If You Could Message 1 Million People What Would You Say?

One Million Followers On Twitter

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This week on Twitter Ashton Kutcher reached 1 million followers in a dramatic race to beat CNN to this milestoneOprah Winfrey also started tweeting and in her first day amassed over 200,000 followers.

In this article I want to explore the power of influence and ask a question that on the surface seems quite  simple but when you look closer it reflects something deeper and more intriguing.  Your answers can show you your deeper motivations and  reflect  what  you are likely to give and receive from the  world

Imagine if you had the chance to send a message to 1 million people what would you say.Would you be self serving or would you use your message to benefit others

Inspired To Greatness

If I had the ability to message 1 million people I would probably send them a link to something inspirational or to something that would shift their perspective for a few moments,  I would make sure that whatever blog post or video I  sent them to had a way for them to send that same message out to all their friends and I would show people how they could send their own similar message to the world that had the potential to go  viral

The benefit of sharing something valuable and inspiring  rather than asking for something for yourself is that the good feelings that people generate will be associated with your name for  a long time into the future. If you ask for a handout or go begging for clicks like so many people seem to do on Twitter you are just acting in a self serving way. The reason Oprah Winfrey got so huge is because she is authentic and genuine and committed to helping people and serving her community,  people all over the world love her for these very reasons

Judging A Book By Its cover

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY[/youtube]

This is one of those inspirational videos that came to me in the past week, I watched it several times because it reminded me that anyone, no matter who they are or what they look like has the potential to touch the hearts of millions of people around the globe. Susan Boyle has now become the most viral video on the internet with over 40 million views.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf All The Time

On Twitter if you shout into cyberspace  with a self serving attitude some people will certainly hear you and respond. If you continue to shout all the time demanding attention, your response rate will decline and your message will be ignored just like the boy who cried wolf. You can fool people once but you can’t fool people on a long term basis.

Attention Is An Earned Privilege

Only  by building a Twitter following and adding value to your network will you earn the privilege of your followers attention. If everyone else is shouting  how can you cut through the noise. Even if you have  the right tools, you still need loyal followers who will share your message even further

Getting Your Message Out To The World

If you had 1 million Twitter followers and you could send a message to  the world what would you say ? How would you use that power of communication?

Would it be self serving or would it be a message of hope, inspiration and joy? I would love to hear your comments,  send me an @ message  on twitter @iandavidchapman or leave a comment on this blog post or on my Facebook note

Please Share Some of Your  Inspiration

Feel free to share some links to your favorite inspirational  YouTube videos and blog posts  lets make this blog post a cool resource

If you enjoyed this article and want to tweet it to your friends click  on the image below

retweetthis

Facebook-Twitter Syndication – Are You Over Exposed And Getting Ignored?

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Automating Your Status

Are you one of those people who has migrated to twitter after being active on Facebook? If you are then there is a strong possibility that you have automated your Twitter account to update your Facebook profile.

Before the recent Facebook changes this was a powerful strategy to use, It gave you an active presence on two social media platforms. In the old Facebook design the newsfeed was filtered and your status updates were kept in a separate tabs and were visible to those who were looking for them

A Change In Strategy Is Needed

The new site design means that the rules have fundamentally changed. I want to highlight the dangers for those twitter users who are either high volume tweeters or who are using RSS feeds or automated services  to populate their twitter stream and syndicate it to Facebook

Twitter Syndication

I have many friends who now spend all their time on Twitter and send  their twitter feed direct to their Facebook Profile.   In the old Facebook design the newsfeed was filtered and your status updates were kept in a separate tab. Now everything is merged and shared in real time to everyone in your network

Has Facebook  Given You Total Control?

By using friend lists to filter your feed you can tailor your news  quite precisely. The newsfeed is both personal and public.  Your status updates and Facebook activties are broadcast to your whole network

The danger comes when you overexpose yourself. By this I mean publishing too many updates so you dominate the real estate on your friends profiles.

Overwhelmed By Links

A few days ago I was observing this phenomenon from several people in my network. My page was overwhelmed by the sheer number of links they were posting. I realized that they probably didn’t even know this was occurring; It looked like they had set their accounts  to run on autopilot.

shooting-yourself-in-the-foot

Are You Shooting Yourself In The Foot?

