Social Media Tips: Benefits of Social Networking, Part VII

Internet Marketing Professor, Columbia, SC - One of the most critical factors that those who resist the change social networking brings is the issue of ethics. For the critics, ethics are cloudy; yet for those early adopters the ethics are quite clear. The many issues surrounding the ethics of social networking by both individuals and within organizations, specifically the right to monitor its use or not in addition to studies showing how much productive time is being wasted on these sites during work hours raise a series of ethical questions that need to be solved.

Certainly the use of Facebook, MySpace or any other social networking site for

socializing during work hours is not appropriate, but the use of Facebook for example for consumer research and psychographic study is certainly ethical from the organizations’ and also Facebooks’ perspective. The questions of ethics revolve around how these social networking sites manage their communities and at what levels of transparency as well. Facebook’s decision to launch their Beacon initiative that tracked all activity of their users including sites they visited off of Facebook generated a fiasco for the company in late 2007 and early 2008.

Not informing their customers that the data was being tracked and then presented to their friends in the context of guided selling sessions online not only violated the privacy of each user, they also ended up creating situations online between friends that strained relationships. One example of a man purchasing an engagement ring for his fiancée online to surprise her during the holidays of 2007 turned into a disaster as she was shown an advertisement of rings when she accessed her fiancées’ page. The result was a spoiled wedding proposal. There were many more examples of how Facebook’s complete lack of ethical forethought and execution caused pain for thousands of its users. Ethically, Facebook had the responsibility to inform all their subscribers, several times over to make sure they saw it, that a Beacon was being introduced and it would track their movements both on and off Facebook.

If you are out to attract prospective customers and develop your online presence and exposure, you owe it to yourself and the financial future of your business to learn everything you can about Internet marketing.

Want to learn more Internet marketing techniques on how to build a successful businesses online?

If so, read about and download my brand new free ebook 27 Habits of Internet Marketing Super Stars

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Social Media Insights: Top Sites for Networking Online

Internet Marketing Professor, Columbia, SC - My Space, YouTube, and Facebook are three of the most popular websites for social networking. My Space was created in 2003. Its popular website was launched in August of 2003. It was started by Tom Anderson. It was the most popular social media website in 2006. MySpace is great because almost everyone is using it. It allows a much wider range of customization. MySpace has about 70 million visitors. It has become the digital equivalent of hanging out at the mall for today’s teens.

YouTube was found in February of 2005. It was founded by Steven Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is a website where individuals can share videos that contain useful information. Users are allowed to watch videos. The videos include a variety of information that is resourceful to all individuals. YouTube videos do not condone defamation or pornography.

Mark Zukerberg founded Facebook in February of 2004. Facebook is a social network that enables individuals to interact with other individuals from different areas of the world. It allows individuals to post pictures of themselves and family members. In February of 2009, Facebook was the most useful social network. In June of 2009, individuals spent more time on Facebook than any other web page. With 87 million visitors, individuals spend an average of 4 hours and 39 minutes on the website during the month of June.

There are strategies that social network sites can use to avoid becoming an unlikely website. First, retain limited membership. Secondly, limit yourself to college students. Finally, social media sites must keep up with the pace of technology and provide new features.

If you are out to attract prospective customers and develop your online presence and exposure, you owe it to yourself and the financial future of your business to learn everything you can about Internet marketing.

Want to learn more Internet marketing techniques on how to build a successful businesses online?

If so, read about and download my brand new free ebook 27 Habits of Internet Marketing Super Stars

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Social Networking Today

Internet Marketing Professor, Columbia, SC - Social networking on the Internet has become very popular for the last few years among the younger generations and the general population. The real power of social networking is utilizing sites like LinkedIn and connecting with people that you already know. The real power o social networking is the ability to build a large social network of contacts or connections that could not otherwise be built without the use of Internet.

Most companies are allowing employees to access social network websites at work. Social network sites are powerful and are aimed at teenager and young adults. Social networking is so powerful that the average teen spends around 31 hours each week online visiting sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and MySpace.

MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook are three of the most popular websites for social networking. MySpace was created in 2003, by Tom Anderson. It was the most popular social networking website in 2006. It allows the user a much wider range of customization. With about 70 million visitors, it has become the digital equivalent of hanging out at the mall for today’s teens.

