Time to Rant Again about Social Media Courses?? — The Twitter Method

I got both a lot of heat and support for my controversial last blog post where I basically ripped all of the spammy stuff going on in the world of “make money with Twitter/Facebook/insert your social networking flavor-of-the-month here”.   Best of all, we got a lively debate that’s still going on in the comment section.

One of the points that I didn’t completely go over is that fact that I do recognize (and regularly tap into) the tremendous potential and value of sites like Twitter — just not using the methods I’ve seen from the so-called “social media experts”.

With that, I have to admit that I cringed a bit when I received an advanced copy and access to the entire course for The Twitter Method, by Jack Humphrey and his partners. Now, although Jack is the real-deal if there ever was one when it comes to social media… I must admit the worry that hit my stomach when I though I was going to have to tell my friend and respected peer that his new course was crap, before I had a chance to review it.

In fact, he and his partners probably think I was ignoring his emails because I wasn’t exactly timely in my response to them. The truth is that I have my hand in a number of things, so I had my wingman Tony review the material first…and decided I’d only even consider taking a look and telling you guys about it, if it got his approval (since he’s pretty handy himself when it comes to social media AND he was mentored by Jack.)

Well, I’m both pleased and relieved to tell you that The Twitter Method is absolutely killer!! (I guess I shouldn’t have doubted Jack and Co…sorry bud!)

Here’s the thing, while other “gurus” and courses teach how to get a gazillion followers and do some borderline shady stuff, The Twitter Method steps completely out of the box of anything you’ve heard before or have been told about making money using Twitter, thus far.

The approach is so drop dead simple, yet brilliant, and exposes the absolute sweet spot — ripe, just sitting there, yours for the taking — to strategically use Twitter to generate cash.

The Twitter Method does not show you how to build a following — in fact, you can start with a brand new account and start generating revenue literally, today, following this step-by-step method. You even get examples of what to Tweet about, how to find your prospects, how to engage, WHAT to say, etc.

All the swipe copy is provided, so you can just copy and paste 90% and reserve your brain cells for the last (and most obvious) 10%. Seriously, if you can’t follow this method…you might want to call it a day!

But I know you can, so I encourage you to go see for yourself.

I give it two thumbs up and hope this course starts a movement around how marketers properly and effectively utilize social media.

Then again, if that happened, all these garbage social media courses would disappear and I couldn’t go off and rant like I did last time!

Check out The Twitter Method!

Talk soon,
Herschy

P.S. Keep the comments coming…I think we all learn a lot from hearing what you have to say and the unique perspective you bring.

P.P.S. I have a Great Motivational and Results Video coming out soon as well!

Losing Money with Social Media and Really Good Videos

Sorry it’s been a short bit since I released a new post. Scott and I have been super busy with 2 new projects and working with JV partners. I’ve come across a few REALLY good videos recently that market two completely different products well, but before I get to that I’ve seen some really interesting movements when it comes to social media and internet marketing. This topic always gets me really fired up so…

Here’s my thoughts and stand on the subject:

Facebook – Some ( not all ) Marketing Guru’s and Social Media Scam Artists, as I so kindly refer to them as, for the past 18 months, or more, have been preaching Facebook solely as a monetization platform. I completely disagreed and still do on that approach. In my opinion, Facebook is great for relationship building and some networking but I’ve always kept mine private and pretty limited to anyone other than friends.

If you own a small business or are looking for targeted relationships (local area networking) Facebook is great. Just adding hoards of friends and making fan pages isn’t the way to go though. If you are looking to monetize Facebook, monetize the relationship long term. I haven’t seen one person claiming ( or better yet showing) they make thousands off of Facebook marketing. What I have seen personally though are stronger bonds, relationships, trust, and interaction for businesses, my clients, customers, etc. which are all EASILY monetized over the long term.

If you want to make REAL MONEY on Facebook, run targeted ads, screw relationships.

There’s a link at the bottom called “advertisers” or something similar, and almost no one talks about it. Now that’s MY idea of social media marketing. Target highly qualified prospects on the cheap, in their leisurely environment, by running small ppc type ads. If you run ads on Google, MSN, or Yahoo, this should be cake walk. If you haven’t, go to Google Adwords and use their free training ( Yes, there is FREE PPC training) to learn the basics and try it on Facebook.

Remember – Start small, test your ads, and scale once you know the metrics.

More recently, like in the past 30 days, tons of other gurus and almost every honest social media “expert” have joined in on or reaffirmed my now finally popular stance on mass friending, auto following, and large numbers. The verdict – They are worthless numbers and followers. My question…Why did it take so long? Maybe it was because there was nothing new and exciting to talk about.

Twitter - There are a ton of new courses on how to make $500 a day or add 10K followers a month/ year / whatever. While I haven’t purchased all of them and can’t speak with 100% accurately, remember this…If it seems too good to be true it usually is. No one can blindly add thousands of people and make sales happen organically.

