Glowleaf

Using social media is a one-way street in today’s internet. What used to be a passing fad 2 years ago is now a serious marketing platform.

It depends on your site/product/service of course, but social media can push serious traffic towards you.

Facebook.

By hitting the 300 million milestone, Facebook is now a huge platform. Have you ever dreamt as a marketer “what if I could reach out a whole country? That would be awesome.”

Well, now you can. Facebook has the biggest userbase in the world. What used to be a fad, is now a must. The smart thing that facebook did was the notifications. A friend of yours signs up on Facebook? You get notified, because it parsed his email list. Someone added you as a friend? You get emailed. Someone tagged you on a photograph? The same. Someone replied on that comment on a photograph? Spam, spam spam. And the funny thing is, that it is never treated as spam. Facebook just lets you know that other people are doing stuff on your account. And since those people are your friends, you never get offended if they keep spamming you with sheep and mafia guns. Facebook is just the messenger.

Twitter.

Twitter must be the biggest fad of them all. Many have fought it and then fell in love with it. Even I did. In fact, it is so great, that its traffic must be the most valuable of them all. Twitter traffic comments on your posts, subscribes on your RSS and email list, blogs about you, retweets your tweets etc. You might not be able to directly sell something on twitter, but you are bound to get some exposure. And if your promo is worth it, that exposure will convert indirectly.

I think that twitter nailed it with the 140 word limit. People get spammed all day, every day, around the world. Ads, radio, phone calls, SMS, emails, billboards, leaflets, a whole blizzard of little spammy messages are fighting each other for your attention. And researches show that the average attention span of a person has been reduced significantly the last few years. Twitter fits that lifestyle perfectly. The way I see it, it is even better than RSS feeds. I used to go through my subscribed RSS blogs every few days, and had to read to whole posts etc. Now, I just have a twitter account, follow those people who interest me, and receive manageable chunks of info from them every day. It is a mashup of little shouts, and they stay non-intrusive because I chose to receive them!

Myspace.

Don’t neglect Myspace. Yea, its old. Yea, it sucks. But there are a lot of people on it. And the best part is, a lot of stupid people. People to whom you can sell stuff.

Ok then, how can we leverage these 3 social sites easily and effectively?

There is a little piece of software that does all that. It is called tweetdeck, and it rocks. It started out as a more useful GUI for multiple twitter accounts, but the newest version bridges Myspace and Facebook as well. I believe it is a marketer’s wet dream.

Once you set it up, you can manage each of your site’s social exposure on 3 social networks from the same interface. Lets say you have your personal blog, so you make accounts for it at Myspace, Facebook and twitter. You pass everything into tweetdeck, and voila, you can post and manage them from one location. Want to promote your service? 3 more accounts, set them up in Tweetdeck, and you can go back and forth between them all day inside tweetdeck.

Of course, setting up the accounts is an important step. Different social sites need different approaches to succeed in getting lots of victi… cough, sorry, friends.

Honestly, for Myspace I have no idea what to do to make an account popular. Google it, someone will know.

For facebook, I found this useful article on Mashable amongst the enormous pile of crap on that domain.

For twitter, a lot has been said, but it is all bloated bullshit. What you need to know is this: link periodically to interesting stuff in your niche. That is all, honestly. Either do it manually or automate it. An easy way to do this is to fire up tweetdeck (I told you it rocks!) and open a search tab. As a keyword put something in your niche, for example #php or #wordpress or #lol. Spend exactly 40 seconds every day, check that tab on tweetdeck, and retweet something that looks even remotely interesting, you don’t even have to click the bit.ly

Of course it is not as easy as it sounds. Creating a following through social media takes time, and there is no secret recipe for it. What is certain is that it does help your site, and it does help get exposure.

Now, what should you promote? Not everything works when you promote to the social crowd. Think about building/promoting:

• Viral content
• Video
• Interaction/Flash promo
• Polls
• Contests
• Interesting articles

How can you twist the above into sales? Well, that is for you to find out! It is different for every product, but there is always an angle of approach you can take to twist linkbait/socialbait into buying.  Use your imagination, and keep an eye open for what other marketers are doing on the same platforms.

Signup on my mailing list if you want juicier stuff than this.

Popularity: 3% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: facebook, myspace, social media, tweetdeck, twitter

These are the current (as in, taken today) stats of the site I made with this methodology. All the traffic is organic, as in from search engine or incoming links. The site ranks for many of the keywords.

I am certain most people took my post with the step by step guide humorously, but it is not. It is a real methodology, and it works. I am also certain people will say the stats are fake. I don’t care.

Read it again, and just fucking do it.

Popularity: 5% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: pnp network, site in a box

There is a stupidly easy way to push your pages on twitter.

First of all, you will need to find a site that has some authority, but has no twitter presence. It sounds rare, but there are actually sites like that.

Create a twitter account for that site, as if it were your own, but do not claim that it is. In other words, use the same colors, the background, put the host’s url etc.

Now, go to twitterfeed and add your parasite. Add the host’s rss feeds to the loop, and also add your injection rss.

Do your usual twitter cycle for followers. If you don’t know how, here is a tool that rocks. Focus on getting followers in the host’s niche. As soon as you get to 500+ followers, start posting your links in the injection RSS feed (I suggest you use a new wordpress installation for that). It depends on the niche and your chosen host, but you can either promote your posts, niche offers, niche products or plain dating ads.

See? Easy peasy.

Popularity: 5% [?]

written by Glowleaf

I dont have a site, what do I do?