YouTube was found in February of 2005, by Steven Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. Users can share videos that contain useful information along with viewing videos. The videos include a variety of information that is resourceful to all individuals.

Mark Zukerberg founded Facebook in February of 2004, which is a social network that enables individuals to interact with others from different areas of the world. It allows users to post pictures of themselves and family members. In February of 2009, Facebook was the most used social network. In June of 2009, individuals spent more time on Facebook than any other web page.

The Federal Trade Commission suggests tips for socializing on-line. First, think about the site and its reason for wanting you to join.

Secondly, keep personal information exactly that; personal. Do not post your entire name, address, social security number, etc. Posting personal information is easy access to being harmed.

Third, make sure your social website does not say too much about you. Although an individual may think their user name is not common, it can give clues about you.

Fourth, only post information that you are comfortable with other individuals viewing. Once information is posted, it cannot be taken back.

Finally, be cautious of any friends that may be met through social networking. Individuals my portray themselves to be sophisticated, knowledgeable, or interested. On the other hand, they may be your worst social network buddy trying to harm you.

If you are out to attract prospective customers and develop your online presence and exposure, you owe it to yourself and the financial future of your business to learn everything you can about Internet marketing.

Want to learn more Internet marketing techniques on how to build a successful businesses online?

If so, read about and download my brand new free ebook 27 Habits of Internet Marketing Super Stars

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Social Media Tips: LinkedIn for More Business 2

Internet Marketing Professor, Columbia, SC - LinkedIn provides numerous widgets to add to your profile. You can incorporate a survey or poll to as contacts for market research information. You can link your company blog to your profile to automatically add content when your blog is updated. You can use SlideShare to add presentation, add videos, product tutorials or what books you are reading.

Question and Answers
LinkedIn Answers allows you to ask questions to your contact list. This provides a great opportunity to gather information, but also creates an opportunity to develop professional contacts. This section alone can be used to brand yourself as an industry expert.

Professional Groups
Possibly one of the best features are the LinkedIn groups. You can search for industry specific groups to join in order to develop connections and find potential clients. It is not very difficult to build your connections list by send one email to several group members. Not too many social networking sites allow such ease.

Best of all, your LinkedIn profile will be indexed by Google, which raised the visibility of your company, blog and website, thus build the power of the network. One of the main tips to keep in mind is to use keywords which identify your products and services within as many profile sections as possible.

If you are joining the ranks of today’s businesses who are harnessing the full power of the Internet and social media, LinkedIn is certainly the site you need to add to your strategic social media marketing plan.

By the way, do you want to learn more about Social Media?

If so, download my brand new free white paper Social Media: A Primer Click Here

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Social Media Tips: Twitter and LinkedIn as Marketing Tools

1. Marketing with Twitter

Use Twitter to find leads in a target market well before your competitors do. For example, if you are a wedding planner in San Diego, you could be alerted every single time a Twitter user within 25 miles from your office mentions their fiancé, thus you know they are going to be getting married at some point in the near future. You can then send a direct message to them offering your services. There are so many possibilities underlying Twitter, but this is a pretty simple example.

2. Facebook Pay Per Click Ads

Use Facebook pay per click ads in a similar way to LinkedIn pay per click ads: to get  your websites in front of very niche markets. However, Facebook advertising is only good for very specific niches, as there are so many irrelevant ads on Facebook that it is hard to break through the crowd of ads without targeting a very specific niche.

3. LinkedIn Discussion Section

Use LinkedIn to get guest bloggers, people for interviews, radio show quests, and for expert “comments” for articles. Simply post a question and wait for the answers to come pouring in. At the end you can vote for the best answer you were given. This allows the person who submitted the comment to receive a special designation from LinkedIn.

Use these tips for marketing purposes of your business-to promote products, services, radio shows, guest/topics/show times, events/appearances and monthly product specials. Social media sites will also help to reduce research time, get exposure for other’s products/services (and they will reciprocate to you as well!).

These are only a few tips, strategies, and techniques to add to your social media strategic plan. Remember to plan your work and work your plan for online marketing success.

By the way, do you want to learn more about Social Media?

