5 Scientifically Proven Ways to Get More Followers

Getting more Twitter followers is a great starting point to becoming a social media star. How you get a big Twitter follower count is actually more important than the sheer quantity. You can use gimmicks and race to 100,000 followers easily. However, you want a high quantity of high quality followers. Based on Dan’s research, the 5 scientifically proven ways to attract more followers are:

1. Display a profile picture – The lowest hurdle of anyone serious
2. Stop talking about yourself – even if you are awesome
3. Reply – Don’t just broadcast
4. Identify yourself as an authority – Be official, a founder, or a guru
5. Be positive – Good attitude goes a long way

Check out this epic social media infograph…

Optimal Link Placement for Clicks

Historically, most of us put a link at the end of a Tweet. That practice may change based on some research Dan just published. It looks like the end of the post is okay. However, the sweet spot for clicks is to place your link approximately 25% of the way through your post.

As a bonus tip, your click through rate will also increase by adding a clear call to action. It’s amazing how powerful the simple act of asking someone to click or download gets results.

5 Scientifically Proven Ways to Get More ReTweets

Followers are good, but the success of your campaigns is to go viral. You need retweets. What type of tweets are more likely to be retweeted? Dan reviewed tons of retweeted posts and came up with the top 5 factors to getting more retweets:

1. Tweet links
2. Ask for ReTweets
3. Stop talking about yourself – a repeat Twitter best practice!
4. Report something new
5. Tweet about Twitter – not Facebook or LinkedIn

Here is the infograph…

If you want an even more high impact how-to guide from Dan, he just published an incredible book in August. I highly recommend it. The ROI you will get for $10 is amazing.

Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas

 Disclaimer: This link is an affiliate link. However, my recommending Dan’s book or the very cool infographics is not based on my financial gain. His exceptional work speaks for itself and is worth sharing.

Related posts:

1. Using Twitter as an Effective Business Tool
2. 7 Creative Brief Secrets Every Marketer Should Know
3. Linkbaiting and Freebaiting

© Bob Angus for bobangus.com, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: best practices, books, graphics, results, social networks, tips, traffic, Twitter, viral marketing

LinkedIn

How can that be? Facebook is the #2 highest traffic website in the world and reaches 43% of the global internet according to Alexa. LinkedIn is not too shabby with over 100 million profiles, but it is the #12 most visited site and has a 6% reach. Plus all the experts say that every business needs a Facebook fan page and that everybody needs an active Facebook profile. That is absolutely true.

So how can I write that LinkedIn is more important for your personal professional brand than Facebook? The distinction is your personal professional brand versus your personal life. Get in your professional marketer mindset. LinkedIn is the best place to promote yourself and connect with similar business professionals.

Then add an amazing complement of social networking features tailored to help you accelerate the development of your professional image. LinkedIn has it all.

Not just for finding jobs

Many of us started using LinkedIn for the first time to find jobs and to post a better online resume. That was how most users used to think of the network, especially in the company’s early days. That is no longer the case. People in the corporate world are keeping LinkedIn open all the time just like they do Facebook at home.

Also you don’t need to worry any more that LinkedIn activity means you are job searching. You are not raising a red flag when share a relevant article, get a recommendation or update your profile. You are adding value, standing out from the crowd and representing you and your company in a positive light.

In fact, a LinkedIn profile is now expected if you are in sales or marketing role or in a technology industry. Before you meet somebody face-to-face, I guarantee that they checked out your LinkedIn profile. If you don’t have one or it is obviously neglected, then you are setting off the warning alarm.

High impact social networking

Connections, timelines, likes, comments, groups, apps, events, polls, an advertising network, news and much, much more. LinkedIn has all the social networking features you can want. Leverage these to stay visible with connections, promote yourself and supercharge your personal brand. More importantly these features are incredibly effective. The difference maker is that you and everyone on LinkedIn are there to represent yourself as a professional and to do business.

Farnoosh Brock sums it up perfectly in her recent post How to Use LinkedIn to Create Unique Opportunities for Your Blog Business on ProBlogger.

