This blog is developed by Ron Passfield, PhD, affiliate marketing coach, who is helping affiliate marketers and small businesses develop their affiliate business through social media marketing. This blog offers free resources for affiliate marketing, small business marketing and social media marketing - articles, e-books, reviews of affiliate programs and evaluation of affiliate marketing strategies. Learn about social media, blogging and building your blog traffic.
Nicholas Christakis: The hidden influence of social networks
Social networks shape our thinking, our lives and our actions.
They are arenas of influence. Nicholas Christakis in this video
presentation shows how social networks can explain the growth
of philanthropy, obesity and drug use.
His visual presentation of the forming and re-forming of a
social network over 15 years is stimulating and enlightening
It will change your perspective of social networks and
their power for creating good in the world.
Nicholas maintains that social networking is embedded
in our genes and that one only has to look at our offline
social networks to confirm this.
The question for us as business owners and online
marketers is. "How are we going to use these arenas
of influence?" Will the world be a better place as a result
of our actions on Facebook, Twitter, Squidoo, RedGage
and other social networking sites?
I am writing this post from my evacuation location
following flooding in Brisbane.
The Brisbane River broke its banks two days ago and
now thousands of homes are flooded and the river has
entered the CBD of Brisbane, Queensland's capital.
The CBD and 115,000 people are without power as a result
of the need to cut power to flooded areas.
Boats and pontoons have been racing wildly down the river,
totally out of control.
Queensland Police kept people informed via Facebook and
the Twitter#qldfloods messages kept information
flowing from people being affected by the floods. The tweets
also provided safety information and were running
at a couple of hundred tweets per minute. Queensland Police
also monitored the Twitter posts and were very quick to
make tweets to correct myths or rumours that were passing
on inaccurate information.
Current indications are that 11,900 homes had water througout
the entire property and 14,700 were partially affected by the
Brisbane floods. 2,500 businesses were flooded over the entire
property while 2,500 were partially flooded.
While the flood level in Brisbane ended up 1 metre lower
that of the 1974 floods, the damage is still devasting
as the population is twice that of 1974 and there has been
a lot of riverside development since.
Many homes have the flood water at roof levels and people in
the upper reaches of the river experienced flood levels greater
than the 1974 floods.
The flood in Brisbane is mirrored throughout the whole State
as 75% of Queensland is under water (Queensland is 6 times the
size of the UK). The city of Ipswich is 30% under water with
homes and buildings destroyed.
Some of the more devastating floods are out West in towns like
Chinchilla, Dalby and Condamine which have been totally evacuated
twice in ten days. Cities in the north like Marborough, Bundaberg
and Rockhampton have also had thousands of people evacuated.
The most dramatic, frighteneing and emotionally disturbing floods
occurred on the range above Brisbane at Toowoomba and the foothill
towns of Grantham, Helidon and Withcott.
People were walking down the main street of the major city of
Toowoomba when a 7 metre walk of water raced through the CBD
drowning some people, throwing cars and containers around like
corks and leaving cars piled up on top of each other.
The 7 metre wall of water then raced down the range gathering
speed and smashed into a number of country towns such as Grantham.
The devastation at Grantham is beyond belief. It has been totally
razed as if a bomb blast hit it. One house with a faimily of three
in it was lifted off its stumps and smashed into splinters with
no visible evidence of the house remaining.
12 people are now confirmed dead and 43 missing.
Hundreds of people have been saved from the fast running
flood waters via Army and SES helicopters, some
plucked from the roofs of cars and houses.
Brisbane and surrounding areas are now in shock and face
a huge cleanup and rebuilding task - with much of the
infrastructure destroyed (roads, bridges, water treatment
plants, etc.).
Thanks to wonderful support from NZ and interstate
and the Defence Forces. The Queensland Police and
State Emergency Services (SES)were courageous and
amazing. Community volunteering and collaboration
has been outstanding.
As the Premier said, "This flood may break our hearts
but will not break our will!"
One way to start a Twitter conversation about a particular topic or
niche, is to set up a TweetChat.
You can use this strategy to bring together your downline, membership
subscribers or members of your mailing list. Alternatively, you can
create a tweetchat for a wider audience, including those who are
not currently following you on Twitter.
One of the easiest ways to create such a conversation is to use the
free TweetChat program.
