SpokesPigeon - MunchWebmunchweb.com/spokespigeon/eBook/SpokesPigeon_eBook.pdf · • Social media is great for list building. For those who think social traffic won't convert, they

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SpokesPigeonSpokesPigeon

by Chris Munch of Munchweb.com

Copyright Munchweb.com. All Right Reserved. This work cannot be copied, re-published, or re-distributed. No re-sell right are given.

Published by Munchweb.com

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5 Good Reasons Why Facebook and Twitter are Critical

• Twitter and Facebook will bring you traffic and help to build an active, passionate community.

• Sharing your content across multiple social networks brings you a steady stream of traffic. Traffic from a diversified source and not just organic search engine rankings.

• Being visible on Twitter and Facebook strengthens your branding, builds trust and credibility.

• Google's algo ranks you higher when you show regular social proof (tweets, likes and shares).

• Google's algo ranks you higher when you have a strong brand.

As you can see, having strong Twitter and Facebook profiles are not just about traffic, they also build credibility and trust with your audience, while Google rewards you in the SERPS.

Traffic Generation: Google vs. Twitter vs. FacebookMany people look at Google, Twitter and Facebook as independent sources of traffic, where you can just concentrate on one.

You can focus on just one, but the real benefit comes from utilizing all 3 at the same time. It is a much more efficient way of thinking of traffic generation...

When you combine Google, Twitter and Facebook its not a case of 1+1+1 = 3

Its a case of 1+1+1 = 10...the results are exponential (and extremely beneficial)!

That's because they all leverage off of each other and the results are multiplied many times over:

• The greater the fans and followers on Facebook, the greater the traffic you will see.

• Greater traffic, improved branding and more social proof means higher rankings in Google and greater organic search traffic.


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• More traffic in Google brings more fans and followers....and the cycle repeats, generating increasing traffic with each cycle.

Its a powerful loop! With BIG benefits! Once your profiles hit critical mass the benfits keep coming as your profiles mature and reach their full potential...

What Google Knows about Strong BrandsGoogle's algo is a sophisticated beast, and the algo knows how to differentiate a strong brand from a weak one. In fact, they are now tending to use branding as a ranking factor in their algo.

• Goolge knows that strong brands naturally have:

• avid and passionate communities

• a strong presence on social media

• lots of social proof (likes, shares and tweets)

One of the ways you can get into Google's good graces by presenting yourself as a strong brand in their eyes with strong social profiles, lots of interaction, and regular interaction within the community.

Here's how it works:


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The great news is that Twitter and Facebook are quick and easy to maintain. You can set up software to schedule posting to your profiles and get BIG benefits with just a couple of days work a year!

If you don't want to do the work yourself and have the budget, you can run the entire process hands off by utilizing a combination of software and a dirt cheap VA.

Let's get started....


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Build Facebook and Twitter Profiles Once...Get Paid for 365 Days (or more)

The ChallengeThe significant challenge for most people is that actively running Twitter and Facebook campaigns on a daily basis represents a giant time suck UNLESS they can learn how to effectively leverage their time. In order to leverage effectively you need to work both consistently and efficiently to maximize your results. With seemingly unending tasks to complete daily, the consistency necessary for success is a tall order for many of us without an automated strategy to help us along...

Regardless of the size of your businesses, running multiple projects simultaneously, takes a lot of time. The task becomes even more daunting without the help of automation as your business grows.


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The simple truth is that without consistency, your campaigns will falter and get mediocre results at best and be totally ineffective at worst!

This leaves you with two options:

Working smarter by automating and outsourcing, or working harder to harness the MASSIVE benefits social media presents:

• Social media profiles are an asset for long term business growth that will pay dividends for years to come.

• Well thought out campaigns help you to gain credibility, social proof, and brand awareness.

• Social media campaigns open the door to direct traffic and increased income.

• With thriving social profiles, you are protected from sudden drops in organic traffic by diversifying traffic generation models.

