A Guest Post by Johnny B Truant.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re blogging to make money, or to express yourself. So why would you ever give something away? If you’re in this as a business, giving stuff away without charging for it seems counterintuitive. If you’re just out there writing for the sake of writing, then what you want are readers… and how is giving stuff away going to get more eyes on your blog?

The answer is that what goes around comes around. What you give comes back to you. What you sow is what you reap, and all of that. It’s not just platitudes. It works.

I was thinking about this because I’m in the middle of a promotion where I’m setting up self-hosted WordPress blogs for free. (In fact, if you want one, click over and go get one.) This isn’t an experiment. It’s the third time I’ve done it. I continue to do it because each time I do, my statistics go way up, my RSS readership grows, my Twitter followers grow, and I meet a bunch of new people who may end up being customers later. And thanks to the fact that I’m an affiliate for website hosting (which my free blog setup folks would have to buy regardless), I make money too.

All of my best tips come down to giving things away.

• Want to grow your mailing list? Write a great report or e-book — and then instead of charging for it, give it away to people who sign up for your list.
• Want to reach a new audience? Write a really good blog post, ideally one that is immediately actionable for people who read it. Reveal your best tip or tips in that post. Then, give it to someone else as a guest post rather than running it on your site.
• Want more referrals? Give a greater percentage of sales to your affiliates. I’m not quite gutsy enough to do this myself, but Dave Navarro told me once publicly that he gave affiliates 100% of the sale price on a certain product and then paid the transaction fees (which would normally come from the sale price) out of his own pocket. He “lost” money on his own product, but built a list in his shopping cart of people who liked his stuff well enough to buy it — a list he could promote to later.
• Want more goodwill, better Karma, or more raving fans? Then do something for charity. Twice that I know of, Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz.com has rallied her audience to raise money for a cause. The first time, she raised relocation expenses for a female reader who needed to get out of a physically abusive relationship. The second time, she raised over $12,000 for Cambodia — enough to build a school. The benefit to her? Tons and tons and tons of “good feelings” out in the blogosphere about her, which converted casual fans into die-hards.

I could keep going. There are tons of ways for any blogger at any level to increase either business or readership by trying the experiment of temporarily swapping “what can I get out of this?” thinking for “what can I give that people would really want and love?” thinking.

The really cool thing is that if you plan a little in advance, there’s usually a way that you can benefit too. If you’re smart, “giving it away” can get you a lot more than you’re probably getting right now.

Give it a shot. And if you’ve done it, let’s hear how it worked out in the comments!

P.S: If you’re still trying to figure out how to get your start in blogging in order to try this stuff? Well, now’s the time because I think I mentioned I know a guy who’s doing a mutually beneficial free blog setup promotion right now.

——
Johnny B. Truant blogs at JohnnyBTruant.com and is one of the two guys behind The Charlie and Johnny Jam Sessions.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Boost your Income and Popularity by Giving Stuff Away

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Scores of businesses are finally realizing the power of social media, but unfortunately, many of them are not using it correctly. Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing tells WebProNews that many people get attracted to the “shiny object” of social media and want immediate results. He recalls even being asked if he had any recommendations on where to buy Twitter followers.

If social media were about numbers, then the “shiny object” syndrome might work. But, luckily, it is not. Social media is about value and longevity. Odden says people need to understand who their target audience is and what their needs are. This is often challenging since people think they know what the customer needs, but in reality, do not.

Odden points out that there is a steep learning curve in the online world as opposed to the offline world. Just as writers struggle to find their voices, people who are trying to be successful in the Social Web need to find their social voices too. To do this, he encourages people to engage, interact, and think in terms of the customer’s wants and needs.

“You can’t speak like a native unless you’ve spent some time amongst the natives,” says Odden.

In addition, interaction helps people understand social media etiquette beyond the network’s individual rules. As a result, businesses will not only find out what customers want, but they also have the opportunity to gain new customers through the value they provide.

Looking to Hire a Blogger?

If you’re looking for a blogger to hire – the ProBlogger Job boards remain one of the most effective and affordable places to find the. For just $50 your ad for a blogger will be seen by tens of thousands of bloggers.

• the RSS feeds are subscribed to by over 2000 readers
• each job is sent out to my Twitter followers (close to 100,000 people)
• jobs are posted on the ProBlogger LinkedIn group news section (1900 members)

Current advertisers feed back that the quality and number of applicants is high – as a result we have quite a few regular and repeat advertisers.

If you’re looking to place an ad – here are some tips on how to advertise for a blogger.

Looking for a Blog Job?

If you’re looking for a blogging job there seems to be a lot more people looking to hire at the moment.

In the last 7 days alone we’ve seen 24 new blogging jobs added to the ProBlogger Job Boards (there are only 18 listed now as 6 were quickly filled and removed by advertisers).