The ones that are actually doing it use their already established authority over the communication medium of Twitter and often back up the twitter message by blasting out an email to another large group of people on their list. In my opinion, while twitter is fun, nothing is yet to beat good old fashioned email. If it did, our inboxes would be empty…and they clearly aren’t. Just last month I was getting EMAILS about making money with Twitter. Further proof that you have to monetize across all mediums.

Just like getting quick video view spurts (dozens or hundreds within 10 minutes after posting) or an insanely large “empty” number of views on your videos, a large number of worthless friends and followers gets you Nothing!

To use Twitter, or Facebook, and even video marketing correctly, build an organic follower-ship over time building a relationship with your customers, potential customers, or any social media voyeurs that are asking for more information. An easy way to do that is plugging your twitter account on your blog, traffic generation postings, and emails.

I honestly have no idea how many Twitter followers I have, I just never cared. What I did care about was who I followed and who had worth while information to see daily. I talk to friends, fellow marketers, and even customers who have a question. I will unfollow close friends, marketers, and even family if they post too much, bother me, or provide no value.

You can use Twitter wisely to grow relationships, build bonds, and communicate with people that would otherwise be unreachable. You’d be surprised who will spend the time to answer you on Twitter that you’d NEVER get a response from via email or phone. The easiest way to start a conversation is to use the “@ reply” function. For me it’s Twitter.com/JeffSchwerdt or @JeffSchwerdt.

I may sound like a Twitter snob, but I’ve easily made more connections, relationships, and money through communication and partnerships then I have from ever posting a new link for an affiliate product on Twitter or Facebook.

Social Media Overall

Think about how you are using Social Media, and if you’re losing more money than potentially making by hanging out all day with Twitter and/or Facebook or have a feeder app open all day long.

When talking to private clients ( All who’ve paid me at least 20K upfront to work with them), I have been careful to educate them of the correct way to use Facebook to build relationships and how not to sound “salesy” in their message. I usually have to hold a reminder training session a month or so later (it’s easy to fall into the “salesy” trap).

Recently I’ve personally even gone so far as to delete old High School friends and other strangers that friended me and provided no communication. Family and crusty old fighter pilot friends got to stay. While I’m not the best at staying in touch, I do better on Facebook and Twitter than in the real world.

The real problem with teaching all this ‘social media’ stuff is that it doesn’t teach the fundamentals of what brings in the REAL money – Sales…

You have to remember all this social media marketing stuff is based in MARKETING.  And it’s derived from good old fashioned Direct Response. And before you go out trying to build these so-called ‘relationships’ using the above web 2 properties, you *need* to learn the fundamentals of being able to (ethically) persuade people to give you money.

My good friend Luke is a MASTER of this…Here’s some amazing examples I came across recently and wanted to make you aware of. While I may be losing money by not posting an affiliate link to either or even informing Luke or Rich I am doing this ahead of time, I think you can learn a lot from their videos.

HIGHLY IMPRESSIVE SALES VIDEO

My good friend Luke Jaten  from www.PostCardProfits.com is amazing when it comes to direct sales strategy and post cards. His Post Card Profits course is one of only 3 courses I have ever gone completely through more than once.

Recently he showed me his newest video and I told him this. “Luke, That was the best cold traffic sales video I have seen to date, here’s why…”

I’d rip the video right off of his page at www.PostCardProfits.com and post it here but I don’t think it’d be fair to YOU if you didn’t experience how he and Matt Trainer tied the site together when you watch the entire video. Pure Genius.

I’ll leave it at that. Bring a note pad and paper.

GREAT TESTIMONIAL VIDEO

Changing Gears. I met with another good friend of mine, Rich Cook, (www.RichCook.com) for brunch last Sunday and we were goofing off talking about how we should start a funny blog making videos for our own entertainment.

As we were talking videos he brought up a story of this testimonial video he has on his Facebook page that a buddy basically did for him without him knowing for his business.

What basically happened was his friend wanted to make an advertisement/testimonial video of his work and use it for promotional purposes.

I finally got to watch the video last night on Facebook and wanted to share it with you.  It’s put together extremely well and I can’t wait to see it on his main site.

This is a great example of social proof in a video, how to structure a sales video with good testimonials, and do it without being pitchy. Enjoy and take notes on the story blending, testimonials, and I know you’ll be blown away by the amazing photos.

Again, there’s a lot on this page to learn and comment about. I’d love to hear your thoughts below regarding how you use Social Media and your thoughts the Videos – I look forward to hearing from you.

Simply click the Comment link on the top or bottom of this blog.

Talk Soon,

Jeff “Herschy” Schwerdt

Twitter Marketing Basics

Twitter is one of the most powerful networking and marketing tools currently available on the internet. And as far as free tools go I currently consider it the most powerful.

It allows you to non-invasively follow other people of interest and see what they are doing in their daily lives, post links to important videos and web pages, or even run a sale or special offer. All with only 140 characters.

Watch the video for some tips on how to grow your list of followers, run marketing campaigns “under the radar”, and one of the single most important strategies to market correctly on Twitter.

-Herschy