If so, download my brand new free white paper Social Media: A Primer Click Here

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Social Media Tips: Financial Services Firms Use Twitter to Directly Interact with Customers

Since the growth of social media sites online, financial services firms have started using Twitter as means to:

·    Comment on valuable news stories
·    Bring greater attention to press releases or websites
·    Advertise key products, services and rates
·    Respond to customers who comment about their firm

Customer service is probably the most intriguing, since it represents a new method for companies to communicate with customers.

Financial companies use Twitter as a strategy for answering consumer questions and address anycomplaints - even setting up calls with customer service to ensure the user’s issue is handled well. It is inspiring to see organizations find an important use for social media sites as it is expected that other firms will follow suit.
In addition to directly responding to follower questions, companies have been able to use their Twitter profile to highlight information regarding mergers and acquisitions.
Financial firms who are afraid to step into the social media waters approach it almost as an experiment.  They load up their LinkedIn profile and communicate to their network often and  also experimented with Twitter. however, they use social media platforms more as a personal tool than business promotion.
Many consultants find that on LinkedIn if they stay connected they will usually get a good response.  If they post a note that they receive from a new customer, at times, they will receive a lot of “congrats” from the database and a few inquiries. “Who is the customer?”  “What kind of work are you doing for them?” etc.  LinkedIn can be one of the most powerful social media tools if used properly. Where else could you have 350 direct connections and 100 times that on a second level? Altogether, there could be nearly three million two levels away.  Mind boggling.

As for Twitter, some companies find great use in it for attracting clients and updating current customers on current events. Others try it for a couple of months just to see if they could find some value.  Eventually, they cancel as they consider non-relevant tweets as spam. Although, most who fall into this category will also be those who still cannot figure out the relevant use of Twitter a business tool.  But, they will also ask “WC?”  Who cares??  They come back with the typical statement that those come back with who do not understand Twitters true value and how to use it properly.

Many in this camp feel Facebook is the place to be. While they feel LinkedIn has too much structure and Twitter has none, Facebook, they feel is the middle ground that will appeal to business people.

By the way, do you want to learn more about Social Media?

If so, download my brand new free white paper Social Media: A Primer Click Here

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6 Top Social Media Tips for Lawyers

Public relations offices for law firms are now jumping on the bandwagon and using social media networking sites, Twitter, Facebook  and LinkedIn, as great tools for marketing purposes. Some uses for these sites are:

1. Using Twitter to spread the word about events, attorney involvement, big announcements, and to connect with reporters both locally and nationally.

2. Distributing presentations to share with other offices, showing our associates and parents how to use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

3. To avoid negative experiences, law firms should also working with their firms ethics departments to develop guidelines - for example, having policies that attorneys reframe from sending tweets about cases they win without client permission.

4. Posting on larger sites that potential clients go to find resources for legal issues.

5. Post events on several event calendars throughout the internet for your region, which also helps with the search engines and page ranking. Many of these sites have fairly high page rank levels, which in turn boosts yours. .

6. Use LinkedIn and ensure your profile is 100 percent complete. This includes having recommendations from clients and previous employers. Also, become active in the LinkedIn “Questions & Answers” section.
Very quickly, lawyers and office personnel can be ranked as a best-answers “expert” in Legal Information.

This can prove to be a valuable source of leads.

By putting these tips and strategies into your marketing mix you will find that through doing this and search engine optimization with our website, you will often be listed may times on the first page of a search for your firms keywords. Depending on the type of law practiced, this helps attract clients from all over the country and world.

By the way, do you want to learn more about Social Media?

If so, download my brand new free white paper Social Media: A Primer Click Here

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98 Top Social Media Sites & Tools

If you do it right and keep it up, social media sites can have an incredible impact on your business. Here are 98 social media sites that are great for business.

1. Facebook - This site is an excellent way to become engaged with your customers. Start a page and start a conversation.

2. Twitter - Convenient and efficient way to let your fans and customers know what you’re up to.

3. MySpace - This has definitely lost some popularity with the rise of Facebook and Twitter, but still offers a great platform to keep in touch with your customers.

4. LinkedIn - An extremely professional approach to social networking. This is a spectacular way to meet business contacts and to connect with new potential customers.