To stay up to date with the latest blogging jobs simply follow me on Twitter and/or subscribe to the job board RSS feed.

If you’re applying for jobs – here’s some tips for bloggers on how to apply for jobs.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Have Your Blogging Job Advertisment Seen by Tens of Thousands of Bloggers

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Posted by randfish

Conversion rate optmization – the practice of improving the quantity of visitors who take a desired action on your site – has been a hot topic this year. There’s both an art and a science to the process of turning browsers into buyers and drive-by readers into email subscribers, Facebook fans and Twitter followers. In my opinion, no marketer should be engaging in this work without having read Robert Cialdini’s seminal work – Influence: Science & Practice.  I agree wholeheartedly with Guy Kawasaki’s assessment on the subject:

The problem is, not every marketer will read the book, and that leaves a lot of head-shaped holes in a lot of walls. Thus, this post is here to help do the next best thing – explain, through illustrations and descriptions, the broad concepts of persuasion. The book covers six major "weapons of influence." For each, I’m going to illustrate the concept then give tips (and some examples) on how you can apply them to marketing and conversion on the web.

#1 – Reciprocation

Hold open a door and you receive a "thank you" and a smile. Send a birthday present to a friend and you’re almost certain to get one in return. Pay for a co-worker’s coffee and she’ll pick up the next one. As Cialdini painstakinly details in the book, there is no culture on Earth without this unspoken, yet powerful rule of reciprocation.

The power of reciprocation relies on several conventions. The request must be "in-kind," which is to say, commensurate with the initial offering. The power is increased if the give-and-take happens in a short time frame. Reciprocity’s influence increases with closer relationships, too – it’s much harder to resist/refuse to reciprocate a favor to a friend who’s down the street than to an anonymous site on the web.

Leveraging reciprocity through web marketing:

• Give away free data and analysis through tools, but ask for permission to send an email marketing message in exchange
• Tweet or blog about a prominent person or business in a positive fashion, then email them asking if they’d help spread the message
• Email a site owner about a problem on their site and offer a solution/fix; they’ll often follow up by asking how they can return the favor
• Provide exemplary answers to questions posted in online forums with a signature or final note asking that if they found your answer valuable, to consider visiting your site and sharing it with friends
• Share great information on your blog and ask your readers to subscribe to your feed (see what I did there? Pretty meta, eh?)

#2 – Commitment & Consistency

As humans, we have an insatiable desire for consistency in our behavior. It’s why we abhor hypocrisy and embrace leaders, politicians and beliefs that "stick to their guns," sometimes to the point of foolishness. This consistency can be observed through the effectiveness of political tactics like push polling, wherein a paid "surveyer" will call numbers and ask voters whether they’d cast a ballot for "a man who refused to say the pledge of allegiance," thus getting a response and commitment verbally that will transfer into votes come election day after the follow-on ad campaign alludes to precisely that inaction from an opposition candidate.

A case study from the book illustrates this principle quite elegantly. Researchers on a New York City beach staged thefts to see if onlookers would risk personal harm to stop the "criminal." A research accomplice would listen to music on a blanket near their "test subjects" and after several minutes, stand up and stroll away, leaving a personal radio on the blanket. A "thief" would then approach, grab the radio, and attempt to hurry away with it. On average, only 4 in 20 bystanders would intervene.

However, when the experiment was changed slightly, the results altered dramatically. In this second scenario, before strolling away, the research accomplice would ask the test subject to "watch my things." Now, under the influence of consistency and commitment, 19 of 20 subjects became "virtual vigilantes, running after and stopping the thief, demanding an explanation, often restraining the thief physically or snatching the radio away."

Commitment and consistency can’t happen without that initial action of a reponse or promise. Cialdini notes that this power increases tremendously if the agreement is written, rather than merely verbal. E.g. last week, you told us you wanted XYZ… Guess what? Here it is!

Leveraging commitment and consistency through web marketing:

• Asking users to answer online questions about their habits/preferences, then marketing to them based on the answers they’ve given
• Getting visitors to a site to sign an online pledge to take a certain action and then email/message them at a specified day/time (example – the "Quit Facebook Day" movement)
• Asking your users/members/fans to commit to taking an action if a certain event occurs (like a charity pledge for a marathon runner). For example, you could say that your startup is up for an award and if you win it, you’d like them to commit to emailing a friend about their service. If/when you do win, send members who commited an email requesting the action.
• Using a landing page / funnel process that asks a question where users must choose to define themself in a set number of ways, then crafting sales messaging that speaks to how your product/service is the right choice for people like them.

#3 – Social Proof

If you’re walking along a street and see a crowd gathered around watching something, it’s nearly impossible to resist the urge to go over and investigate yourself. If you’re at a party and everyone is drinking, the pressure to have a drink yourself rises dramatically. We all hate the horrifyingly over-the-top laugh tracks on TV sitcoms, but TV producers know that the social signal of laughter makes us laugh along, too.

