Twitter | Affiliate Marketing Tips from Super Affiliate Zac Johnson

10 Surefire Ways to Promote Your Blog Using Twitter

Twitter is awesome! You can meet new people, keep up to date with old friends, join in Twitter Chats, create your own hashtag, follow celebrities, network, share stories and promote your blog. To top it off, all of this is done in only 140 characters.

You may be thinking “What has Twitter got to do with my blog?” The answer is Twitter is one of your best promotional tools!

Here are 10 surefire ways to promote your blog using Twitter:

1. Make an Announcement – Announce your new blog post is live. It’s exciting your hard work is finally available for viewing. Let people know about it! Artem Altman always makes sure to let his followers know about his new posts as shown below.

Bonus Tip: Post links on other social media sites as well, to help drive traffic to your blog.

2. Quote Yourself – Grab an important or shocking part of the blog post and quote it in a tweet, provide a link to the post and schedule for later that day. You can share your blog link more than once!

3. From the Archives – Share old posts this will help drive traffic to your blog. Your old content was good when you wrote it chances are if it wasn’t time sensitive it is still good content. So share it again. Thom Rainer does a good job of this.

4. Show Off your Link – Have a link to your blog in the bio section on Twitter. This is good for SEO and every time people look at your bio they will be reminded of your blog. Crosby Noricks, Founder of PR Couture sets a great example in her bio.

5. Retweet – When people mention or link to your blog post make sure you retweet them. This way not only will their followers see, but all of yours will as well. As you can see below, Nicole Glass retweeted my tweet stating that her new article was great.

6. Get Followed – The more followers you have the more people that will see your tweets and the link to your new blog posts. Focus on providing quality content and you will see the numbers of followers you have start to rise. Also, it helps if you thank people for following, this can be a good way to get the conversation going with new followers.

7. Let People Know – Mention people and companies who are in the article with a link to the post. Most people enjoy reading about themselves and will respond to the article.

8. Favorite – Utilize the favorite button. It’s a good idea to favorite tweets sent by other people that link to your blog post. It shows you appreciate them and it will then show up under the favorites tab. I made sure to favorite this tweet when Dudepins shared a link to my blog post.

9. Engage Your Audience – If you only tweet about your blog people will not find you engaging. Provide relevant material from other sources, it shouldn’t be all about you all the time.

10. Direct Message (DM) – Know the people you follow. If someone is interested in a specific niche topic you just wrote about, feel free to send the a DM and recommend the post. You can even recommend posts that weren’t written by you to begin fostering a relationship. If you provide content that is interesting to them they will begin to trust you. Make sure you send on topic links.

We want to hear from you: Do you have other suggestions on how to promote your blog on Twitter? Do you currently use any of these suggestions? Do you know anyone who successfully implements these 10 tips?

This guest post was written by Jenny Kay Pollock, who is the social media specialist at Four51. She assists with social media for FanTools including updating @FanTools, Facebook, and the company blog. She likes classy things and clever words. Connect with her business accounts or her personal Twitter @Jennykaypollock or Pinterest either way, she’s happy to hear new ideas and feedback!

20 May, 2012 Posted by: Zac Johnson Filed Under: Twitter 5 Comments

Twitter Backgrounds are Branding Machines

I don’t use Twitter as much as I probably should, and I actually use it for more of a blog feed than anything else. No matter how you use Twitter, it’s important to get your name and brand across. With that being said, think about your Twitter account and how many people are visiting your profile page ever day, weekly or even yearly. Even if YOU aren’t actively posting on Twitter, it doesn’t mean that people aren’t visiting your page, so it’s important to leave a lasting impression.

Twitter Backgrounds Leave an Immediate Impression

What’s the first thing you see when you visit someones Twitter page? Most likely it’s their background image. Not only do the backgrounds give us a creative insight on what the person is about, but it’s also a cool way to get your message or web site across. Who are you, what’s your business and how can I learn more about you? These are all different topics that you can use in your background.