This is almost certainly  damaging to their reputation.  Personally I would hate to be thought of as a  spammer, it’s frightening to think that such a simple change in design can have such huge immplications

What is even more relevant is that Facebook now gives every user the option to hide someone who become annoying. They make it very easy. One click and you are gone, banished to the little box at the bottom of the newsfeed

unhidefriends

The people I observed are all social media marketers. Their business depends on people listening to their messages. If the message is not getting through because they have alienated their audience then they are effectively shooting themselves in the foot. They are burning out their friends much the same way email marketers can burn out their lists by constant messaging.

Possible Solutions

I would like to offer a few suggestions to this situation and urge you to rethink your strategy if you find that you are seeing yourself in the mirror.

Ask yourself  how your status updates  will look from your friends perspectives, do you really want to look like an automated robot?

Take a few minutes to examine your own Facebook newsfeed; Can you see other friends making this same mistake?

If you overexpose yourself people will hide you from their newsfeed and you will never even know

How can you strike a delicate balance between keeping visible and annoying people?

If you are syndicating your status updates from Twitter to Facebook consider using Twirl and PingFM, you can carefully select which tweets to send to your Facebook Status and then turn syndication on and off as needed.

twirl

A River Or A Flood

With great power comes great responsibility. Facebook and Twitter are not the same and while on Twitter your tweets might be flowing into a great river of mass communication , over on Facebook you a sending them down lots of narrow pipes and some people don’t like to get their houses flooded.

There are obviosusly some people who this doesn’t apply to, some high volume tweeters send a constant stream of gold. Even If they  get to be too imposing on your newsfeed you can always bunch a few together in their own special list.

Feedback and Discussion

I would love to hear your feedback on this issue. I have Facebook Connect installed so if you are reading this on my blog you can sign in  and leave a comment,  it will automatically post a link to your profile so  your friends can read this article too.

If you are reading this on Facebook let me know what your experience has been. A change in design will always take some adjusting to and only through discussion can we define possible solutions and best practices.

Ian David Chapman

http://www.iandavidchapman.com

TWITTER HOW-TO TIP #75 Blow-by-blow Event or Meeting Twittering

NOTE: This Twitter How-to Tip is an authorized part of the “Twittin’ Secrets” Series: 100 World’s Greatest Twitter Tips and Twitter Secrets by Internet and Twitter Strategist, Dan Hollings.

TWITTER HOW-TO TIP #75

Blow-by-blow event or meeting Twittering (out to your followers) can be a great way to generate higher readership during a specific time period and increase followers over the long haul. The key is to get a dedicated person or team involved in your event Twitterings so that a high quality and quantity of good information or exciting news is being pumped out – literally blow-by-blow as the meeting occurs.

There are many examples of this, (low tech and high tech) but none more innovative than the one done for the 2008 Presidential Debates. In this example the debate is the event and the followers are invited to post commentary tweets about the debate which get overlaid on the video (broadcast) as the debate streams live. See an this CNN iReport for details: http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-87778

Your goal with this Twitter strategy is to give the remote Twitter participant (your follower) the feeling that even though they are not physically there; they are still an important part of the event. If things are passed out or sold at the event, prepare links upfront to Tweet to followers so they too can download or buy.

FOR TWITTER DOWNLOADS (File sharing)

http://tweetcube.com/

FOR TWITTER eCOMMERCE

Yes you can add click-to-buy links in a Tweet. Just create the checkout link at a system like PayPal, Google Checkout, or your own shopping cart and shorten that BUY link at any URL shortening/redirect service.

PAYPAL

http://paypal.com

PAYPAL MOBILE

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/cps/mobile/MobileT2B-outside

GOOGLE CHECKOUT

https://checkout.google.com/sell/

Make sure you do advanced Tweets prior to the event to make sure your followers are aware of event details. You may find that TwitterCal (a Twitter/Google Calendar integration at http://twittercal.com/) is perfect for your event details.