• Social media is great for list building. For those who think social traffic won't convert, they are very mistaken. This is an outdated notion that many believe is a set in stone fact. Social media traffic will convert as well as any other, provided you take the time and effort to build credibility with leads generated from your social profiles. Give it a try and just watch what happens to your business!

• Easy and inexpensive to fully outsource the entire process with a minimum of time and effort when automated systems are in place.

Oh, and one more little benefit you just might have some interest in....

More free time due to enhnaced productivity....

The SolutionA combination of automated software and inexpensive outsourcing is ABSOLUTLEY the way to go ...and not just automation, but TOTAL automation and account maintenance for completely hands free traffic source and revenue stream.

It is entirely possible to set up your campaigns which run virtually on autopilot, with only a few hours of maintenance a week from an assistant for scheduling and maintenance.

You can and should focus more on automation of social marketing tasks for several reasons:


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• Scheduling tweets and Facebook updates ensures profiles will grow and mature overtime because they are active every day without fail. By choosing consistency in promoting your social media campaigns, your profiles will grow even when you are away from your business.

• Active social marketing promotion extends your reach both locally and globally. The real advantage is that people are online 24/7, not just during business hours. Not limiting the times you post means considerably broadening your audince and potential profiability.

• Your business will also be stronger for the diversification of traffic generation strategies. It is a very wise decision to not rely solely on search engine traffic for traffic generation.

• You will gain the time to work on other parts of your business as your social profiles continue to grow.

It is using automated techniques and dirt cheap VA's that have allowed me to leave large parts of my business on auto-pilot, thus allowing me the free time to to travel and focus on other parts of my business. In 2009 I left the UK permanently to live the location independent lifestyle and now spend my time traveling and working on other parts of my business while my social profiles continue to grow.

This report will show you the absolute fastest and easiest ways (there are several) to get all the advantages above with just a few hours a year effort.

Let's jump right in, shall we?


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Mavocdo Case Study

Follow our progress over the next year as we build our Mavocado Fan Page and Twitter profile using the SpokesPigeon method.

I've completely outsourced the entire project and will be training my VA to handle the scheduling and automation of building authority profiles hands off with minimal time and effort.

I'll be sending periodic updates so you can see in real time what has worked, what trends we discover and insights we gain along the way as we build our profiles over the next year.


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Functionality You Need to Completely Automate your Social Profiles

Twitter• Ability to schedule tweets multiple times daily. Bulk scheduling preferred.

• Ability to follow and unfollow those who do not follow you back.

• Ability to seek out high value, quality profiles to follow.

• Ability to interact with followers, respond to retweets and @mentions, answer questions and make comments.

• Ability to tweet your new blog posts automatically.

Facebook• Ability to schedule posts

• Ability to post pictures

• Ability to automatically post your blog posts.

• Ability to interact with friends, respond to comments and answer questions.


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Software OptionsWhen it comes to automated software, there are a couple of different directions you can go ...

Free or paid.

Free Software Solutions

While free options work just fine if you are just starting and short on cash, they do have 3 major drawbacks:

1. Free tools are cumbersome to use. You need to piece together numerous software solustions to get the job done. It takes time to handle the whole process from more than one platform. Time you could be using to build your business or profit in other ways...Time is your most precious resource because it reduces both your efficiency and profitability if not used wisely.

2. Free tools come and go. You might get full functionality now with several pieces of software, but free tools are frequently here today and gone tomorrow. They also tend to lack updates after they have been out for awhile. You run the risk of needing to start over, lose prescheduled posts or needing to retrain your VA overnight if a free tool suddenly disappears.


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3. It takes longer and is more difficult to train your VA on multiple platforms. Honestly, fighting with cumbersome tools is not efficient for you, but costly over time in terms of man hours spent on training and manintaining your accounts. Extra man hours for your VA means greater expense month to month and the potential to need to retrain at even more expense later.

