And I’ve just become a Platinum Sponsor of the event to support Concern Worldwide – a charity focused on improving education opportunities in areas that desperately need support.

Last year’s Twestival was a lot of fun – a great opportunity to get Twitter friends together IRL (in real life), and go beyond the avatars. This year should be even better, and with a venue like the River Room overlooking the Cape Fear you can’t go wrong.

Tickets are just $20, and all proceeds go to the charity. If you have a business in the Wilmington area, you may consider one of the different sponsorship levels as well.

Check out the details at the Wilmington Twestival homepage.

Hope to see you there!

Bob Jenkins

p.s. Twestival comes from Twitter + Festival. Last year’s event helped over 17,000 people get clean drinking water. This year, it’s all about

In fact, you likely came to this page because of this strategy in action.

Here’s how you do it….

If you’re using WordPress, it’s simple enough just to get a plugin like TweetMeme, or to get a button from OnlyWire or SocialTwist.

But what about on your other sites, and on your teleseminar landing pages?

All you need to do is create a hyperlink with a few variables attached to the end of it.

Here’s the code to use for your link (URL) target:

http://twitter.com/home?status=your+message+goes+here+and+link+to+http://yourlink.com

Here’s an example you can test out for yourself.

http://twitter.com/home?status=RT+@BobTheTeacher:+simple+way+to+make+a+retweet+this+link+http://askbobtheteacher.com/blog/retweet-this

Go ahead and click it and login to Twitter to see what happens.

The + symbols will become spaces, and are necessary for sites like WelcomeToTheCall.com (Instant Teleseminar) or other sites that have a form field to enter your links. Without the +, the [space] creates a break in the link.

If you’re in the source code (HTML) of your page, you don’t need the + because you’re going to be able to enclose the entire link with quotes.

Since a lot of people may be tweeting the same thing, I personally like to turn mine into a retweet (like I did above). Notice how it starts with RT @BobTheTeacher:

This has the additional advantage of putting your username in the tweets, which makes it more likely for you to get more visibility.

You can do the same thing with quotes or anything else that you’d like to see go viral.

And now you know a simple secret that will send you more traffic with the help of Twitter!

Bob Jenkins

p.s. I’ll be sharing more social media traffic strategies when I speak at live events. To see where I’ll be teaching, check out my travel schedule.

p.p.s. This retweet this link also makes for a great affiliate tool with systems like Butterfly Marketing or Digital Access Pass that allow for dynamic affiliate links.

I’d like to share my initial opinions about it, to give you a better idea if TweetGlide is for you.

In brief:

Pros

• Free
• Works/looks like TweetDeck
• Ads are only seen by other TweetGlide members
• TweetGlide members who see ads are likely on Twitter for business
• Referral program for increased ad views
• Affiliate program
• Easy to remember affiliate link
• URL shortener
• Premium upgrade option special offer is cheap
• Premium ads include longer messages and color

Cons

• Ads
• Works like TweetDeck
• Can not control what is said with the “Tweet my affiliate link” option
• Money and Twitter have been hard to marry openly
• Unproven how long people will use it

I’ll explain more about the pros and cons soon after I’ve tested it out more, but since it’s free and the ads you run are only in TweetDeck it’s worth trying out without fear.

Test out Tweet Glide for yourself and let me know what you think with a comment below!

Bob Jenkins

p.s. Be sure to watch the video on the homepage to get a clearer picture of it.

Usually, these wind up in the spam folder, where they belong.

Regardless, it’s important for you not to take this line of thinking with your online marketing.

If you’re like me (a former high school teacher with no professional training in sales or selling), you may feel funny asking people for money whether in person, on a website, or via email.

So when you’re taught by gurus that your list is an ATM, you get this knot in your stomach, but you figure that’s the way it is.

Well, it’s not.

Sure, your email list is a revenue generating part of your business. And used wisely, can be responsible for more income each month than you ever made in a year in a previous job.

But you don’t actually make that kind of money by treating your list like an ATM.

You get there by having a solution-based approach to your marketing, and recognizing that although you may have a list of 100 or 100,000, each email is read 1 person at a time.

And each person is unique, with responsibilities, bills to pay, vacations to dream of, and to-do lists a mile long.

People aren’t looking to give you their money. They want to solve a specific problem, and they want to find people they can trust to give them those solutions fast and cost effectively (notice I didn’t say cheap).

When you’re writing an email to your list, think of this formula:

• Serve
• Earn
• Serve
• Earn

First, you need to help them realize there is a problem that you can help them with. Serve

Then you earn their TRUST so they will listen to you. Earn

Then you help them solve their problem (either with your direct help, or a recommended resource that you connect them to). Serve

Then you earn your keep so to speak (i.e., get paid). Earn

In this economy, people are increasingly tight-fisted with their cash, and wary of people who are going to treat them like an ATM.