1. The LinkedIn community approaches networking with a business-oriented mindset and wants to hear about your business, your offers, your products, and your services.
2. The spirit of the LinkedIn community is to support one another as business professionals, as opposed to Facebook and Twitter where we are first peeps and friends before we talk business.
3. The LinkedIn professionals are very likely decision makers in their business and your connection with the right person could mean real business and profits.

Not just a numbers game

Lastly, if you do want to find a job, LinkedIn is the best. I am biased though. When I was unemployed before joining PayPal, I was being contacted by 2-3 recruiters a day. In fact, I got my interview with PayPal because the recruiter found me on LinkedIn… not because I had an inside contact or had submitted my resume online.

I have a word of warning though. You look terrible if you are only blindly adding dozens of connection daily and adding nothing else, just like on other social networks. Sure the bigger your network, the better. But on LinkedIn business professionals in your field are paying attention to your every move. Contribute to a group discussion. Recommend a co-worker or valued customer. Post a relevant article.

Don’t be a connection spammer. On Twitter, people just choose to not follow you back. On LinkedIn, you don’t get the call for your next job.

How do you use LinkedIn? Comment with your favorite LinkedIn benefit.

And of course, feel free to connect with me.

Related posts:

1. 3 Infographs That Hold the Secrets to Your Twitter Success
2. Using Twitter as an Effective Business Tool
3. MySpace Opens the Door to Developers

© Bob Angus for bobangus.com, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Facebook, LinkedIn, PayPal, results, social media, social networks, Twitter

I learned a lot about what it takes to finish a marathon. I experienced firsthand that running a marathon requires you to use your brain as much as your legs. Many of the lessons that I learned can also be applied to business. The following five tips can improve your results at work and make the difference between doing just okay and achieving something great.

1. Know the course – I had a plan before I started. San Francisco is very hilly. Experienced marathoners had told me that this particular race is difficult. So I checked out the course map. I noted that the flattest part was at the beginning and the biggest hills were between mile 6 – 10. I knew that I would burn out later if I started by running fast and tried to conquer the hills like a hero while I had a ton of energy.

Before you start a major project or strive for a big goal, have a plan and stick to it. Don’t just jump in and hope to figure it out along the way. It will be a lot harder to finish. Try to identify the biggest challenges ahead of time. Set milestones and find the early wins that remind you of your amazing progress.

2. Listen to your coaches – 6 miles was the longest run I had ever done before starting my training to run 26.2 miles. I needed to rely on folks who had run a marathon before and who had successfully trained beginners like me. I diligently followed my Team in Training coaches and their training regimen. Track practice, stretches, strengthening drills, long weekend runs, and most importantly what I was going to feel on race day. They promised that they would get me across the finish line. And they did.

In business, you have coaches too. Mentors who have been there and done that can teach and support you personally. Industry experts who know can give you step-by-step guidance and sometimes the real secrets to their success. Your boss (even the worst ones) pretty much spells out what it takes to succeed. Listen to what they say and execute.

3. Run a good line – What’s harder than running 26.2 miles? Running 29 miles! Over the course of a marathon, you can easily run an extra 2 or 3 miles if you are not careful. You take a lot of extra steps that aren’t getting you any closer to the finish line if you blindly follow the center line, take the outside edge on turns, or, worst of all, constantly zigzag to get ahead of slower runners are. Look ahead and find the straightest path to getting there. Then run that line.

At work, you can easily derail your hard work if you are not focused on the task in front of you. You don’t get extra credit for multi-tasking or getting things done that are not part of the bigger goal. Sure you’re working hard and think you’re producing, but you are not getting any closer to completing your bigger, more rewarding objective. Get the immediate task done. Follow your project plan one step at a time. Focus on accomplishing the results you want… the finish line.