5. Digg - The most popular news submission site. Submit your blog posts and digg away!

6. Technorati - This is for avid blog readers and blog owners. Favorite great blogs and blog posts and track the reactions to your blog.

7. StumbleUpon - Another news submission and voting platform that can generate traffic to your web site.

8. Reddit - Vote for news pieces and submit your own.

9. YouTube - YouTube is great for video-friendly companies. No one wants to sit around and watch a guy in a suit go on and on about making money at home in monotone, but if you run an entertainment agency or a record label or something fun, there’s always that possibility your videos could go viral!

10. Care2 - For the socially conscious business man or woman. Set up your profile, donate to worthy causes, submit and vote on news pieces, sign petitions and much more.

11. Plaxo - Another very professional approach to social networking. Make new business connections and find new vendors or customers.

12. Mixx - News submission and popularity contest. Recommend what you like.

13. Sphinn - This social news site focuses on search engine marketing and web development. A must if you want to keep on top of SEO strategies.

14. Wikipedia - Create your business’ page and add to other pages. You can also join in the dicussionsin the community portal.

15. Newsvine - Seed links to articles, write your own article and discuss already seeded news items.

16. Yahoo! Answers - a crowd-sourced knowledge web site where users ask questions and answer them while earning points and gaining ranks.

17. Monster - Submit your resume to find a job or find a new employee for your business. Monster is the largest job search engine in the world.

18. FriendFeed - Aggregate the feeds from all of your social networking profiles and show your activity in one place.

19. DeviantART - for artists: showcase your art and connect with others.

20. Flickr - A photo sharing social network.

21. Last.fm - Install the software and it will track all the mp3s you listen to on your computer or mp3 player. The music you listen to will show up on your profile in real time, and Last.fm will suggest new music for you based on what you listen to, as well as introduce you to other people who have similar musical tastes.

22. Wordpress - Wordpress is a site where you can set up your own free blog and install widgets, as well as find blogs that interest you.

23. LiveJournal - Livejournal is another free blogging community.

24. Meetup.com - A social network that helps you plan offline meetings based on any common ground.

25. Nexopia - A Canadian social networking site, like a thinner version of Facebook or MySpace.

26. Ning - Create your own social network with Ning as well as join others.

27. OneClimate - a not-for-profit social networking site revolving around the issue of cimate change.

28. Passportstamp- For travelers: record your current location, your past travels and let your network know where you are headed.

29. Plurk - Plurk is a microblogging platform that operates similar to Twitter but with a more literal timeline approach.

30. Tumblr- Tumblr is a great place to start an easy, no-frills blog or to aggregate your other blogs in one place.

31. Xanga - A social network with photoblogging and free blogs.

32. Blogger - Googles free blogging platform. Less functionality than WordPress, but more search engine friendly.

33. Google Friend Connect - A way for users to connect on many different web sites.

34. Ebay - Not only can you sell anything here, but you can also create your own profile and start your own blog.

35. Hi5 - A mini version of MySpace with less spam.

36. Mediafire - Upload and share huge files and photos. Very few user limitations on this site.

37. Skyrock - Set up your profile, start a blog and showcase your original music.

38. Identi.ca - an open source version of Twitter. Almost identical but with a few more features

39. Propeller - A news submission site. Vote for news and connect with like-mined friends.

40. Friendster - Similar to Facebook, although nowhere near as popular.

41. Konnects - Social networking for newspapers and magazines.

42. Ryze - A social network for new entrepreneurs.

43. Xing - As the site says, “Global networking for professionals.”

44. Tribe - A social network where you can join “tribes” with like-minds.

45. Collegerecruiter.com - A job search networking site that connects recent grads with jobs and internships.

46. De.icio.us - A social bookmarking platform where you can store your bookmarks and make them public or private. You can also connect with other users to view their bookmarks.

47. Squidoo - Create your own “Lens” centered around your subject of choice.

48. Frappr - Socially networked maps.

49. Google Bookmarks - A place to store your bookmarks.

50. MeetTheBoss - Business excutives use this social network for video conferencing, instant messaging, sms, mail and more.