Think about this with every email you send to your list (or tweet you post, or status update on Facebook).

There’s nothing wrong with getting paid what you deserve for helping people. But make sure your priority is your readers’ priority, (i.e., connecting people to solutions to make a difference in their lives) and you’ll do very well in the cash flow department as well.

As a result, you may find yourself enjoying generating revenue in your business instead of feeling slimy.

Bob Jenkins

p.s. What do you think? Post a comment below and let me know!

p.p.s. Want help with your email marketing, so you can help people AND increase your own revenue? Be sure to take my 30 Day Autoresponder Challenge, and I’ll walk you through building a serve-first email system.

Of course, there’s no way that I can really rank them in order, so I will cheat and list them alphabetically instead (by first name) :)  Regardless, I send each of you listed here a hearty thank you and appreciation for the role you’ve played in my success so far and in the future.

Anita Johnson

If you’ve been a customer of mine anytime over the last couple of years, there’s a chance you have met Anita online. She runs my help desk and I couldn’t have a better person than her. I know that I can never adequately put in words how much I appreciate what she does for me and my business. Reliability, initiative, and care are difficult to find these days, yet Anita does so much in those areas.

• Anita Johnson On Twitter
• Anita Johnson’s Website
  

Carrie Wilkerson

The Barefoot Executive inspires me, holds my feet to the fire, and is a vocal fan of internet marketing training. Because of Carrie, I connected with a mastermind and a new business coach that’s having fantastic results for me. She’s always connecting me to the right people at the right time. And the birthday party she threw for me and Mark Shilensky in California was awesome! I’m also keeping a keen eye on everything she’s doing in business, including her growing association of work at home women.

• Carrie Wilkerson On Twitter
• Carrie Wilkerson’s Website
  

Deb Micek

One of the reasons you are even reading this blog right now is because of Coach Deb. The technology of QuanSite (Blogi360) that she helped develop runs AskBobTheTeacher.com. And if you got hear because of Twitter, you can thank her too, because I learned a lot from her. But mostly, the entire philosophies behind her new media marketing and tribal marketing ideas are at the core of how I run my business.

• Deb Micek on Twitter
• Deb Micek’s Website

Del Williams

She’ll likely be surprised to be on this list, but Del Williams is the re-tweet queen on Twitter. So most of the time when I’m thinking of something to say on Twitter, I think, “Would Del retweet this?” I know that many of my 11K+ followers came directly from her spreading my messages online! And I loved finally getting to meet her at an event this year.

• Del Williams On Twitter
• Del Williams’ Website

Donna Fox

Donna has been my business mentor longer than anyone else, and has helped me in a lot of different ways. Her advice and coaching on financial matters is helping me eliminate my debt and restore my credit after a decade of teaching myself into the basement of my financial house. The way she and Paulie Sabol coached me in the heyday of i5Gold and after made significant turning points in my business. And the way she organized the first internet marketing seminar I went to (TIMME2) made a major impact on the trajectory of my business. Her platform presentation tips before JV Alert in February 2009 also had very profitable results for me. And I always look forward to events where she’s going to be, like the internet marketer’s cruise in January :)

• Donna Fox on Twitter
• Donna Fox’s Website

Donna Kozik

I haven’t known Donna too long, but she’s helped me write my first book, Take Action, Revise Later, which will be published soon. I always knew I wanted to get a book written, but she was the one that finally got me over the major hurdles. Now, I have version 0.8 in my hands, and I know it’s just the first of many to come.

• Donna Kozik on Twitter
• Donna Kozik’s Website
  

Felicia Slattery

Teaching with Felicia on stage at 2 events has certainly been a highlight of my year. But more importantly, Felicia’s helped me keep things in perspective as I continue growing in business. She’s a raving fan, and always pushing me higher. She’s also a frequent tweeter, and I know that we have a lot of collaboration ahead of us in the future!

• Felicia Slattery on Twitter
• Felicia Slattery’s Website
  

Kelly Fuller

Another person who will likely be surprised about being on the list is Kelly. We don’t talk too much anymore, but Kelly was my de facto sponsor/upline in Ameriplan, which was my first real push into business. She’s been influential in a lot of ways, but I’ll highlight just a couple of things here. First, she’s always been there for her team, but without pestering or badgering them. I’m not promoting it actively now, but I know whenever I wanted to she’d be there to help. Second, she connected me to the WAHM.com forum back in the day. And it was in that forum that I came up with the username BobTheTeacher. So indirectly, Kelly’s responsible for my entire brand!