4. You have a fuel tank – Two things my Team in Training coaches kept on saying were 1) keep fueled up and hydrated and 2) do not start out fast. I had a limited tank that fueled my engine (my muscles). I could not afford to let my fuel tank near empty or push too hard, too early. Otherwise, my body would shut down later in the race and I wouldn’t finish. So I ate my two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before the race, swallowed a Gu calorie pack every 4 miles, drank a little water and/or an electrolyte drink at every station, and kept my steady pace throughout the marathon.

We all have fuel tanks at work too. You don’t want to burn out or become inefficient because you’ve had enough. Recharge your creativity and productivity by working all the time or staying up all night. Keep your tasks reasonable throughout a project. Do not wait until you are on deadline to get started. Or visa versa, do not spend all of your energy for a big effort when you are the most enthusiastic at the beginning.

5. It is okay to walk – My goal was to cross the finish line, not to break the world record. Most runners become walkers at some point in the course of a marathon. At mile 21 I had a teeth-clenching pain shooting in my back and right knee with every step. I was hurting bad. I still had five miles to go. Lots of steps to go. I decided to do intervals of walking the rest of the way. I did not get discouraged one bit that I wasn’t running like an Olympian. Guess what? I still came in 11th in my age group. Woo hoo!

This is the hardest thing most everyone faces because we are proud of our work. One of the easiest ways to derail your hard work is if you feel bad when you hit a snag. Or worse give up. Some unplanned problem (maybe a lot of them) will happen. Don’t become discouraged, minimize the value of your objective or quit altogether. Face the issue. Do what you need to do to address it. Keep going until you are done. Be proud.

BONUS TIP: You did it! Celebrate your great accomplishment. You just did something that was hard or maybe something others said was impossible. Make sure to reward yourself and feel great about what you have done. Sure the Tiffany’s silver medal at the finish line was awesome. But I could hardly wait to order a huge steak, extra fries, and a chocolate sundae from my hotel’s room service and kickback with an afternoon of football on the TV.

I was successful in accomplishing something that seemed inconceivable just six months ago by diligently following these tips. Just imagine how successful you can be if you apply these tips to your next big project or to your everyday work routine.

If you have ever run a marathon or plan to tackle an endurance event for a great cause, let me know I’d love to hear about it and support you.

Related posts:

1. 5 Tips to Negotiate with Domain Name Buyers for Higher Profits
2. Setting a new running goal
3. USC to Rout UCLA – My Running Goal Gets a Boost

© Bob Angus for bobangus.com, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: best practices, Bob Angus, charity, how-to guide, marathon, productivity, results, running goal, Team in Training, tips

I have bookmarked a ton of posts related to Twitter and how to it can be used to help develop business connections. Of those posts, I highly recommend reading Caroline Middlebrook’s Big Juicy Twitter Guide. In particular, Section 2 delves into the benefits that Twitter can deliver for your business.

It is well known that the more contact you make with a customer, the more likely you are to make a sale. These days it is much more ‘in vogue’ to sell by not selling, rather than doing the hard-push sales pitch. Twitter is a way of doing that. With Twitter you can chat to people in a friendly way and give them nudges and hints about what you’re doing in your world. Look at the benefits:

• It reminds them that you exist
• It shows them that you are human
• It allows you to mention new offers immediately
• It allows you to form a more casual relationship

Also, Dan Zarrella just did a guest post on Read/Write Web called 10 Ways Twitter Can Boost Your Social News Profile. More than just trying to boost the size of your connections (which is something that anyone can game), the article offers several valuable tips that increase the value of those relationships. The most important… Ask questions. While Dan focuses on asking questions as a form of “Twitter-jacking,” I see the questions as the core to relationship building. Find out what your customers and connections want by asking. Then give it to them.

There is much to learn about Twitter. If you have a post that you have found insightful or if you want to let me know what your favorite Ramones song is, give me a tweet.

Related posts:

1. 3 Infographs That Hold the Secrets to Your Twitter Success
2. LinkedIn Is More Important Than Facebook
3. Prime Angus Filets: Links this Week 1-11-2008

© Bob Angus for bobangus.com, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: results, social networks, web 2.0

Here are 5 tips that I have found invaluable when negotiating with domain name and website buyers.