This same phenomenon applies when we judge exceptionally important life decisions – who should we date or marry, where should we go to school, where should we work. The influence of our peers is a powerful influencer and one that can’t be overlooked in the sphere of marketing.

Social proof becomes more powerful when the numbers increase and when the action-takers become more relevant and, especially more like the target. In other words, if you’re selling games to rebelling teenagers, don’t show testimonials from middle-aged parents who loved it, show other teens.

Leveraging social proof in web marketing:

• Services like MyBlogLog that display the picture and username of recent visitors to the site
• Facebook-leveraging visit tracking software that shows recent friends of yours who’ve engaged with the site you’re visiting (even more relevant and social proofy)
• Testimonials on landing pages and in sales copy. Those that feature photos, have titles and full names and relate to the visitor work best
• Network-effect services like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn touting their fast-growing and far-reaching memberships and usage

#4 – Liking

We’ve heard the phrase a thousand times – "People do business with people they know, like and trust." It turns out, there’s quite a bit of science to support this. Research confirms that things like physical attractiveness (we like good-looking people), familiarity (we trust people we know), similarity (we like people like us) and compliments (we like people who say nice things about us) all factor into to the principle of "liking."

It’s hard to argue with the power "liking" has on us as consumers. When Will Critchlow (whom I like a lot, despite constantly losing presentation-off battles to him) recommends that I read a book or try a service, it’s practically a guarantee I’ll do it (note to Will: please don’t abuse this power). Similarly, movie executives realize that asking Tom Hanks to go on the late-night circuit is a great way to drive viewership of a film, while sending Tom Cruise on a similar mission may have the opposite result.

Leveraging liking in web marketing:

• Start a blog, twitter account or email list and share your thoughts in a personable, personal and friendly way.
• Employ the power of celebrity, in microcosms. If Seth Godin wrote a blog post saying that SEOmoz was a valuable resource, that would likely drive many people who like Seth to take commensurate actions.
• Join in conversations on the web (on forums, in blog comments, on Twitter, via other social services) in ways that engender you positively to those community members. Follow up personally with community leaders and organizers to help spread the liking effect in a more scalable way.

#5 – Authority

A story from the book illustrates this principle so well, I couldn’t resist sharing:

Professors of pharmacy Michael Cohen and Neil Davis attribute much of the problem to the mindless deference given to the "boss" of a patient’s case: the attending physician. According to Cohen, "in case after case, patients, nurses, pharmacists, and other physicians do not question the prescription." Take, for example, the strange case of the "rectal earache" reported by Cohen and Davis. A physician ordered ear drops to be administered to the right ear of a patient suffering pain and infection there. Instead of writing out completely the location "Right ear" on the prescription, the doctor abbreviated it so that the instructions read "place in R ear." Upon receiving the prescription, the duty nurse promptly put the required number of ear drops into the patient’s anus.

Obviously, rectal treatment of an earache made no sense, but neither the patient nor the nurse questioned it. The important lesson of this story is that in many situations in which a legitimate authority has spoken, what would otherwise make sense is irrelevant. In these instances, we don’t consider the situation as a whole but attend and respond to only one aspect of it.

The power of authority can come from a variety of sources – clothes (think of the movie "Catch Me if You Can" in which Leonardo DiCaprio becomes a doctor or pilot simply through attire), titles and prefix/suffixes (Dr., Senator, President, C-level executive), and context (the famous Milgram study in which ordinary people commit horrifying acts simply because they are told to do so).

Authority only influences when the target believes in the power and authenticity of that authority. The stronger the authority association, the more powerful the impact, but not all authorities work on all people.  

Leveraging authority in web marketing:

• Has a well respected individual or organization endorsed your product/company? Make that a prominent feature when you request an action from your visitors.
• In a product or software service that provides information users rely upon, the product itself can influence actions by recommending them and showing the data to back it up.
• Experts in your field can make for great testimonials and endorsements. They need not be recognizable or even speak to social proof elements if they carry credentials and weight that will make your target audience respond.

#6 – Scarcity

Ever notice that some shops seem to be perpetually running "going out of business" sales? It’s no mistake – the power of potential loss is a remarkable influencer. The Rolling Stones’ "last ever" tour, the final can of Crystal Pepsi, the limited edition collectors keepsake (only 70 ever released!). All are examples of scarcity principles at work.