I have used free software in the past, but came to the conclusion that the paid versions offered ease of use and efficiency that made both myself and my VA more profitable in the long run. Whether you do the work yourself, or have an assistant help you, efficiency helps to keep profiability moving forward.

Basically what it boils down to is that with free solutions you are trading time for money. Free tools don't cost upfront, but you loose time and profitability down the road.

We recommend some paid services below, but in the appendix we talk about some cheaper alternatives and also some completely free tools for those that are on a tighter budget.

TRY HootSuite FREE Trial here:http://munchweb.com/go/hootsuite/

Paid Software Solutions

There is a fantastic social media management tool that will allow you to manage nearly all of your social marketing campaigns both quickly and easily from one single interface....

If you have never heard of Social Oomph, they are in my opinion, hands down, the most complete platform currently available for automating social media marketing tasks. Their platform offers abundant, useful features making it possible for you to streamline your social marketing tasks and boost productivity on a single interface.

From your dashboard you can do the following:

• Schedule tweets, export to G+ and keep StatusNet streams constantly updated.

• Schedule FB updates and page wall updates.

• Have extended Twitter Profiles including pictures and multiple hyperlinks.

• Set up tracking on keywords.

• Easily view @mentions and retweets on multiple accounts.


http://munchweb.com/go/hootsuite/

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• Submit updates via email.

• Schedule and publish blog posts and pages to Wordpress blogs.

• Full RSS to Blog integration.

• Easily scalable for managing multiple accounts.

• Manage multiple accounts on multiple social media platforms.

These are just a very few of the features Social Oomph offers. There are many, many more. Social Oomph really has provided all you need to totally automate posting to multiple social campaigns on the most popular social platforms.

You can try the Social Oomph Professional free trial here:http://munchweb.com/go/socialoomph/

Social Oomph also has a free version. For Twitter, you can get the job done with the free account, but the process is somewhat cumbersome and time consuming when compared to the Pro version. Workable, if you are trying to keep costs to a minimum, but not exactly the hands free solution most of us are looking for from a time saving perspective in the longer term.

Note that the free version does not support Facebook update scheduling and lacks the ability to submit social updates via email, update blog posts on Wordpress blogs, find friends and followers via keywords and manage all your accounts from one integrated dashboard. You can see the full features comparison here:

http://munchweb.com/go/socialoomph/

Social Oomph Pro FeaturesThe reason I like Social Oomph over the other software options for scheduling and interaction is the interface for interacting with followers. Everything is all in one place and it is easy to see who needs to be responeded to at a glance.

The other nice thing about Social Oomph is that they keep users updated about changes in Twitter usage policies quickly and help to keep you on top of any changes in the platform.

Here are some of the other features that are highly useful:

1. Social Oomph allows you to schedule tweets, FB updates and also posts to your own (or others) Wordpress blogs. This feature is very helpful in getting the




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consistency needed to grow your social media profiles steadily. The better your posting consistencey the more credible your profile will become.

2. You can set up a reservoir with a list of rotating tweets or Facebook status updates and then schedule how often to post. Once the reservoir is empty the program will go to the top of the list an begin posting again, or will email you that the reservoir is empty.

3. Scheduling allows you to be sure that each of your profiles are tweeted or updated at a different time, with a different message. VERY important for not getting your accounts flagged or suspended.

4. View all @mentions and @replies for all profiles from a single console enabling you to quickly reply (or have your VA reply for you).

5. You can also schedule @replies, DM and broadcast DMs to all your followers.

6. Add RSS syndication to your posts, thereby exposing your FB updates and tweets to a broader network -and/ or- utilize RSS syndication to post blog updates to your FB and Twitter accounts which are then posted to a broader network. There are numerous applications for auto-blogging or tribe syndication on multiple platforms.

7. Integrate other quality feeds to post to your Twitter and Facebook profiles to save time, provide quality info to your readers and avoid being overly self promotional.

8. Schedule repeated updates for promoting money pages on a reoccurring schedule.

9. With the pro version, you have the same syndication capabilities for Facebook and can easily manage both platforms from a single interface.