Once you decide to hold a tweetchat, it's a simple matter of following
a couple of steps:
1. Create a conversation (or tweet room) by deciding the title of the
chat and placing a hashtag (#) in front of the chat title,
e.g. #socialmedia.
2. Announce the time and title of the tweetchat (to your subscribers
and/or more broadly on Twitter and other social media) - and provide
instructions where necessary.
3. At the designated time, log into TweetChat.com by using your
Twitter username and password and agreeing to allow access to
your Twitter account
4. Enter the chat title (room name), e.g. #socialmedia, and begin the
chat (employing Twitter's 140 character limit minus the room title).
5. People who want to join the conversation follow steps 3 & 4.
TweetChat effectively creates a discussion room, quaranteeing the
conversation. Each tweet automatically gets the hastag added
and the room updates automatically.
Various user controls allow you to block spammers (or people you
don't like) and to prevent the conversation refreshing as you scroll
(so you can keep track of who you want to respond to).
Tweets directed to you and your own tweets as part of the
conversation show up in your Twitter stream on conclusion of
the chat.
I recently joined a tweetchat with Ann Sieg, Renegade Network Marketer, which was announced to all participants and affiliates
of this program.
This particular chat was more of a getting-to-know-you chat
than a focused chat. However, it was possible to create
connections and link to people you knew from other networks
such as Squidoo.
You can focus the conversation on a specific topic and develop
your profile as an expert in the area.
TweetChat is another way of creating connections and sharing
progress, resources and tactics.
*********************************************
Ron Passfield, PhD, is a Social Media Consultant, Top 100 Squidoo
Lensmaster and Giant Squid100.
He is the Creator of the SquidooRoo Training Progam, a 6 month
course in social media marketing: Social Media Training Program
SquidooRoo is a 6 month training program in social media marketing.
The SquidooRoo Program covers content creation, social networking
and promotion including social bookmarking.
Weekly lessons in PDF format are provided over 24 weeks and each
week's lesson includes bonuses designed to help you take action.
Lessons on content creation in SquidooRoo include aspects such as
article marketing, podcasts, video marketing and designing Squidoo
lenses (advanced strategies).
The social networking lessons include social networks such as
Facebook, Twitter, Redgage and Posterous.
SquidooRoo is in pre-launch phase at the moment and is available at
50% discount for the first 50 subscribers. The price will double
when this target is reached.
*********************************************
Ron Passfield is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and
Giant Squid100. He provides free resources
for Squidoo marketing on his Squidoo authority
site: http://www.squidoo.com/squidoomarketingstrategies
1. I wanted to maintain control over the number of people I follow.
2. I didn't want to be distracted from what else I was doing with article marketing, Squidoo and blogging.
3. I did not want to spend a lot of time installing a new system.
My objections re the first point have vanished. I originally just wanted to follow people I knew who would add value to what I am doing. However, I soon learned the richness of having a wider group to follow. I have learned so much and connected with so many more amazing people.
I also learned that far from distracting me, the Twitter Traffic Machine has enabled me to leverage my other activities and expose my blogging, article writing and Squidoo lens creation to 10 times the number I could before.
The set-up of the Twitter Traffic Machine involves a number of simple steps, mainly registering with various tools and using the checklist provided to integrate them. However, it's a set-and-forget system where you continuously reap the benefits. Every day you receive multiple new followers.
The system has an inbuilt viral affiliate program which so far has enabled me to earn three times what I paid for the Twitter Traffic Machine.
From my experience, one of the secrets of success in using the system is to be focused about what keywords you want to keep abreast of. I have focused on Squidoo and affiliate marketing.
Ron Passfield, PhD, is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and Giant Squid. He provides free resources for Squidoo affiliate marketing on his Squidoo authority site:
Installation was easy with both video and PDF guidance provided.
The viral traffic system uses free web-based software to create a steady flow of new, targeted Twitter followers.
In the last three days I have gained an additional 300 followers.
I could have grown my Twitter following a lot more with the Twitter Traffic Machine but I wanted to limit my followers to selected people (using specific tags). I could have used broader terms to get more followers but the advantage of this system is that you can make your recruiting very targeted. This way you only get followers who are interested in the areas that you want to write and share about.
Now my Twitter follower numbers increase with each hour of the day.
This gives me a much larger target audience to share with. It has enabled me to leverage my blogging and article writing.
I can tap more easily into relevant Twitter conversations because I have a wider range of contributors to the themes that I am interested in.