As Cialdini notes:

The feeling of being in competition for scarce resources has powerful motivating properties. The ardor of an indifferent lover surges with the appearance of often for reasons of strategy, therefore, that romantic partners reveal (or invent) the attentions of a new admirer. Salespeople are taught to play the same game with indecisive customers. For example, a realtor who is trying to sell a house to a "fencesitting" prospect sometimes will call the prospect with news of another potential buyer who has seen the house, liked it, and is scheduled to return the following day to talk about terms. When wholly fabricated, the new bidder is commonly described as an outsider with plenty of money: "an out-of-state investor buying for tax purposes" and "a physician and his wife moving into town" are favorites. The tactic, called in some circles "goosing ‘em off the fence," can work devastatingly well. The thought of losing out to a rival frequently turns a buyer from hesitant to zealous.

 

Scarcity becomes more powerful when it’s clear that the resource is finite (houses are great for this reason) and when immediacy is added to the scarcity (as in the case of another buyer on the horizon). Auction sites like eBay combine the powers of these persuasion tactics with remarkable results.

Leveraging scarcity in web marketing:

• Offer a special version of your product for a limited time in limited quantities
• Feature messages like Expedia’s - "only 2 tickets left at this price" – or Zappos’ – "only 3 pairs left in this size" – next to results/products to help encourage timely conversion
• Create an incentive for the first X visitors who take an action; you’ll likely get many more
• Show the number of people viewing an item right on the product page (e.g. "6 others currently on this page") to help create excitement and a feeling of immediacy (particularly for one-of-a-kind or limited quantity products)

---

Individually, these are powerful instruments of persuasion. Together, they’re a marketing force to be reckoned with. Let’s try an experiment and see if I can effectively employ the six principles as they related to SEOmoz (please note, I’m not normally this self-promotional, and this is meant somewhat tongue-in-cheek):

1. This blog post is the result of many hours of studying, writing and illustrating. If it’s helped your business in some way, we hope you’ll say thanks by sharing it through tweets, links or an email to someone you think would appreciate the reference.
2. Are you the kind of SEO who bases their decisions on data or gut feeling? Close your eyes for a minute and think. If you said "data," I’d urge you to check out the new Keyword Difficulty tool. It will help make decisions about where and how to compete from a much more data driven perspective.
3. 2,426 search marketers on Facebook have become fans of SEOmoz. Won’t you join them?
4. Danny Dover is impossible not to like. Make Danny happy by following him on Twitter.
5. The Search & Social Awards named SEOmoz the best SEO Blog, top SEO community and favorite SEO tool suite this year.
6. This summer we’re launching a new software suite and SEOmoz PRO prices are going up to $100, $500 and $2,000 per month (respectively). There’s less than 60 days to get PRO at the current rates.

The next time you make a landing page or try to drive actions on the web, think about how you might leverage these principles of influence to improve your conversion rate.

As always, looking forward to your thoughts in the comments – I’d particularly love to see examples of the principles in action at on the web. It’s something I wanted to do when authoring this post, but simply ran out of time.

Do you like this post? Yes No

I asked this question over on Twitter on the weekend and it was fascinating to hear the answers and see some of the thinking behind what different people do.

I thought I’d run it as a poll and open it up for some wider discussion here on the blog.

I’d love to get your comments on this topic. Why do you do the number of tweets that you do? Why don’t you do more/less? Do you use any tolls/automation to manage it – if so which ones?

Here’s some of the responses to my tweet asking the question:

“I only tweet a link to it once. I’ll tweet a second time if theres something interesting in the comment section.” – JadeCraven

“One. Sometimes two. Three if it really rocks. But I post daily and don’t want my Twitter to be an endless ME ME ME feed.” – CatherineCaine

“I tweet my new blog posts only once…to me, more is spammy, even tho I know not everyone will see it the 1st time…” – QuipsAndTips

“I always tweet a link straight after I post.Then maybe the next day depending on the post time, for those who may have missed it” – CptTremendous

“I space it out over days/times. Maybe btw 5-8 over a weeks time.” – MyMelange

“I usually retweet about three times, one in a.m., one in afternoon, one at night. Covers time zones.” – docudramaqueen

“Depends on importance and global relevance. If really important to me & relevant also to US audience, I may tweet twice in Aus..” – divinewrite

“Once. More than once is spam and makes followers unfollow and complain.” – Shuttlecock

See a full list of the responses to my original tweet here.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How Many Times Do You Tweet Links to New Blog Posts? [POLL]

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While at SXSW, WebProNews caught up with Kyle Mulka of Congo Labs. Mulka is currently working on a Twitter application called Twilk that is quickly gaining popularity.

Twilk is a Twitter background generator that takes a user’s followers on Twitter to create a photo collage out of their icons. The application sorts followers based on how much the user tweets about them and gives prominent placement to the people tweeted about the most.

Many people are using Twilk as a way to reward their followers for following them. Others just like seeing their friends’ faces on their background. For businesses that use the application, Twilk allows them to exclude certain people such as competitors and other people that they do not want to show up.

Mulka told WPN that they would like to develop the background to the point that it is clickable. For more information on Twilk, visit their site.