The applications are endless for syndication to either all or part of a broader network.

The one single functionality that Social Oomph lacks that I consider to be important is the ability to schedule photo on your FB updates. Photos egage the user, and are of high value.

You can get around this easily by scheduling posts with a photo for free with Postcron:

http://postcron.com/en/subscribe#_=_

PostCron allows up to 10 scheduled free posts to either Twitter or Facebook at one time with their free version. The platform is also very user friendly.



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TweetAdderTweetAdder 3.0 is another highly useful tool for managing your Twitter accounts, but lacks support for Facebook. Where it shines is when researching influtential profiles to follow and when unfollowing those who don't follow you back. You can also schedule tweets in bulk and autotweet your blog updates.

Most importantly, you can make sure the ratio of followed to following stays below 1.1 and protect your profile from Twitter's internal algo flagging your account.

Unfortunately, TweetAdder has one major drawback....it does not support Facebook, and will not help you maintain your Facebook fan pages.

However, a major advantage with TweetAdder is that you purchase only the number of profies you wish to maintain, and can upgrade as your business grows. There is no monthly service fee unlike most other social media management platforms and software currently available.

I find TweetAdder to be the most useful when combined with either Social Oomph or Hootsuite. Combining the two gives full functionality and some nifty advanced search features that make scouting out high value profiles to follow a lot easier than with some of the other software options.

I should mention TweetAdder currently has a lawsuit pending against them by Twitter and there is a lot of controversy currently surrounding them. However when used conservatively TweetAdder works very well and gets good results.

Sign-up and download TweetAdder here:http://munchweb.com/go/tweetadder/

PostcronPostcron is a free tool that allows you to schedule 10 unpublished posts at a time on either Facebook or Twitter.

Although you can not schedule many posts at a time with the free version, Postcron had the advantage of being able to schedule posts with photos. This gives you a high value functionality that Social Oomph does not offer.


Postcron also has a paid option, but I can not comment on how well it works. I have only used their free service for scheduling the posting of photos in the past.



http://munchweb.com/go/tweetadder/

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Setting Up Automated Posting and Account MaintenanceI want to say right up front that using automation, even as conservatively as I outline here with my recommendations, comes with a small amount of risk. There is a also the potential benefit of the time savings and increased profitablity automation brings to consider when deciding to use automation.

The numbers I have outlined below are very conservative. The reason I take the conservative route is that my business plan focuses more on using methods that give a competitive edge, while minimizing risk.

Facebook and Twitter are constantly evolving their algorithms and I want to be sure the work I do today continue to drive my profitability well into the future.

That said, automation, when used correctly is highly effective in growing your social profiles, compeltely hands off for months at a time.

Step 1- Set Up SoftwareThe best combination of software that allows you to completely automate the growth and maitenance of your social media accounts is Social Oomph /TweetAdder and Postcron.

The reason I consider them to be best solution is that this combination of software is the most efficient solution for scheduling various types of posts, finding high qualtiy Twitter accounts to follow, unfollowing those that do not follow back, scheduling Facebook posts with pictures and managing the maintenance of social profiles.


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Setting Up Social Oomph, TweetAdder and Postcron

Here is a step-by-step guide of for setting up each software, and a tutorial on scheduling your posts:

a) Set up automated Tweet and FB post scheduling on Social Oomph:

http://munchweb.com/spokespigeon/spvidpage/vid1.php

b) Find followers and unfollow those who do not follow you back with TweetAdder:


c) Schedule FB posts with photos on Postcron:


Bear in mind that you can start with free tools, but you might find yourself in the position of needing to redo your automation and retrain your staff down the road as your business goes to new levels of profitablity.

See the appendix for tutorials on how to set up the free and alternative paid software solutions.





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Step 2- Create Content Writing quality content is one of the most important factors in KILLING it on social Facebook and Twitter. Engaging, relevant and useful information that entertains as well as it informs is what send growth and interaction of your profiles into overdrive....