Since going live with a new blog design, I thought it would be a good idea to change things up and go with a new Twitter background as well. You can see the new background below, which was designed by DesignPax.com. (Use coupon code “ZACJOHNSONPROMO” and save 10%)

My New Favorite Twitter Background – View Full Profile

My first Twitter background had some basic information on myself and where you could visit my blog and social pages. This time around, I just wanted to go for a big branded effort and get “ZacJohnson.com” across to the user.

Excellent Twitter Backgrounds and Resources

What are some of you favorite and most memorable Twitter backgrounds that you’ve come across while scouring around Twitter? Instead of running to Twitter and having to visit all of your followers pages individual, many design blogs have done the work for us. I love looking through galleries of Twitter backgrounds and seeing the creative ideas and designs that people come up with. Below are a few sites that feature some of the best designs we’ve all come across.

Effective Twitter Backgrounds: Examples and Current Practices
100+ Incredible Twitter Backgrounds
42 Twitter Backgrounds
40 Cool Twitter Backgrounds
25 of the Best Designed Twitter Homepages

If you don’t have your own unique Twitter background, you should! It’s free branding that may be getting seen by hundreds, if not thousands of people daily. Get creative and design your own Twitter background, or find someone that specializes in design work, like I did with DesignPax.com.

What’s the inspiration for your Twitter background, or some of the favorite designs you’ve come across?

15 February, 2011 Posted by: Zac Johnson Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Twitter

Building Your Business Through Logo Branding

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Logo Mojo. All opinions are 100% mine.

If there is one thing I’ve learned over the past few years while running this blog, it’s the power of a good logo. The Zac Johnson toon has taken on a life of it’s own and has become a very recognized symbol in the affiliate marketing and blogging niche. Without the extra branding from this logo and having it seen all over the place, it would be tough to achieve the same success the blog has seen over the past few years.

Not currently using a logo or design to brand your blog or business? You should be. Imprint an imagine in the minds of your followers, readers and customers. Doing so will not only allow them to remember a symbol and not just a name, but it helps extraordinarily for your branding purposes. Pepsi, Apple and Nike are all recognized by their logos… not their names. Twitter has been an amazing tool for branding purposes. If you are using Twitter and just have a basic background, you are missing out free branding and advertising every day. Most of the big name bloggers and branded companies have their own Twitter backgrounds which usually include their logo, web site name and personal or company info.

As easy as it sounds to brand yourself, it’s actually one of the hardest tasks to accomplish. First you have to think about what type of message and visual appearance your logo is going to display. Since the majority of us are not designers, you will also have to find someone to design your logo and make it look professional. I’m going through this process all the time, as I like to launch new web sites with only the highest designs and with their own unique logos. Logo Mojo

is a design company that actually covers the majority of what I talked about above. I’m always looking for new quality designers to work on projects. After looking through their site and portfolio, they have a nice selection of logos that they’ve designed, and compared to other design services, they prices are quite reasonable. The design process is laid out really well on the web site, as it walks you through the process on how to best describe your logo concept and how you would like it to be perceived.

Whether you are looking to have a new logo identity created for your web site, blog or Twitter, it’s a great idea to visit Logo Mojo. Not only can you get inspired by their designs and tips, but walking through their design questionnaire will also help you determine the look and feel you are trying to get with your new logo.

02 December, 2010 Posted by: Zac Johnson Filed Under: Marketing, Twitter, Web Developement

Network and Grow Your Business with TweetUp Theme

Making serious money online is all about making connections. Linking up with successful people in your area, or that you can talk with over the phone or online is what it’s all about. Lately a lot of people have been building some serious partnerships and meeting new people by forming TweetUps. What once was focused on Twitter,has grown into something much more.

To help everyone start up their own TweetUps, Jermey Schoemaker has created the TweetUp WordPress Theme. What can the TweetUp theme do for you? In short, it’s a quick and easy way for people to organize TweetUps in their area and totally integrates with the Twitter and Google maps api. The true simplicity creating your own TweetUp is setting up your own functioning web site and TweetUp information, is as easy as uploading wordpress to your site, then installing the TweetUp theme. You don’t have to worry about any programming or Twitter api/user info.