I think most people worked out that my last post (ProBlogger Acquired by Google) was an April Fools Joke – however I wanted to make sure.

It was an April Fools joke!

It’s been two years since my last April Fools Day prank – last time (in 2008) I issued a press release announcing that I was starting a new company – Pay Per Tweet. Of course back then the idea of sponsored Tweets had not happened and it caused some outrage – all I can say is that I hope this year’s prank comes true too!

The idea for this year’s joke started with a dream – a real dream where Google actually did buy ProBlogger for a new blogging platform for professional bloggers. I tweeted the dream and it got such a good reception (including from a few people who work at Google/Blogger) that I filed it away as an idea for April Fools Day.

Yesterday I decided to go for it and wrote the press release announcing the acquisition. I even went so far as to register a domain for my next business venture – FoolsMedia.com and setup a twitter account for it (funnily enough that Twitter account is already getting followers and is featured on at least a couple of Twitter lists).

Of course running an April Fools Day post on your blog has some benefits and risks.

On the negative side – some people fall for it, and fall for it hard. Today I’ve had a lot of emails, DMs, comments and even a few phone calls congratulating me on the ‘acquisition’ (and a few accusing me of selling out). I even took a call from a family member (who was very happy for me) and another from a reporter (who wanted to run a story of me selling my blog). I’ve had to follow up with a few people to make sure that they realized it was a joke – although I have to say most got it.

On the up side – the joke was a lot of fun, caused a nice ‘buzz’, was retweeted a lot (actually I think most people who were fooled were on Twitter where people just saw the headline and started RT’ing like crazy without reading the post) and even got a few incoming links from other sites who pointed it out.

A big thanks to a few people for making this possible. Firstly to Google/Blogger for their inactive part in it (although guys…. if you ever want to buy a blog about blogging…. you know where I am), secondly to Lara who had to moderate the comments when my last post went up… and lastly to everyone who read and responded to the post (whether you were fooled or not) – thanks for playing.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Google Aquisition of ProBlogger – April Fools Day Recap

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A Guest Post by Johnny B. Truant from The Charlie and Johnny Jam Sessions.

I got an email the other day from a man who was at his wit’s end.

The email explained that in this man’s business, he was doing many of the same basic things that I was doing, but with much less success. He had been building websites for years. He had refined his craft. He felt that the sites he built were better, more complete, and had more features and better support than mine. He had more experience than I had. He even said that he was probably smarter than I was.

Yet I was doing really well and he was not. So what was the problem?

I replied that he was looking at the situation incorrectly. Generating the business I have — over 70 current active leads at last count — has nothing to do with making better websites, or being faster, or being cheaper. And it certainly has nothing to do with being smarter. (Besides, I graduated first in my class, ahem.)

There are a million people out there who do what I do. A million people putting up WordPress sites and making them sing. Plenty of these people are better, faster, and cheaper than I am.

So I told him: People don’t come to me because I create the best WordPress websites in the world, because I don’t. The people who come to me do so because we’re friends.

This is the Third Tribe

I’m not going to argue that relationship-based marketing is better than bulk-traffic based marketing, because I know that many incomes have been built on attracting a ton of people who you don’t know and who don’t know you. However, I will say that if you’ve never truly tried to get to know your readers, followers, commenters, and casual online acquaintances, you may really be cutting off your profits at the knees.

In case you missed the memo, Darren is one of the principals of the Third Tribe — a group and a philosophy with its roots in building businesses and audiences based on interpersonal connections. If you’re operating with a Third Tribe mentality, the sheer number of people who visit your site or read your blog matters far less than the number of people you exchange a few words with, or who you help without asking for pay, or who like you enough that they’ll retweet everything you post or buy everything you put out.

A Third Tribe business is about getting as many people to like you as possible. I tell my consulting clients that my job is to teach people to make friends.

And yes, I know how naïve that sounds. But hear me out.

Most people in my shoes, looking to sell WordPress website setups by leveraging social media, would get on Twitter and announce their service’s features and low prices. They’d blast their specials and sales out to Twitter and Facebook. Maybe they’d create a fan page so that people could be “fans” of their business — because, you know, it’s really natural to be a fan of a business. They’d optimize sales pages and plan careful upsells, and they’d massage prospects through their product funnel.

By contrast, here’s how I use social media:

• On my Facebook profile, I have photos of Robert Goulet Photoshopped into ridiculous scenes from my “travels.” (I used to use Robert Goulet as my avatar.)
• Most of what I put out on Twitter are dumb jokes: “I’ll bet zombie dinner parties are really awkward” or “They say that true beauty is on the inside. The problem is that nobody can see it in there, so you’re still going to look ugly.”
• A lot of my own blog posts have nothing at all to do with my business, like “I want to join Fight Club” and “Why I’m exactly like Morpheus.”