1. The Low Ball Bid

Most deals start with the seller asking for a high price and the buyer offering an insanely low bid. Do not get offended or put off by a low ball offer. If somebody has made the effort to make a bid, then they are interested in your property.

The key is to identify one or more elements of your domain that the buyer values. For example, do they own a portfolio of other domains in your niche? If so, then you have something in common to build on. You can move forward with the negotiation by demonstrating your value, not just haggling price.

2. Moving Forward Based on Value

When you ask questions or research other properties owned by the buyer, you can identify what is important to them. This approach helps significantly during the negotiation or when you run into a roadblock. You have to ask how/what/why questions to diffuse any roadblocks and turn them around to increase the value to the buyer. This process is what salespeople call objection handling.

DomainerPro.com had a good example in his How to Negotiate Domain Name Prices post.

Countering Bluffs: I would add that you should learn to recognize and counter the most common bluffs that buyers use. If a buyer says, “I can’t go any higher,” don’t give in, and don’t call him a liar either. Instead counter with a reasoned argument like, “I understand what you’re saying, but this domain name will ultimately save you money by bringing you targeted leads. The extra money is worth it.”

3. Always Answer Questions

Potential buyers will always have questions about your domain. You will receive even more questions when you are selling an entire website. It is important that you answer these questions thoroughly and quickly. The buyer is asking for details so that they can better value what they are willing to pay. More likely than not, a detailed response from you will help increase the final selling price.

4. Always Answer Questions Honestly

Do not play games with buyers. If you think that you can maximize your selling price by lying and by sayging that your website is not an auto-generated, blackhat SEO quickie, then you are fooling yourself. Buyers know all the tricks and will bail on a deal if you try to snow them. It is okay to be honest. A quickie, no-effort website will not get top dollar, but then again it shouldn’t.

5. Build Relationships for the Future

If you are interested in making money online through a repeatable domain flipping process, then you need to establish and grow relationships. The more key, trusted connections that you have, the more profitable and repeatable you domaining business will be. Just like any business.

Do not burn bridges by weaseling over $100 or even $1000. A single solid relationship can help your business profit 10 or 20 times that. Keep providing value and sharing with your partners and they will return the favor in spades over the long run.

Do you have any other negotiation insights or stories that others can learn from?

Related posts:

1. 5 steps to maximize domain parking revenue
2. Domain parking is SO easy
3. Would you use domain parking to monetize AtomicWarrior.com?

© Bob Angus for bobangus.com, 2008. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: domain names, domain parking, results, web real estate

Hot Topic

I have read three poignant posts this week that have led me to write this post.

Devlounge – The Dangers of Buying a Blog: David gets right to the point – expect to lose approximately 33% of the current traffic right away. Unique visitors are not eyeballs, they are readers. You have to value why those readers are visiting the site and if that readership can be maintained.

Portfolio.com – What’s Drudge Worth? – by way of ProBlogger.Net: Duff estimates that The Drudge Report should be valued between $10-20 million based on eyeballs, ad sales, and his mom’s opinion. However, he goes on to say that it is worth zilch if you cannot lock Matt Drudge into a long-term writing contract. I could not agree more.

Dosh Dosh – Building an Online Empire: Of the 16 website types Maki mentions that you can buy/sell, none of them were a pure blog. He lists a product review blog, but that type of site is more dependent on the product than the author.

There are many more helpful articles if you do a Google search. Or I also recommend reading related forum posts on WickedFire, Sitepoint or Digital Point.

The Metrics

Before buying a blog or any website, you need to know the following metrics:

• Unique visits per month
• Page views per month
• Feed subscriptions
• Posts per month
• Monthly Revenue
• Google PageRank
• Alexa rank
• Date established

Of course, you should ask for the trends and seasonality of these metrics. A snapshot in time or peaks can look great, but they can be pumped up and a single number does not tell the whole story.