There are currently two versions available for the TweetUp theme; Standard and Deluxe. With price points of $47 and $297, you will easily save in the long run when comparing TweetUp Theme versus other services like MeetUp, which costs around $250 per year. You’ll also be happy to know that 100% of the proceeds from TweetUp will go towards The Lincoln City People’s Missions charity.

For a quick over view on how TweetUp theme works, be sure to watch the short video below.

Create Your Own TweetUp with the TweetUp Theme.

10 June, 2010 Posted by: Zac Johnson Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing, Twitter, Wordpress

Lessons Learned from SponsoredTweets

After running a several campaigns on SponsoredTweets and spending a few thousand dollars, it’s time to reflect back upon my results and what I’ve experienced using both Twitter and SponsoredTweets. Being able to compare my CPM results with my CPC results is quite interesting, and will make setting up future campaigns a lot more rewarding. Even with the future of companies like SponsoredTweets and Ad.ly in jeopardy, advertising through Twitter will always be an option which these same principles can be applied.

CPM Advertising Costs Too Much
When SponsoredTweets first came out, the only option for advertising was to buy on a CPM model. Since Twitter advertising was such a new concept, there really was no average for what advertising to other Twitter users should cost. After going live with a campaign, many advertisers would find clicks end up costing over $1 each. SponsoredTweets later introduced “ClickWatch“, which would retweet your offer up to three times if your cost per click was over $1. With the introduction of CPC advertising, this is no longer an issue.

CPC Advertising Drives Better Results
About a week before the Twitter announcement to no longer allow third party advertising through their API, I setup a new campaign on SponsoredTweets using their CPC model. I deposit $300 into my ad campaign and was paying out .10 per click (.06 to tweeters, as SponsoredTweets takes 40%) to drive traffic to my Six Figure Affiliate Blogging free ebook. The results have been interesting… I personally wouldn’t want to send a “sponsored tweet” worth only .06 per click to my followers, but over 1,050 SponsoredTweets users already have. The volume was quite low at the .10 rate, but then I increased my rate to .12 and the volume picked up. Another disturbing key point is the number of fraudulent and robot clicks, nearly 4,000 clicks. If you were buying on CPM these clicks really wouldn’t matter, but it just shows how much crap traffic is floating around on Twitter. I would definitely stick with CPC advertising.

Twitter Users and Writing Ad Copy
This isn’t surprising, but it ad copy swing either way. If you come out with an affiliate product and want other internet marketers to send out a tweet about it, I’m sure they will write something great. However this hasn’t always been the case with my campaigns. During my CPC campaign for Six Figure Affiliate Blogging, I let anyone pick up the offer and tweet out whatever they want.

Let’s view a few examples of tweets that were sent out through my latest CPC ad campaign. The majority of tweets were effective and written something like “Tell your followers to about Zac Johnson’s new “Six Figure Affiliate Blogging” ebook. It’s 100% free to download.“, but more than a handful have slipped by where they just say something like “sponsor http://spn.tw/teRwx“… which provides no value and is sure not to get many clicks. Lastly, some tweets were even offensive, such as the ““Six Figure Affiliate Blogging” ebook. its free. you can learn 2 blog for $$$ so that you can buy a gun and suicide #ad http://spn.tw/espL” tweet. If a large and well known company was to allow auto approval of their tweet campaigns, this could come back to haunt them.

Clicks, Tweets and Conversion Rates
Despite what the click amounts are, and how the tweets are written, it all comes down to conversions. SponsoredTweets tracking says there were roughly 2,000 legitimate clicks. When I head over to my Google Analytics stats, it shows roughly 700. Not disputing numbers, but just going off what the reports tell me. The overall conversion rate for my Six Figure Affiliate Blogging SponsoredTweets campaign is at 9.3%, this is quite low compared to the average 50% most JV partners and affiliates are seeing. As of now, this campaign costs a few dollars per lead when advertising through Twitter and paying .12 per click.

These are a few of the main take aways I have experienced through advertising on SponsoredTweets. As Twitter policies change and SponsoredTweets has to become more of a manual / approval process, we may see improvements in higher quality tweets sent out, and CPC/CPM bidding.

Do you have a similar or different advertising experience with Twitter or SponsoredTweets?