The Twitter Traffic Machine has also enriched my experience of Twitter. For example, I came across these two sites and joined the relevant groups:
See what Twitter Traffic Machine can do for you, CLICK HERE.
********************************************** Ron Passfield is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and Giant Squid. He provides free resources for Squidoo affiliate marketing on his Squidoo authority site:
1. the very reasonable price 2. the ability to build targeted Twitter followers (not random followers as with some other programs) 3. the capacity to leverage what I already do (blogging, building and updating Squidoo lenses and article marketing).
I think this last point was the real selling point for me. One hour of time invested in setting the system up paid immediate dividends with the first wave of new Twitter followers...and this recruiting will be ongoing without any intervention on my part.
What I like is the ability to focus (and re-focus) my follower recruitment.
I've had to change my original stance of limiting the number of people I follow. However, this has given me a richer store of tweets to view. (I also discovered belatedly that I can view earlier tweets by just pressing "more" - so I can access the posts of my favorite people).
The Twitter Traffic Machine is certainly a way to build your profile and Twitter following on auto-pilot.
P.S. Twitter Traffic Machine has a great affiliate program that is viral in nature and pays 50%.
********************************************** Ron Passfield is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and Giant Squid. He provides free resources for Squidoo affiliate marketing on his Squidoo authority site:
Well Twitter has a Google PR9 ranking and is growing like crazy (a growth of 7oo% since February 2008 - now 10,000,000 users).
Tweeting about your articles on Twitter can give you these benefits:
widen your audience for your article
provide a high quality backlink to the article
bring new followers to your Twitter account
encourage people to subscribe to your articles RSS feed
To ensure that you get the whole article title into your tweet, use Tinyurl.com to create a shorter URL (usually article URLs are very long and may take up your whole 140 characters of your tweet!). e.g. my article on affiliate marketing for stay at home mums: http://tinyurl.com/ckx3f7
For more information on how to earn cash with Twitter marketing, visit: Twitter Traffic Exposed.
********************************************** Ron Passfield is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and Giant Squid. He provides free resources for Squidoo affiliate marketing on his Squidoo lens:
Well I've just started to use the program Twitter.com with good effect.
When I first heard of "Twitter", I thought this was some lightweight social networking site.
"Twitter" is a social networking site with a simple concept that now carries a lot of pulling power (PR7). Your messages are restricted to a quick burst of 140 characters and these messages can be seen by your followers (or the whole community if you so choose).
Your followers are your special group that you can communicate with in a direct way.
I started to sit up and take notice of Twitter when I began to get invites from top affiliate marketers to "follow them on Twitter".
To "follow", you just click on the follow button below the name of the person whose Twitter site you have visited.
Why not follow me - just click on the link above and join Twitter if you have not already done so. Then click the FOLLOW button under my name on the above site.
I got a shock yesterday - three top internet marketers have started to follow my "twitters" and I am not yet following theirs.
Here's some great advantages of Twitter:
1. you can add the Twitter widget to your blog - see the right column on this blog
2. Squidoo now has a Twitter module that you can add to your lens.
In both these cases, you are able to display your "twitters" as an RSS feed - leading to constant updating of your blog and/or Squidoo lens.
Another great benefit of Twitter is that the URLs you mention in your 140 character message are automatically hyperlinked!
You need to use Twitter.com sensibly. If you post a lot of useless information or spam, people will stop following you and will no longer get your messages.
Twitter is designed to be a rapid, short messaging system to let people know what you are up to (similar to the "what I am doing now" facility on Facebook).
Do not expect everyone that you follow to follow you in turn ... and do not follow too many people or you will lose focus.
You can even twitter from your cell phone and Twitter interfaces with Facebook and other social networking sites.
It is a great way to learn what the "experts" are up to and to get to know something about them personally.
Check out the right-hand column of this blog for my latest "tweets" and you will begin to see the potential of this social networking site.
*************************************************** Ron Passfield is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and provides free resources for Squidoo affiliate marketing on his Squidoo lens: http://www.squidoo.com/squidoomarketingstrategies
Ron has been involved in Internet marketing and small business marketing since 2005. He is recognized as an expert in Web 2.0 traffic strategies being a Giant Squid100, Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and creator of the SquidooRoo social media training program. Ron is a Co-Founder of Wizzley, a Writer's community.
Ron's blog for his offline business is Human Resource Consultancy.
Posts
