Social Media Mistakes: Are You Forgetting Your Fundamentals?
It’s interesting as a marketer to watch how the Internet has changed over the last ten years, especially what has changed for solo entrepreneurs and small business owners.
When I started investigating how to make money online in the late nineties, most strategies were e-commerce focused, or built specifically to take advantage of the dot-com bubble.
You either set up a website to sell something physical like Amazon.com did for books, or you set up some kind of service and focused solely on user-acquisition, since most entrepreneurs were more interested in growing fast rather than making profits. The logic being you could figure out a way to make money after you built a huge user-base, but you usually get bought out way before that happens, so you exit rich, even if the company doesn’t make a dime.
I was keen to cash in on the dot-com bubble myself, though being in Brisbane Australia, not exactly a hot-bed for Internet start-ups at the time, it wasn’t easy.
I remember calling a mastermind meeting at my friend’s house to discuss opportunities. We had some good ideas, and some bad ones, but nothing really cemented together. My friends went off and started or continued their careers, while I went back to fiddling around with different web projects in my spare time.
Back then there was no blogging, or social media, or even Google. AdSense and Adwords didn’t exist yet, and affiliate programs were only just becoming readily available in different niches.
That’s why so many people had to focus on selling physical items using online stores. You could make money with advertising or information publishing, but most people didn’t have a clue how to do it. There weren’t courses or all the free information we have about these subjects today to help guide you. You had to figure it out yourself.
Fundamentals Stay The Same
As I’ve watched things change over the previous years I’ve noticed a few key fundamentals that haven’t change, namely –
Is Twitter A Time Waster Or A Powerful Business Tool?
It’s pretty clear that Twitter is the social media star of 2009, at least so far.
In case you haven’t got an account yet, make sure you go to Twitter.com and register for free. After you have your account, you can begin by following my updates –
I won’t go into the details about how Twitter works because Gideon Shalwick (@gideonshalwick) has a video coming out about that soon to teach the basics.
Twitter is essentially a micro-blogging tool where you are restricted to 140 character posts, which are meant to be updates from your life. It’s also a fantastic inter-communication tool, which I will explain more about in a moment.
Twitter can definitely be used as an effective business tool, but it can be abused as a time waster as well. You need to find a balance, so let me explain how I recommend Twitter is best used.
It’s Darren’s Fault
I’ve been a member of Twitter since Darren Rowse (@problogger) bugged me about joining. Darren has since gone on to become a super Twitter fan, starting a blog about it (Twitip.com) and becoming the number one Twitter user in Australia with some 30,000+ followers. Beware Darren when he becomes passionate about something!
I joined up after Darren’s recommendation and started exploring the service. At first you have to get your head around how the system works, how you can send direct replies @ certain people, what a direct message is and how it differs from a reply and all the other tips and tricks.
I used a desktop program called Twhirl, which sort of functions like an instant messaging client plugged into Twitter and other similar services.
Twhirl was good, but as I found out recently, Tweetdeck is better. This desktop client is, and I quote “An application that aims to evolve existing functionality of Twitter by breaking down Twitter feeds into more manageable bite sized pieces”. Simply put, you have to use Tweetdeck as it makes Twitter much easier to manage.
Chronicling My Travels
I first signed up to Twitter while on the second half of my travels overseas in 2008, so much of my early Twitter notifications were either Internet marketing related, or “I just landed in Rome” type messages. It proved an effective way to use Twitter as people told me they enjoyed my status updates about where I was in the world.
It was during this time that Twitter become more prominent in Internet marketing circles. Suddenly all the big players where emailing their lists trying to boost their Twitter followings. John Reese (@johnreese) quickly built his following passed 10,000 people after mailing his subscribers. Frank Kern (@masscontrolkern), Mike Filsaime (@mikefilsaime), Eben Pagan (@ebenpagan), Jeff Walker (@jeffwalker), Rich Schefren (@richschefren), and prominent bloggers, Brian Clark (@copyblogger), John Chow (@johnchow), are among many others who all have active accounts on Twitter from my industry.
Even celebrities are using Twitter. There’s Brent Spiner (@brentspiner), Wil Weaton (@wilw – a massive 50,000+ followers) and Levar Burton (@levarburton) from Star Trek (well I think Star Trek actors are celebrities anyway!), Kevin Rudd (@kevinruddpm) and Malcolm Turnbull (@turnbullmalcolm) from Australian politics and of course the most popular Twitter user of all time, Barack Obama (@barackobama), with over 230,000 followers at the time of writing.
This is only a small sample of the people using Twitter, with of course your normal every day Internet user being the most widely represented group on Twitter, although I believe it’s fair to say “tweeting” (to send messages on Twitter) is definitely NOT a mainstream activity.
It’s A Lot Like Email List Building
Yes I Am On Twitter
You can follow me on Twitter here – http://twitter.com/yarostarak
Did you notice the tipping point? Twitter hit the tip somewhere in the last few months and it’s clearly gaining serious critical mass.
I’ve had a Twitter account for many months but largely ignored it because social media is such an attention suck and I already spend too long in front of the computer as it is. I’ve successfully ignored Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and I thought I’d do the same with Twitter, but alas, sometimes you can’t let things pass or you may miss out on opportunities.
I like to focus on one thing and become really good at it – in this case blogging and running my business – but you don’t want to get left behind either, and since Twitter isn’t too labor intensive to manage (compared to Facebook or MySpace), I’ve decided to bend to the will of the people and get active tweeting.
Twitter looks like a lot of fun and since it’s really like blogging but without massive wordcounts, it should be easy enough to maintain.
How Many Signs Do You Need Before You Take Action?
There have been a few signs lately that prompted the decision to become an active Twitterererer, for example…