Make one.

How? Oh, maybe I should try a blogspot site!

Oh, forget it. Just grab one from here, they have an automated standalone site that pulls the xml feeds. It is basically a site in a zip file. Just add water. Once you are logged in the affiliate program, go here.

I can’t see their affiliate program!

They are always at the bottom of the page, under the “Affiliates” link. Jesus!

Ok. But how do I upload it?

Get an ftp program, I have one here.

And what should I call the site? Do I buy a dashed domain or not? The XYZ blogger-self-proclaimed-seo-IM-mogul says I should not.

Fuck him. All you need is some keywords in your domain. Puzzle-gamesdownloads, freeactiongames, girlygames-downloads, something like that. Don’t bother with it too much. Try to snatch a .com, if you are lucky enough to find one.

Ok. I got a domain. How do I point it to my hosting?

Google it.

(26 secs later) I can’t find how… Oh. There it is. Ok, done. My site is uploaded. Now what?

Install it.

How.

Read its fucking manual.

But I can’t find how… Oh. There it is. Ok, done. Now what?

Now you need visitors and incoming links. Go make them.

The ZYX blogger said that I should comment on blogs to get traffic. I will go try that out!

Oh, FFS. Stop. Just stop. No, don’t do that. Go make accounts at reddit, stumble, digg and delicious. Social bookmark some of your site’s pages for a couple of links.

Ok…

Then read my post, and do the same. Use robosoft to submit your site to software directories. Make sure you make your game status free, you will lose a lot of links if you dont.

I am not sure I can pull this off.

TRY.

(12 hours later) Ok, I managed to complete the submission. I think I need more links, YZX blogger said that I should reciprocate links with other gamesites. I will go do that now.

NO. STOP! Oh my GAWD, stop. Listen. Go to tnx, signup at their system. Put some credits in your account, 20$ are fine at first. Go make a new campaign, choose your niches, games, entertainment, humor etc. Write your link, make sure you choose a good keyword anchor, like “puzzle games to download”.

So I will be paying like 20$ per month for this?

Yes. But the site should return ten times that if you do it right.

This interface is clunky. I can’t figure it out.

TRY.

(30 minutes later) Ok, I did it. Now what do I do?

Nothing. You are done.

What do you mean I am done? It can’t be that easy.

Yes it can.

Really?

Really. Go tinker with something else.

Seriously?

…

Hello? Hello? Are you there? Hello?

Popularity: 7% [?]

written by Glowleaf

I mentioned the four X’es. Why do they matter so much? Because they are how you win a strategy game. Strategy games are simulations of war. Business is a civilized war.

So, lets talk about the first step, Explore.

Exploring means pushing back the fog of war. Means knowing, means learning, means hearing. On war, to explore would mean to send scouts, to know the lay of the land, to know any potential resources, fortified locations, camps of the enemy, quantity of troops etc etc. Whenever the enemy moves, you need to know about it. Whatever upgrades or special troops he has, you need to know about them. Whatever access to resources he gets, you need to know about it.

On big corporations, this step is taken very seriously. Yes, it is called industrial espionage. Now, on your small one man business, you cannot afford to hire professional spies. It would be silly, and an overkill. But the concept remains.

You need to know.

Knowing, means you need to read any news in your niche. You need to personally get familiar with some key people, in order to learn stuff before they hit the news. You need to know about the new tools, the new services, and the new competitors.

Of course, you also need to know everything about your current competitors.

And by everything, I mean everything. Become an e-stalker. What domains does he own, what kind of education does he have? How much money does he have available to throw into his business? Is he backed up by venture capitals, or is he alone? What other assets can he utilize to respond to your moves?

This is a very important step, because through the information you get now, you will weigh the importance of the competitor. You will assign a rank at him, and judge whether or not he is a threat.

Next come historical data. Those, you either collect by another source, or you create them yourself. The historical data instantly (at least in me) show a pattern (if you can’t make use of them, show them to an analyst). You can see whether that particular competitor is smart, stupid, following a long term strategy, or acting on a whim. How did he react to that problem a year ago? How did it work out for him? Was his reaction fast? What is too late? Did he simply pour money into the problem and solved it?

Of course, all of the above are a full time job by themselves. That means, you need to cut down on the crap info. You need to focus on your strong competitors, and in order to point them out, you need to know some stuff about them first. Yes, this step is inevitable.

And now, in order to get out of the theoretical stuff, lets talk about realistic solutions to this. What can you really do to explore?

• You can reverse lookup your competitor. I will not get into details, it is an art by itself. If you cannot do it, hire someone who can. It is basically private investigation online. Online assets, online profiles, online accounts, emails, whatever he does. This step, if done right, will give a ton of data to dig.
• Next comes the way back engine. It is an amazing tool to see the progress of some sites. Check out his sites over time. See the changes, the updates, the improvements, the growth.
• If you run ppc, use a keyword spy tool, like keyword spy (!) or ppc bully. Those are a non stop, automatic spy on your competition. Cross referencing the data with the ones obtained through other means will give you a very good picture of the “battlefield”.
• Use seobook’s rank checker, seoquake and spydermate to study his sites. Is he a good SEO? Does he have a weakness to exploit? Does he practice SEO full-time? (If your reply is, “how the fuck should I know?” then go read a comic book, kiddo.)
• Follow his affiliate links, and find out which offers he promotes heavily. Join the networks, some of them have a public table of the progress each affiliate has. 
• Social engineering. You can learn practically anything you want.

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Popularity: 50% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: explore, fog of war