51. Talkbiznow - A social network for business.. Connect with new customers and vendors.

52. Ecademy - Another social network for professionals. Free and paid versions available.

53. Ziggs - A clean and easy-to-use professional networking service where you can find and post jobs.

54. Small Business Brief - Small business forums with extremely valuable info.

55. FreelanceSwitch - Post jobs and projects and find freelancers who will do it for you.

56. Netparty - Social networking that aims to get people out to business networking events.

67. http://www.gather.com/ - A network that revolves around groups with like-minded people.

68. Dopplr - Share your travel itineraries so you can find people in your network who will be near you and you can meet up.

69. TravBuddy - Another travel-related social network that allows you to create blogs, upload photos, and review restaurants, bars, hotels and more.

70. Crowdstorm - Crowdstorm is a social shopping site where you can decide what to buy based on aggregated product reviews from a myriad of sources.

71. Kaboodle - A shopping social network where you can find new products based on what your network is buying, store shopping lists and discuss your favorite stores and products.

72. Reesycakes - Another shopping network that helps you make decisions on what to buy.

73. Woot! - a Deal a Day network.

74. Plazes - uses your mobile phone to track where you are and share it with your network.

75. Groovr - Find out what is going on in your community and who is going.

76. Mobicue - Share the content on your cell phone with your network.

77. Zwillow - Networking for real estate.

78. Change.org - Another social network for the socially conscious. Donate to your favorite charity and find jobs in the nonprofit sector.

79. Idealist.org - Find jobs in the non-profit sector.

80. Etsy - Buy and sell handmade items and craft supplies.

81. 43Things - List your goals and find people with similar ones.

82. Esnips - Share content on the web and join a niche group of like-minded people.

83. Clipmarks - Instead of bookmarking a whole article, just save clips of text, video and photos.

84. Diigo - Bookmark and tag web pages, and add sticky notes to them

85. OSOYOU - Social networking for the fashion industry.

86. MUxtape - Social networking for bands.

87. Shelfari- A network for book lovers. Create your own book shelf and find others who share your reading tastes.

88. iVillage- A web portal for women with a lot of female-oriented content.

89. Cake Financial - Financial services social network. Share your portfolio.

90. Marketwatch Community - A financial community.

91. Wesabe - From their web site: “Real people dealing with real money issues”.

92. CafeMom - A social network for moms.

93. Fark - This is a news commenting community that has a massive amount of traffic coming to it daily.

94. Getsatisfaction - Described as “people-powered customer service”, this site is a tech support network.

95. Mister-Wong.com - Another bookmarking site that allows you to connect with other people using it and save your bookmarks both publicly and privately.

96. Theseotree.com - News submission and voting.

97. Wikihow - A wiki network with a massive database of How-To Instructions.

98. Wetpaint - Free web sites and wiki hosting service with social networking.

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Facebook & Twitter Tips

Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites are quickly becoming a large part of online culture, which also opens up new potential security threats. This newsletter will highlight a few of the key security and privacy risks of these sites and provide ways to protect yourself online.

The premise of these sites is to share information and build communities. This is great for connecting with old & new friends, but all of this sharing also provides easy access for hackers who focus on social engineering and phishing attacks. While you are using these sites, make sure you are aware of who you are providing information to and always ask yourself ‘why’ when personal information is being requested from you.

Some of the most popular methods used by hackers are:

1. Hijacking a user’s account and sending spam to their friends (connections) that leads them all to a phishing site which will collect private information to be used for identity theft.

2. Creating fake applications on the site that include malware or rogue anti-virus software.

3. Using malware to gain access to users’ personal information on their profiles.

“What are you doing?” Be careful what you post

Twitter and Facebook both encourage you to update ‘What you are doing” or “What’s on your mind” at any moment of the day. But be careful what you write as a Twitter Tweet or a Facebook Status Update. Twitter does not require you to ‘accept’ anyone who wants to follow you, and on Facebook although someone is not part of your network, if one of your Facebook friends comments on your status update, whoever is in their network can click on the link through a common friend and see your post. There have been reports recently of increased home robbery because people have posted that they are going on vacation or traveling on business - this is basically the same as saying ‘No one will be home for the next 5 days - Come on in!’