Joyce Jagger

Another inspiring woman who influences me is Joyce Jagger. She was one of my earliest students in internet marketing, and has been involved in just about all my courses I’ve ever taught (maybe even all of them) and she implements what she learns. She’s also been a long time coaching student, and I’ve learned a lot from her as I’ve coached her. I won’t tell you her age, because you’d never believe me if you heard it. But let’s just say that her webinar coaching series for embroidery businesses, and her use of Camtasia and internet marketing are excellent for any age trainer. Plus, if I ever release a crappy product, I know I’ll get it in the ear from Joyce!

• Joyce Jagger on Twitter
• Joyce Jagger’s Website

Lynn Terry

I had heard of Lynn for a long time, but never connected with her until an event in Orlando this year. What a brilliant person to know! About five minutes into our first conversation she said some call her the Ralph Nader of affiliate marketing. Her approach to business, the way she works with her customers, and her pursuit of excellence without sacrificing any of her ethics are tremendous. And her ClickNewz blog is probably the best community blog in internet marketing. With her as an example, I’ve challenged myself to execute my own business like Lynn does hers.

• Lynn Terry on Twitter
• Lynn Terry’s Website
  

Melanie Benson Strick

Melanie has a way of appearing to saunter along in a conversation and then ask an anvil of a question at just the right time (you know, the one that bonks you upside the head?). Working with her in a coaching program the last few months has given me some much needed focus and clarity on managing my growth.

• Melanie Benson Strick on Twitter
• Melanie Benson Strick’s Website

Nicole Dean

If you missed the Star Trek Sub, please go back and read the 5 guest posts Nicole blogged for me. Nicole is an idea generator and her approach to business with balance has been inspiring to me. She laughs frequently, and like no other (which is a good thing!). She reminds me to have fun in business at all times. Her approach to affiliate programs has me re-tooling my business in that area to match what she does more closely.

• Nicole Dean on Twitter
• Nicole Dean’s Website

Okay, so that’s really 12, and I should probably do at least 20 because I know there are a few more that I should mention. But I’ll save that for a second edition later on.

I hope you’ll get to know each of these incredible women, and let them impact your life in some way.

Bob Jenkins

p.s. Have you been impacted by any of these women, too? I’d love to hear how with a comment below!

Retweet This Post On Twitter

Well since it’s Friday you can write about how #FollowFriday helps people on Twitter to build bigger networks..

That’s a great idea.

First, let me explain what #FollowFriday is on Twitter.

When you see a word preceded by # on Twitter, then you are seeing what is called a “hashtag”. This is a convention in social media that lets you know what the post or tweet is connected to. It helps people who are talking about the same thing stay in tune with the conversation.

So for example, last week, at Willie Crawford’s event, we were using #BBASH since it was his 50th Birthday Bash event.

So somehow (I’d love to know how – but don’t know yet), somebody came up with the #FollowFriday hashtag.

Basically, you tell the world who you enjoy following. Here’s an example. Earlier today, @JitUppal posted:

Some great IM mentors @FasterWebmaster @LeeMcIntyre @Alex_Jeffreys @BobTheTeacher @RichardLegg @ericfarewell @liztomey #followfriday

So now, anyone who wants to find an internet marketing mentor, and who also knows Jit, will have some good recommendations to go by.

This is a great way to build your network of people on Twitter.

First, as you suggest people follow people you like, they are likely to pay more attention to you because of your generosity. But also, the people you recommend will appreciate that you’ve done so. They may return the favor later on by recommending you on #FollowFriday. Or they may simply DM you (direct message) with thanks.

The third way this helps you expand your network goes back to the essence of the hashtag.

When a particular hashtag gets popular, the nature of its popularity grows in the amount of attention it receives. By using the hashtag #followfriday you put your voice in the conversation of thousands – and you never know who’s going to be watching.

Now you’ll notice two types of FollowFridays usually. One is a tweet where it’s simply a long list of usernames and #followfriday. This helps YOU connect with more people, but it doesn’t give the rest of us a reason to actually follow them.

My recommendation is that you do a #followfriday for each person individually, with a reason for that suggestion. This will help the person you are recommending more by increasing the chance your followers listen to your recommendation.

For example, one of my #FollowFriday earlier today was:

If you want better affiliate marketing training & strategies, @lynnterry #followfriday

(By the way, Lynn will be my next guest on IMSuccessRadio.com on Monday).

Whatever way you prefer, try to recommend people who truly deserve the shout out – especially if they are “undiscovered” by the masses (those with 500-3000 followers, as a guideline).

So jump on over to Twitter, and share your favorite people to follow – be sure to include their username with the @ in front of it (like @bobtheteacher) with no spaces so that it’s easy for the rest of us to follow. And include #followfriday to be part of the party.

Bob Jenkins

p.s. If you want a more permanent acknowledgement of the people you are recommending, add your favorites to the Follow Friday Squidoo lens I’ve created for that purpose.