People in the social sphere are looking for entertainment, to connect with new people sharing their passion, as well as news, information, facts and an inspiring new perspectives or mindsets.

What they definitely do NOT want is old news, the same old rehashed information, info that does not match their interests and to be uninspired and bored!

Five Types of Posts

1. Topical Talking Points (evergreen topics)- information that people search for regularly in order to solve their problems or answer questions. Facts work well here when presented in a fresh, creative way with a new perspective. Add your view point and start a conversation. Evergreen content is the kind of content you should use for scheduling your posts ahead, especially when scheduling months in advance.

2. Breaking Niche News- everyone wants to look smart, funny or in the know ahead of the curve. Breaking news, useful stories or information posted via RSS feeds of high qaulity sources get followers engaged and commenting. The key here is finding feeds from HIGH quality and unique resources that give information tightly targeted to your audience. Autopost RSS feed content to keep your profiles interesting, engaging, and on the radar for trending topics which generate a lot of buzz.

3. Asking Opinions on Niche Topics- asking opinions gets the conversation going and encourages sharing and interaction. This type of post is important for keeping your audience engaged.

4. Sense of Community Posts- posts such as 'I Love Black Labs.” These are posts you use to create a sense of community and / or lead the feelings or opinions of your audience.

5. Product Posts- suggesting products your audience loves, wants or needs. This is one way to monitize. There are several others we will discuss later.


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Rapid Post Writing MethodThere is a method that works well to quickly write quality content for my social accounts and keep my outsourcing costs to a minimum. You can get double the content in half the time:

1. Write Facebook updates. Choose evergreen facts and information tightly related to your target audience and add your own perscpective. This is information people search for regularly to help them solve their problems or enhance the quality of their lives.

2. Take all the short Facebook updates and repurpose for Twitter.

3. Take all the long Facebook updates, shorten and repurpose for Twitter.

4. Add some unique tweets.

Half the time, half the work and max quality!

Additional Content Types for Posts

Photos and Video PostsWe are increasingly visual...don't forget the pictures, videos and audio to help you stand out from those who post text only. Video, pictures and audio helps you visitors to engage with your content.

More importantly a good visual and attention grabbing caption gets the conversation started and offers the postential to go viral!

Autoposting Your Blog Updates Autoposting your own content in the same niche. What better way to get blog posts indexed and ranking than by auto-tweeting and posting to your fan pages in the same niche? Thriving social media accounts are a great way to get the social indicatiors Google is looking for while sending immediate traffic to your other content.

Killer Content Without Writing via RSS FeedsThe best way to get killer content without any time or expense on your part is to auto post and tweet via RSS feeds.


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Don't get me wrong, you need to add your unique perspective on most of the content you post, but adding RSS feeds to autopost your own blog posts and pull high quality information from other quality sources for a limited number of updates is ideal.

This is because it varies the perspective of the information you present, tends to add some relevant breaking news to your posts and has little time or cost associated with bringing your community useful and relevant information.

Another VERY important element of adding info from other sources is that you will not become overly self promotional. When engaging with the community it is important to remember to link out to other quality sites and not just your own and present multiple perspectives.


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Step 3- Set up Your RSS FeedsSet up auto posting your blog posts or feeds from high quality resources:

Step by Step RSS Feed Integration on Social Oomph Tutorial:




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Step 4- Formatting and Scheduling Your PostsWhen formatting your posts for Facebook, you should keep in mind how users see your content:

• Use a title, body and call to action. Posts should be on average 25 words, with 125 being the max on Facebook. Some are very brief sentences like “Like if you love your dog”. For Twitter, try to stay under 120 characters so there is room for you whole tweet to be shown when retweeted.

• Use pictures to break up the text and engage the user.

• Use video to engage the user.

• Keep an eye on the format to be sure the content is easy to read and grabs attention. White space works well for posts you want to hilight and draw extra attention to.