If you do tele-seminars, events or live Ustream.com type presentations, why not have remote Twitter participants submit Tweet comments and questions to you, live as your event unfolds.  CNN News has begun integrating Twitter in this manner with their live news broadcasts.  Rick Sanchez of CNN is a prime example. http://twitter.com/ricksanchezcnn Make your Twitter participants feel special AND explain to other participants what you are doing (you want them all to get excited about following you on Twitter).

WANT MORE TWITTER HELP?

100 Free Twitter Tips are at

http://twittinsecrets.com

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER

This Twitter Tip is hosted here because I was chosen as a winner in Dan’s  Underdog Blog Contest

For more Facebook and Social Media Tips and Strategies be sure to follow me on Twitter

http://www.twitter.com/iandavidchapman

Who Is The Man Behind “The Secret”?

The Real Law Of Attraction

For all those who are interested in the Law Of Attraction, have you ever wondered how it became so popular and how it managed to infiltrate the hearts and minds of people all over the world? How did the movie “The Secret” manage to spread its message so far and wide?

A Marketing Genius

A month ago when I first discovered  Teet Deck for managing my Twitter profile I began using it to find new and interesting people to follow. One of the those I stumbled upon is a guy called Dan Hollings. I suspect that many of  you will not have heard of him before, but I am sure you have been influenced by his work

Dan Hollings  is …

“the internet strategist behind the smash hit movie “The Secret,” considered by many as the most successful internet launch of its kind. “

“An internet marketing, micro-blogging and mobile marketing strategist. Dan has consulted for celebrities, talk show hosts, NY Times best selling authors, world renowned entrepreneurs, and companies both large and small “

He is also the brains behind Twitter Split, an innovative way to recycle your twitter traffic.

The Best Twitter Secrets Ever

For the first 10 days in September he has launched ” 100 Twittin Secrets“,  and  spread them all over the  Internet. I have been using Twitter  for 4 months but I have never  really understood or utilised  its full potential until I began reading some of Dan’s Twitter secrets. If only I had these when I first got started

Why Is He Giving This Away For Free?

I was also interested in observing  why he was giving away such great quality information for free, there is no sign up and no optin required. These are not your usual Twitter tips consisting of a list of popular twitter applications and tools,  these are fully  fledged strategies and detailed explanations  showing you how  to use Twitter in ways  you have never imagined.  They take you from beginner to black belt and even the most experienced twitter will find something of value if you take the time to read them all.

Winner Of The Underdog Blogger Competition

As part of his promotion Dan ran a competition for bloggers   entitled “Underdog Blogger”  I decided to enter my blog and  was chosen as a winner after convincing him that my Blog deserved to get exposure to a wider audience and also benefit from the extra  traffic. My prize will be to host one of his Twitter tips on my Blog.

Going Viral On A Massive Scale

I believe Dan’s underlying strategy is  to go viral on a massive scale  with these Twitter tips. He could easily have turned them into a book and made it into a bestseller but by giving them away for free he is teaching more people how to use Twitter, educating them about just what a powerful marketing tool it can become if used in the right way.

Back End Products

He has several of his own Twitter services that he will be cashing in on so you can be sure he will be rewarded quite nicely  on the back end. He is also getting people like me to recommend him, spreading his information, while building up his own Twitter following.  I have also learned a lot of tricks and tips just by watching what sites and services he uses so while you are reading the tips and applying them for yourselves, be sure to take your own notes and bookmark some of the places you will end up visiting.

Sharing With My Friends

I always believe in sharing good information with my friends  so to all of you who are reading this I urge you to go and check out Dan’s Twitter secrets, I promise you that you won’t be disappointed. Go and read at least one every day for the next month and I can guarantee that if you just apply 1/10th of what he suggests you will get a lot more followers on Twitter and you will have a very powerful tool at your disposal should you wish to go deeper. I am going to be diving in an exploring a lot of these techniques so you can also watch my own progress.

A Small Favour

For those of you who are reading this on Facebook  I would like to ask you a favour.

If you think these Twitter tips are any good  please come back to this note and leave a comment. If you think your other Facebook friends might benefit from seeing  them too,   scroll to the top of the page and press the share button and this note will be posted to your profile.

You can follow me on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/iandavidchapman

You can follow Dan on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/dhollings

You can check out 100 Twittin’ Secrets by clicking this link