Within a 4 hour period, using Twitter, I…

• recouped $300 selling a ticket to an event I couldn’t use while helping someone else have an incredible experience.
• presented an idea to someone, which resulted in a 1 hour phone conversation and a soon-to-be announced training project about advanced Twitter techniques
• scheduled a call for later on Friday to be a case study inside a major product launch coming out in a couple of weeks.

Now, these are not the first success stories of my own use of Twitter. But having all 3 happen in such a short period of time was quite remarkable.

And it got me to thinking…

Why are so many people still confused about why Twitter is such a big deal?

So help me explain it to them.

Share your success story below. I’m looking for connections made, projects developed, specific items sold, revenue generated, deals made, lives saved, charities donated to… whatever.

Bob Jenkins
www.DiscoverSocialNetworking.com

p.s. Please be sure to retweet this post so we can all learn from others’ success stories.

The argument centers around a few different methods of making it easier to post messages and get followers. Specifically, I’d like to get your opinion on these three methods…

• 1 Click Tweets
• Viral Tweets
• Tweeter Getter

I’ll share my opinion and look forward to your comments below…

1 Click Tweets are a specific method of making a tweet just one click away for a reader. I’ve been using these personally for some time (in fact, I believe I was the first to use it inside an affiliate program).

They take the form of a pre-written tweet with a specially coded hyperlink. Such as this:

reading @bobtheteacher post about the viral-tweeter controversy

(click it and see what happens inside Twitter)

I’ve also been using it in my blog. At the end of each post, you’ll see the following link, which dynamically changes for each post to link to that individual post.

Retweet This Post On Twitter

BTW – Here’s the code to do that in a WordPress or Blogi360 blog:

<b><a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=@BobTheTeacher+enjoyed+reading+your+tips+<?php
the_permalink() ?>” target=”new”>Retweet This Post On Twitter</a></b>

My rationale for thinking this is perfectly kosher for the Twitterverse is that the person that clicks the link knows what they are saying, and they give permission to say it. In fact, they can even change the message before they hit Update (perhaps it should be “2-click” tweets).

More recently, Mike Filsaime began using it with a rotator inside FreeMikeFilsaime.com.

Viral Tweets came along a couple of weeks ago. With this software, the owner creates a pre-written tweet and posts a form on any webpage. When someone enters their username and password for Twitter, and clicks submit, the message goes out. If they have the pro version, the owner gets to set up their form so the reader becomes an instant follower.

You also redirect the reader to a new page of your choice – your blog, a sales page, your Twitter profile, etc. (Here’s an example of Viral Tweets in action)

Again, I personally like this set up if it’s used with a  rational pre-written tweet. The person clicking the button has the option of unchecking the name of the person they get to follow. And they also can choose not to hit the button in the first place.

I would personally prefer the ability for the users to change their own message. But so far I can’t personally figure out how to make that happen in the code.

The advantage of Viral Tweets over the 1-click method I started with is the form acts as an “opt-in” – they are now following your future tweets. They can always unfollow.

The third, and perhaps most controversial method is Tweeter Getter.

This is like co-registration for Twitter. When you arrive on the page (TweeterGetter.com), you’re told you can get over 19000 followers in 30 days. When you submit the auto-tweet at the bottom, you follow the TG creator, and up to 5 or 6 people that were users before you in the chain (@deucehartley cleverly called it a “twain letter”).

(By the way, everyone has a TweeterGetter page whether they want one or not. Simply by adding the username and then filling out the form, that person is attached to your auto-follow routine).

The Twitter purists and moderates are slamming this software as a pyramid scheme.

If you tell 5, and they tell 5, and they tell 5…. Personally I have no problem with these types of systems per se. It’s the foundation of the network marketing model of business. So I think calling it a pyramid scheme is disingenuous, and misses the point of why it’s a bad program.

When it comes to SOCIAL media, the whole point is the quality of the relationships and connections – not the quantity.

Which is why I don’t think you should use Tweeter Getter. Yes, having 19,000 followers in 30 days will look impressive to those who don’t really understand Twitter.

The trouble for you will be a clogged email and DM box – and a cacophony of tweets from people who believe quantity is more important than quality.

Sure, you’ll get up to 10,000 or more followers quicker than doing it “by yourself”. But 80% or more of your following will be people who were led by the hype of the landing page at TweeterGetter. So it’s likely your followers will be hypists and leeches more than contributors to the conversation.

How could Tweeter Getter get better? I’m not sure Tweeter Getter could ever be acceptable to the purists, but for moderates out there, we’d probably be happy if these changes were made:

• Allow people to change the message,
• Make it possible to uncheck the boxes of people we don’t want to follow.
• Link to the profile pages of the people up the ladder so we can decide to follow or not.

So that’s my take on these three methods.

What’s yours?

Bob Jenkins
www.DiscoverSocialNetworking.com

p.s. Follow me the old-fashioned way… Twitter.com/bobtheteacher