Control Your Privacy

Facebook does offer privacy controls that restrict or deny access to information; however, since Facebook is a social networking site designed to share information many of the settings are open by default. It is up to you to access the Privacy Setting and configure the options. For each setting, you can choose to share information with Everyone, My Networks & Friends, Friends of Friends, or only Friends. We recommend you ensure you have set the level of privacy you desire.

What’s Up With The Tiny URL?

Another recent security threat surfacing on social media sites is the tiny URL attack. The tiny URL became popular when trying to link to a long URL did not work on posts, blogs, or the 140 character limit Tweet. Because the tiny URL is a random collection of characters that has nothing to do with the actual URL, hackers quickly discovered they could exploit a tiny URL by sending unsuspecting users to malicious websites that access their personal information.

Spyware on FaceBook (Shudder!)

One of the most recent disturbances on Facebook was when hackers started creating automated Facebook pages and used them to spread spyware to unsuspecting users. The fake Facebook profiles featured pictures of the same woman but the profiles had different names. Each page had a link to a supposed video that would infect users’ computers with spyware if clicked. It is believed that there are many such fake Facebook profiles alive today and that hackers figured out how to bypass the CAPTCHA system that requires users to retype a series of letters to activate your account. This system was initially designed so that computers could not create new accounts, only humans.

The bottom line is: be aware of who you are providing information to online, never provide personal information to anyone you do not know, if you are suspicious or not sure of a URL link - DON’T CLICK, and think twice before posting any specific details of your whereabouts on social media sites.

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Dr. Dave Hale is the founder and Chief Social Officer at The Internet Marketing Professor, a business coaching firm dedicated to assisting small to medium sized businesses with integrating Web 2.0 into their marketing mix. He has written over 40 books and how-to course on Internet marketing related topics, is a professional speaker, business coach, and a professor at several universities, where he teaches business development and organizational psychology courses.

11Twitter Tips For Tweet Success

1. How many tweets? The biggest question we hear is “how many times should I tweet each day?” Here’s the answer: post two tweets a day.

2. Mix it up. One of those two tweets should be a helpful link for your particular audience, as opposed to a sales link. You want to provide real value to your followers, not just ads.

3. Space it out. Have a few hours between your tweet posts. Do one in the morning and one at night. If you have trouble setting aside time twice a day, try using a tool such as SocialOomph (you will have to register for a free account) to schedule your tweets and have them sent when you’re asleep or doing something else.

4. Make it pretty. Use a link shortening tool to help hide the fact that it’s an affiliate link. In Affiliate Classroom, we provide a tool that not only shortens your links, but also tracks the clicks to your links.

5. Link to your own blog. Have some of your helpful links point to your blog posts. Post blog entries that are helpful to people or give them value in other ways. Getting your Twitter followers onto your site deepens the relationship you have with them and builds your readership.

6. Be fun. Link to funny stuff in some of your tweets. People love a laugh, and you want your readers to consider you a real person, not an information machine. You may want to stick to your niche (if you have built a niche following) so that you can have “inside” jokes that are more likely to get laughs from your readers.

7. Be a hot source of ideas. Take note of interesting sites you come across. In a typical day, you probably find many more compelling or helpful sites and tools than you expect, and if you have a targeted following, you can help them out by sharing.

8. Research it. To find valuable links, simply research topics that are of interest to you or your followers.

9. Be a “watcher” and re-tweet (RT). Follow the best Twitter accounts in your niche. How to get started: There are sites that provide a list of popular people who you should follow. You can also use Twitter Search to find the most frequent and popular tweeters on your niche. When they tweet something interesting, re-tweet it to share it with your followers.

10. Stir it up. Ask open-ended questions to draw out responses from your followers. This will result in other users replying to you, and in doing so, they are using your Twitter ID in their responses. That means that your ID appears on their feed and all of their followers can click to learn about you and begin following you. This approach is key to “snowball” growth of your followers.

11.And shake it up. Ask controversial questions in your tweets. Ask people to give their opinion on an issue. In this way, you are interacting with others. Your followers will like to see that you are not just putting on a sales front but are engaging and there to help. They’ll also be more likely to recommend you to their followers - again, growing your base of followers.

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