote their careers and much more besides. Some of these have been proved to be fake, but there are plenty of real celebrity Twitterers out there too.

The British comedian, actor and writer Stephen Fry has the second biggest number of followers on the site. He often responds to messages and takes part in conversations as well. American actress Demi Moore proved that Twitter can be much more than just another social networking site by helping to prevent an apparent suicide bid by another user.

You can see how Twitter has pervaded the lives of many different people. You can make a difference with this site, and you can also use it for many different purposes, as we’re about to find out in this book. But the main thing to remember at this stage is that you can reach a huge audience. It may not be anywhere near as big as the one President Obama enjoys, but you can still end up with thousands who will read every tweet you write.

Twitter is not just for the rich and famous – although judging by the number of stories along those lines that have been hitting the headlines recently, you may wonder.

But no matter what line of business you are in; whether you are based primarily online or you have offline interests as well, you CAN benefit from having a free account on Twitter. And this book will show you exactly how you can do it.

We’ll explore everything you need to know during each section. You’ll not only know how Twitter works and how to make the best of it, you’ll also discover how you can make it work for YOU. There are certain points that you will need to bear in mind if you want to build up a huge band of followers instead of just having a few hundred, or even a few dozen. We’ll cover all of these one by one.

We’ll also cover the importance of getting set up in just the right way. Once you know what you are doing on Twitter, you will instantly be able to tell which people haven’t taken the time to get set up properly. You won’t be one of those because you will have read all the tips and techniques I am about to give you.

You’ll soon see that the book is split up into several different sections. These have been designed to be read in that order, so as to get the best out of this book. You need to have a great home page before you start learning all about the tricks of the trade that I have included in Section Four.

So let’s get started and go straight to Section One, so you can get started with the least of delay.

Chapter 2: What To Do Once You've Joined

Okay, so you've gone to https://twitter.com and signed up for your free Twitter account. That is the easy bit, and it should only take a few moments to complete the process.

The first thing you need to think of when you sign up is what username you are going to use. This could depend on how long your own name is, as you only have a limited number of characters to use. Your username will then form part of your own unique home page address, i.e. https://twitter.com/username.

And of course you don’t need to use your own name either. You could use your business name if you wish.

The next step is to go through the five step process I am about to share with you. Now I know you are probably itching to start ‘tweeting’ – the term that is given to sending messages through Twitter – but it is essential that you make sure you get your account sorted out properly first.

As you become more and more familiar with the site, you will be able to spot those people who have jumped in without completing all the steps I am going to show you. And there is one word for what their home pages look like – unprofessional. It can’t be a coincidence that most of these people have either (a) tweeted a few times and then disappeared entirely, or (b) made sure all their messages are of a marketing kind.

There is nothing wrong with marketing on Twitter, but if you are going to heavily promote everything you have to sell, don’t expect to get many followers or much success. You’ll find out why as we go along. Incidentally all of these steps can be done by clicking on the ‘settings’ option at the top of your home page once you are logged in.

So let’s get started with the first step, shall we?

Filling Out Your Bio (Profile)

Twitter is all about brevity. And when you only have 140 characters to use to create each new message, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to find that your bio only consists of one line as well.

But it isn’t much of a problem – provided you write it in the right way. You need to think about it from a certain angle to make sure you have a successful bio that draws people in. In other words, a good bio will get you more followers.

One good method to get ideas for your own bio is to have a look at what some other members have already done. Type a word into the search box – any word will do for the purpose of this example – and take a look at the results you get back. Click on a username and you will be taken into their home page, which will have their bio in the top right hand corner, underneath their little photo.

Which ones really get your attention? The best ones are generally those which describe the person and what they do without going into sales mode. Your bio is not the place for trying to sell people something. It is a place to introduce yourself, and nothing more.

You will no doubt also notice that some people don’t bother to fill in their bios at all. This is a BIG no no. If your bio is not filled in, people only really have your tweets to go on to decide whether you will be worth following or not. And if they aren’t interested in the latest few they read, you could easily lose a potential follower there.

So how do you write a great one line bio?

The trick is to think about what you do, and what you are on Twitter for. And above all, think in keywords. Remember that you haven’t got much room to make an impression. Let’s suppose you started off like this:

“Hi I am Dave and I’m from Texas in the US. I love internet marketing and...”

And at that point you probably have very few other characters left to make anything out of. More than half of the words in that piece are superfluous – ‘am’, ‘and’ and ‘from’, for example. It’s not essential to tell everyone your name as your username will appear in the top right hand corner of the page anyway. And the same goes for your location, which you should fill in separately on your profile.

So let’s go back to keywords. Remember that your Twitter home page can show up on Google’s search pages, so you want to think about what pages you want to appear on. Twitter’s own search facility can help people find you as well, so be sure to include all the relevant words you can.

The trick here is to get a balance between writing a proper sentence, and simply putting a string of keywords down. So an internet marketer who writes their own series of eBooks - as well as doing some affiliate marketing on the side – might come up with something like this:

“Internet and affiliate marketer; writer and promoter of eBooks.”

You could go a bit longer than that, but for the purpose of the example do you see how effective a short phrase like that can be? It isn’t a proper sentence as such, but it is packed with keywords and it manages to tell people 4 things that the person does.

So take time over your bio – it is a very important part of your home page. You’ll be able to fill it in using the account tab in your settings.

Why You Shouldn't Protect Your Updates

I just want to mention this because if you are going to use Twitter to help promote your business, you shouldn’t protect your updates.

An update is basically a message that you post to your home page. If you protect it (which can be done by ticking the appropriate box on your profile page), it means no one who visits your home page will be able to see your updates... unless you accept them as a follower.

So basically they have to send you a message asking if they can see them, and if you say yes, they will be able to. What a crazy way of doing things! This is really only suitable for people who want to Twitter with friends and family. It’s great under those circumstances, but it’s not so good if you are trying to use Twitter to enhance your business and promotional efforts. The other point to bear in mind is that if they can’t see what you are tweeting about, all they have to go on is your one line bio. That’s pretty much it. You are preventing people from seeing your tweets if they look up tweets on a certain subject as well, so you won’t get anywhere near as many followers by doing this.