That all looks really backward, until you realize that my goal isn’t to create customers, but instead to make friends.

If you’re funny, people tend to like you. (I’m not saying you should be funny if you’re not, but if you’ve got it, flaunt it.)

If you write and talk about yourself as a whole person, rather than a one-dimensional business drone, people tend to be interested in you.

If you answer tweets and emails in a somewhat chatty, personal way instead of going for the sale when it’s not obviously warranted, people tend to enjoy talking to you.

And when all of those friends — and friends of those friends — one day have a need that you are able to fill, they won’t go to Google and look for the first search result or for the guy with the cheapest price. It’s human nature that they’ll come to you — their friend — first.

This really can be as simple as I’m making it sound. If you have an easily consumable product or service that a lot of people need and can afford, then all you really need to do is to get out there and make online friends. And they don’t even have to be friends-friends, if you know what I’m saying. They can be people who have read what you wrote somewhere and liked it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard something like, “I read something you wrote on IttyBiz about kung fu, and would like you to build me a website.”

I’m so not kidding.

The beauty of this approach is that it’s easy and natural if you can just unlearn some of the ingrained habits you’ve gotten used to, like a feeling that a businessperson should be “professional,” or that a fashion blogger should, you know, always talk about fashion and nothing else.

The web has magnified our interpersonal connections and the ability to meet new folks in new ways, but it hasn’t changed the fundamental nature of relationships. If we like people, then we want to hang out with them more, and do more with them. It’s that simple.

Now get out there and make some new friends.

Johnny B. Truant writes about Fight Club, tweets about zombies, and is one of the two extremely personable guys behind The Charlie and Johnny Jam Sessions. If you want to build a cool business while being a real person instead of a boring business drone, you should definitely get in on those.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Why Your Business Needs Friends

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This is a guest post by Mark Hayward on driving traffic to your small business blog with Twitter.

Based on the success of the recent ProBlogger post, Top 10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog Using LinkedIn, I thought it would be useful to put a resource post together for small business owners who would like to use Twitter to drive targeted traffic to their blog.

We all know that blogging is a powerful medium for any small business owner that wants to improve SEO, create a social media footprint, or share their backstory.

But how the heck do you use Twitter to drive more traffic to your small business blog?

If you are a small business owner like me, then you are no stranger to the fact that learning how to master Twitter can seem a little bit like wrestling a hungry alligator. Meaning, there is a steep learning curve and if you mess up it can be deadly.

Figuratively speaking, of course!

After using Twitter for the past couple of years, and following a lot of trial and error, below are ten ways that I think you can begin to use Twitter to drive more traffic to your small business blog.

#1: Change the Default Logo

After creating your small business Twitter account, change the default logo to one that represents your style and helps to brand your small business. Twitter is not a ‘join it and they will come’ small business marketing tool.

If you are hoping to reap the rewards and added blog traffic that Twitter can offer, then you have to be willing to put in the time to build trustworthy relationships with potential customers. To that end, when it comes to any business on Twitter, people want to feel like they are engaging with real human beings.

The profile picture is the first thing that new followers will look at. You need to create a logo that quickly gains follower interest if you want them to carry on further and check out your small business blog. By all means, if you use a personal picture make sure it does not portray you as an axe murderer.

Below are two examples of small business profile pictures, and I’ll let you be the judge of which one will work best.

I think this next one is better. How about you?

#2: Show Up

As noted in the intro above, there can be a steep learning curve when it comes to using Twitter to drive traffic to your small business blog. According to a recent article in Adweek:

Only 17 percent of Twitter users updated their accounts in December — an all-time low. An earlier study by the Nielsen Co. revealed 60 percent of Twitter users do not return from one month to the next.

However, I think a lot of small business owners show up once and send a Tweet similar to the one below.

When business owners don’t get any @ replies, identify any new customers, or gain new traffic to their small business blog they feel like they are wasting their time and are gone for good.

Using Twitter properly as a tool to drive blog traffic requires a long term outlook, persistence, and a consistent effort every day.

#3: Complete the Bio Profile

Similar to a mini ‘About’ page, Twitter gives you 160 characters in your profile so you can write a brief Bio to describe who you are and further specify your business. Make sure the link to your small business blog appears somewhere in this section. Or, even better, include your blog as the one html link you are allowed to have.

I am amazed at how many small businesses skip the Bio step. The results of not taking the time to fill out the profile section will give your business a look similar to the one below. Ask yourself, would you visit the small business blog of the ‘iamabusiness’ profile?

If you are not getting targeted traffic for your small business blog from your Twitter Bio, try spicing it up with something similar to SmileMakers INC. When I read the profile for SmileMakers INC I don’t have any questions as to what business they are in.