Beside statistics, you should also have a clear understanding of the intellectual and technical property you are acquiring. You are not buying a domain. You are buying a website and everything that goes with it, including posts, comments, media, databases, customized themes, etc.

Recommendations

There is no cookie-cutter, rule of thumb for valuation, like $10 per post or 10x monthly revenues. Here is a swag bid estimate calculation that I use:

1. Your valuation calculation should start by defining a financial benchmark. Estimate the monthly profit (preferred) or revenue per thousand unique visits or subscriber that you are achieving for your current blog properties.
2. Then use that value and apply it to the same measure for the blog in question… less 50%. Remember David said 33%. I go more conservative when making financial estimations.
3. Finally, my bid would be approximately 12 months of that estimated profit or 6 months of the estimated revenue. That is my personal valuation rule based on my desire to be rolling full speed with a site within a year.

For example, let’s say your current blogs make $2 profit per thousand unique visits per month and the potential purchase has 20k uniques per month. Then I would expect to make $20 per month ($2 x 20 x 50%). My bid would be in the range of $200-250 (or $20 x 12).

In addition to making a good quantitative decision, you should also be prepared with an action plan to minimize readership erosion and to increase your ramp to profitability. Specifically, make sure you line up engaging writers and content to hit the ground running and get your promotional methods implemented.

Now I am off to see if there is anything on Sitepoint or Digital Point that catches my eye!

Related posts:

1. Flipping Website Real Estate for Profit
2. Claiming my blog on Technorati
3. Search Engine Journal – 2006 Search Blog Awards

© Bob Angus for bobangus.com, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blogging, business models, results, web real estate

Rather than just jumping in and making these changes, I always like to have a plan. Here is a summary of my action plan for improving this site…

The Goal: This site will not be yet another affiliate marketing blog or search marketing blog or blogging blog.

The Action Plan:

1. (More) content is king – Simply put, I need to post more and provide more valuable, actionable material for you. I participate in the most dynamic industry, internet marketing, and I learn something new or have key lessons reinforced every day. I have to share that experience. More importantly, I have to share it in a way that helps you to take action.
2. Grow traffic – I have to follow the fundamental, well-known steps that all successful bloggers practice to drive traffic. Darren Rowse’s Problogger.net and other sites dedicated to blogging have been a fantastic source for ideas and guidance.
3. Track and learn – For the longest time, I did not have any website analytics tools on this site. The data that is contained in Google Analytics and other tools is invaluable, because I can learn and adjust based on that information. I have installed the Ultimate Google Analytics plugin for WordPress to easily enable the Google’s free site analytics.
4. Keep trying new stuff – I want this site to be a sandbox. I will be constantly trying out new technologies, ideas and fun stuff. Of course, too much experimentation and cluttering in the main posting area is disruptive. Therefore, I am building a new page called Bob’s Sandbox. Check it out.

Now it’s time to make it happen.

Related posts:

1. Welcome to bobangus.com
2. Launching a New Theme for BobAngus.com
3. Driving Traffic and Building Readership

© Bob Angus for bobangus.com, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: angus, blogging, results

Today, there are a few excellent posts that provide the details of what linkbaiting is and deliver actionable steps to leverage this viral method.

Darren Rowse at ProBlogger.Net provided a laundry list of his posts on linkbaiting best practices. He also links to several other prominent SEO blogs on their approaches. Here is the link to the post:

What is Linkbait?

Darren started his post by referencing Rand Fishkin (SEOmoz) and his post on Yahoo Publisher Network. Here is the link to that post:

Leveraging Linkbait

Lastly, I checked out a post from Dosh Dosh on a twist to linkbaiting called freebaiting. The concept of freebaiting makes me a little squeamish. Much like advertisers questioning lead quality from incentive-based affiliates, I was initially skeptical that freebaiting would just drive traffic, but not readers. However, it is too easy to throw the baby out with the bath water here – as it is with incentive affiliates too. Freebaiting can provide a powerful viral vortex to your content or services. If you do it in such a way that you provide real value with your free offer, then you can grow regular readers of your blog. Here is the link to the post:

Want Traffic & Backlinks? Try Freebaiting

Related posts:

1. Driving Traffic and Building Readership
2. Great content sources to boost your viral traffic
3. 3 Infographs That Hold the Secrets to Your Twitter Success

© Bob Angus for bobangus.com, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blogging, results, viral marketing

First, Rand at SEOmoz had a popular post back in August 2006 titled “21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic.” All 21 tactics are directly actionable steps any blogger can utilize. One critical learning that I will spend time on is to pay attention to my analytics. Not only should one know where readers are coming from, you can learn what posts your readers really enjoy and when they are most frequently reading those posts. The resulting lesson is to write more of what your readers want and to never miss posting on your busiest time of the week.

Second, ProBlogger.Net had a guest blogger all last week – Tony Hung. In his post “How to Market Your Blog in 2007,” Tony lists 41 ways to kickstart the marketing of a blog. I am going to be busy implementing almost all of these great action items too. One incredible idea is to publish your own original research. Don’t simply be the 217th blog to post on a major news story. Come up with an engaging question or hypothesis, research the topic thoroughly, and then publish the findings.

Wait. I didn’t mention link baiting, social bookmarking, actively posting comments on other blogs and forums, or joining a blog carnival. That is because those items are simple, must-do steps that have a single focus – drive traffic. Those tactics do not build readership. What is very clear from Rand and Tony’s posts is that to succeed you need to work hard and focus on your readers. You are blogging to build readership by engaging them with great content, not by being traffic guru.

To me, you are not an impression, a clickthrough, or a potential click on an AdSense ad. You are reading this post right now. I hope that you enjoy what I write about and comeback often.

Here are the links to the aforementioned posts:
21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic by Rand on SEOmoz
How to Market Your Blog in 2007 by Tony on ProBlogger.Net

Related posts:

1. Great content sources to boost your viral traffic
2. Linkbaiting and Freebaiting
3. Buying a blog is different than buying a website

© Bob Angus for bobangus.com, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blogging, results

Way back in August, Super Affiliate Marketing Blog had a great post on flipping web real estate. Jon details three key redesign elements to turning a low traffic dud into a website worth buying. First, the design…

Is it too crappy to look at? Do you need to change it around? Chances are pretty good that you will need to make some alterations. Whether you should redo the whole thing is again, up to your taste and budget. Remember, you already spent $500 on this, and your goal is $3k, so you don’t want to go overboard with unnecessary beautification operations.

Then, Jon drills down on steps #2 and #3 – usability and monetization. Mixed in with these steps, he gives invaluable guidance that can give you the edge to maximize your ROI. For example, focus on generating statistics like unique impressions, page rank on Google and Alexa, and some basic contextual advertising revenue. Then, provide a mini business plan with current site metrics and future projections in your “for sale” message. Help make it simple for a buyer to pay top dollar.

Also, it is vital that there is an active marketplace to buy and sell web real estate. Of course, the real differentiator that maximizes your overall profits is to understand the potential buyer and don’t burn bridges…

Remember, that even though you are selling a property that doesn’t really interest you much in holding onto, you are selling it to someone who finds it as a good deal or investment, so you must treat it with respect, because this property may be someone’s baby sometime soon…

… put some contextual ads onto it if you like, get the stats program working again, collect as much real data as possible on the current situation of the site, and then make projections of 3, 6, 10 and 12 months. Base those numbers ONLY on the current situation of the site. If you just go off and make numbers up, they won’t buy anything else from you ever again, and you may also sabotage your reputation on your first deal, which can suck.

Here is the link to the full post. The marketplace and profits are there for you. Check out Biz MP for developed websites or The Domain Name Aftermarket by GoDaddy for just domains.

Related posts:

1. Buying a blog is different than buying a website
2. Free Website Launch Checklist and Daily Tracker
3. Domain parking is SO easy

© Bob Angus for bobangus.com, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: business models, results, web design, web real estate