#4: Brand Your Small Business Twitter background

The available Twitter background space is like getting free real estate where you can create an online billboard. When properly used, the background can help to build your small businesses image and highlight your brand. If you struggle with design work then use one of the many online background creation tools that are available, such as, TwitterImage, TwitBacks, and TwitrBackgrounds.

Although ProBlogger is not a ‘brick & mortar’ small business, Darren has an easily identifiable Twitter background that helps to pique interest in what he is about and can drive casual follower traffic to his blog.

#5: Social proof matters

When it comes to getting traffic for your small business blog on Twitter, the ugly truth is, social proof absolutely matters!

The number of followers you have, the number of people you are following, and the number of Tweets you have sent out will all be a determining factor in the minds of potential customers.

You don’t need to wait until your small business account has as many followers as ProBlogger, Chris Brogan, or even John Jantsch. Although, it certainly helps to have a few hundred followers and to be following a few hundred (see: #2 show up above) before you promote your small business blog on Twitter.

#6: Be Sincere

If you are sincere in your interactions on Twitter, after the initial frustration and dip of feeling like you’re in an echo chamber, you will slowly gain a following that you’ll be able to direct to your small business blog.

Try starting off the morning with a friendly greeting like Jonathan Fields.

When you interact and engage on Twitter in a sincere manner, and follow Jeff Pulver’s 95% giving & 5% taking rule, potential customers will slowly begin to trust you and this will gradually open them up to visiting your small business blog.

#7: Use Twitter Search

Twitter Search is a valuable tool for any small business owner who wants to increase traffic to a website or blog. Searching for relevant keyword terms related to your business niche, and finding traffic for your blog, is made much easier with this tool.

However, when using Twitter Search the key is to provide valuable and helpful information in your @ replies and to not press people with spam.

For a bit of a real life example, the other day on Twitter I was looking for some input on web hosting companies. The amount of spam I got back in my Twitter stream was unreal. The reply below stands out in particular as an example of ‘How not to drive traffic to your small business or blog’ when using Twitter Search.

I know you are going to be absolutely shocked! But when you click on the link included in @forsgren’s Tweet you find out that he actually OWNS the company and website that the link directs to.

For the record, I have absolutely no problem with him directing an @ reply to me. However, please be honest and disclose up front that you own the hosting company. In this particular case, my trust has been lost and the potential for him to gain my business is gone. Additionally, I will never look at his blog. Period.

#8: Collaborative Relationships

When attempting to get more traffic for your small business blog, find out who the thought leaders and influencers are in your industry and connect with them on Twitter. It does not always get discussed out in the open, but collaborative partnerships, particularly with people in your industry, can send a tremendous amount of targeted visitors to your blog.

As a personal example, the actress Alyssa Milano happens to be a passionate animal rights advocate. At present, I help to do the social media activities for the animal rescue organization on my tiny island, and through the magic of Twitter I was able to connect with Ms. Milano.

The animal rescue organization has (what is essentially) a small business blog, which is used to update people on stray animals who need help and any current rescues who are looking for a home. On a couple of occasions now Alyssa has been kind enough to help get our message out over Twitter. In fact, back in June she Tweeted about one particular dog that was really in dire need of some help.

Because many of her followers are also animal lovers (i.e targeted traffic), below you can see the spike in visitors that was generated to the animal welfare blog from her Tweet, which is a site that typically gets about fifty visitors per day.

#9: Useful Links & Hashtags

Once you have gained a few followers and created some collaborative relationships, you should start sharing useful links that are related to your small business. Sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit make it easy for you to search and discover the best of what’s on the web in your niche.

If you’re sharing good stuff and educating your followers, then their natural tendency will be to investigate your profile further and visit your small business blog.

For example, if I owned a bike shop and wanted to drive traffic to my business blog, I would begin Tweeting all of the useful links that I could find on the subject of bikes and bike riding.

When it comes to increasing follower count, resource posts always seem to get ReTweeted well. Be on the lookout for ‘Best of’ and ‘How to’ posts. When Tweeting links, if space provides, you might want to create a branded hashtag for your small business as well.

#10: Power of the Picture

Who you are and what you do on a daily basis at your small business matters to your followers. Tweeting pictures provides a contextual basis to your daily activities, which goes beyond the normal status update.

In order to gain more targeted traffic to your small business blog, I would highly recommend utilizing a Twitter photo-sharing site like TwitPic or Yfrog. These sites allow the small business owner to share cool photos from their typical business day, or while plying their craft, so that people get to know you. Photos help to build social trust and intrigue, which leads to more traffic on your small business blog. Have a look at this Tweeted photo that I just sent this past Friday and one of the responses I received.

Below, Tim demonstrates perfectly why photos matter!

As a final note, I have said this before, but its importance cannot be overlooked. It can take a very long time to develop a trusting follower base for your small business on Twitter but it only takes one Tweet to alienate and lose the trust of your followers.

What other suggestions would you offer to those small business owners who are looking to use Twitter to drive traffic to their small business blog?

Mark Hayward owns a small business in the Caribbean and when it comes to social media he is passionate about helping other small business owners with avoid the online mistakes he has made. You can follow Mark on Twitter @mark_hayward and you can subscribe to his RSS Feed for weekly small business social media marketing tips.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Top Ten Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Small Business Blog Using Twitter

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A Guest Post by Christie Burnett. Image Source.

Feeling sluggish about blogging in the new year? Being innovative on your blog can be a great way to re-energise yourself. The process of being creative and trying something different can definitely up your blogging fun quota when you are feeling stale and uninspired. Trying something new also has the advantage of showing readers a new side to your blogging persona and this could have the added benefit of engaging a whole new set of followers. And you never know, you might just start a new blogging craze. Let me give you an example.

In November 2009, I published my first “From My Notebook” post. I basically replicated what I had written that day in my own personal journal, presenting it on a graphic notepaper page, and the response from my readers to the format was extremely positive. I had lots of Twitter questions about how I had created it and positive comments left in response to the post. And I enjoyed the process of doing something different. It was fun, challenged my creative processes a little and was a much quicker post to put together than many of my others – no photos to edit, no laboring over what I was writing, no research to include. It was simple, yet effective.

Every now and then throwing in a new style of post keeps every one on their toes. So, here are 20 words to get you thinking about fun ways to step away from your usual style and give readers something fresh.

1. Draw

Put pencil to paper or pen to tablet and say something with illustrations, instead of words.  

Check out Miao & Wafupafu for inspiration.

2. Photograph

Set yourself the challenge of telling a story without words, just photographs.  

Telling Your Story with Words and Images offers great tips for choosing the right photographs.

3. Share

If your blog is usually full of product reviews or technical information, turn things upside down by sharing a personal story instead. Or tell readers something about you that they never would have guessed.

In Why Stories are an Effective Communication Tool for Your Blog, Darren shares his reasons for why stories engage readers on an emotional level.

4. Measure

Insert a graph, pie chart, table or diagram to make your point.

5. Debate

Invite another blogger, preferably one who usually takes an alternative stance to you, to enter into a debate with you via online chat or Skype and then publish it on your blog.

6. Laugh

Make your readers chuckle – self deprecation, jokes, comic strips – whatever works with your target audience.

7. Watch

Give vlogging a twirl or insert a relevant video from YouTube to get readers talking.

8. Give

Give something back to readers by hosting a giveaway. Or donate $$ to your favourite charity for every comment left on a post.

9. Teach

Make something from scratch, and then create a tutorial to teach others how to do it too.

10. Introduce

Invite a guest blogger to be featured on your blog and introduce readers to someone new.

Try You’ll Never Know Unless You Ask for more information about inviting others to guest post on your blog.

11. List

When was the last time you write a list post? If it has been a while, compile a list which will be useful to readers today.

Check out Ali Hale’s guest post at Problogger, 10 Steps to the Perfect List Post.

12. Resource

Develop a free downloadable resource for your readers.

13. Colour

In colour psychology, blue equates to serenity and calmness whilst red is strong and gutsy, dramatic even. Think about creatively using colour to add intensity to your post or to set the mood for readers.

14. Solve

Do readers email you with questions, problems or dilemmas? Take the opportunity to channel ‘Dear Abbey’ and help them out with some useful advice. I did this recently with, “The Case For Not Packing Away.”

15. Inspire

Source relevant inspirational quotes to share with readers. Or include statistics or new research findings.

16. Ask

Find out more about your readership by asking them to participate in a survey or poll.

Read more about surveys – Survey Your Readers and Discover Who They Are and How You Can Be More Useful to Them.

17. Headline

Use the powers of the internet to source news stories relevant to your niche and readership. Include your personal reaction and thoughts.

18. Re-package

Re-package your post differently – standard content wrapped up in a new look. Present it as a postcard, a journal page, a post-it note, a shopping list, a recipe, or a collage.

Try Super Stickies for a bit of fun.

19. Link

Create a list of great posts, linking to other blogs in your niche. Keep them relevant and your links will be popular with readers. You might even find that you get linked back to in return.

20. Challenge

Develop a challenge for your readers and offer to publish the best submissions you receive. It could be a group writing challenge, an online photography exhibition or any challenge that best suits your niche and target audience.

Keep this list handy and come back to it for inspiration whenever you are feeling stale or depressed about blogging.  You are limited only by your imagination and willingness to try something new.

Christie Burnett is a trained early childhood teacher, presenter, writer and, most importantly, Mum. She blogs at Childhood 101 about all the things that contribute to growing a memorable, healthy childhood, with lots of ideas, tips and information for families.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

20 Ways to Up Your Blogging Fun Quota

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