Correct formatting easy to read with lots of white space:


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Incorrect formatting without white space much less visually appealing:

How Often to Post Status Updates and Tweets

Ideally, you will not waste conent, but find a posting frequency that works well with your audience. You will want to post as often as you need to inorder to keep the community engaged and the conversation moving, but not so often as to be annoying. Use solid, useful and relevant information.

The answer will ultimately depend on the amount of interaction you posts get, the niche and the quality of your content.

While profiles are new and don't have a lot of interaction, once a day or every two to three days is often enough. The frequency generally increases markedly once the profiles mature and there is greater interaction.

A good rule of thumb is to post once daily for most niches, if it is advice then once a day is frequently enough. If humor, forex or movies than up to 5 times daily.

Timing Your Posts for Max VisibilityJust as important as what you post and how often is the timing of your posts. Ideally, you would want to post at times when you are likely to maximize the visibility and interaction of your content.


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Focus on posting on weekdays, just before morning commute times and in the late evening when you content lis likely to get a wider viewership. 6am- 7am EST and 6pm- 7pm is optimal.

Additional posts should be scheduled at random times spaded throughout the day.

Step 5- Grow Your Profiles Into Thriving Interactive CommunitiesThe key to growing a community around your profiles is both engaging the user and interaction....

While you get 80% of the benefit from regular posting of quality content alone, the interaction is the icing on the cake that makes profiles thrive.

Without engaging the user they will not interact as much...

Which can lead to slower growth down the road. While this step is optional, regular interaction is helpful.

Growing a Thriving Twitter FollowingMichael D. Forbes has put together an outstanding Twitter training that tells you all you need to know to dominate Twitter.

To Follow or Be Followed- How to find quality followers and keep them, even with a brand new account. Very useful tips in this section for attracting the kind of follower that make your account valuable. Several great strategies for building your followers from scratch.

Automation- More automation strategies and tips.

Getting Tweeple to Follow You - (This is were the money is)- Both free and paid solutions available to help you get followed. Great stuff.

Let's Go Get Some Followers , Eh!- Building your accounts quickly. How to follow an unfollow quickly using free tools.

Managing Your Twitter Account- Do you have more time or money? A discussion of managing your account with available free and paid tools.


http://munchweb.com/spokespigeon/twittervids.php






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Using TweetAdder to Find High Quality Profiles to Follow

Very important to the quality of the profile you create is the quality of the profiles you follow and have follow you back. Here is my preferred method for finding high quality profiles to follow using TweetAdder:

1. Look for a high quality profile in your niche. What you are looking for is a profile with real people who follow, no bots. This will generally mean that there are a fairly high ratio of followers, with comparatively few profiles followed back.

Spammy profiles will usually have many profiles followed and will auto-follow those who follow them. Do you see why you need to be sure to unfollow those who do not follow you back when building new profiles? Building a quality profile is all about the ratio of those who follow you to those you follow back, and the quality of the profiles you are trying to get to follow you.

The perception of both the quality and credibility of your own profile depends upon finding quality followers, as does the likelihood that the traffic you generate with your profile will ulitmately convert. The lower the ratio of followed profiles to those that follow you back, the more trusted your profile.


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Quality profile: many tweets, activity within the last 24 hours, many followers, few being followed:

Spammy Profile: many being followed and few following back:

2. After locating a quality profile, import the list of followers into Tweet Adder and start to follow them 25-50 a day at a time. Defollow after 3-7 days if they do not follow you back, being sure to maintain a 1.1 ratio or lower. Note that this these figures are the fastest you should build your profiles with automation with the recent changes on the Twitter platform. It is perfectly OK to stay well below the 25-50 a day mark and be even more conservative. Twitter seems to be getting more and more strict as their internal algorithms becomes sophistacated. I want a sustainable business that will produce profits well into the future so stay to the conservative side.

3. Be very cautious when following and defollowing, especially before your profile is aged and over 2,000 followers. Attempting to follow 25-50 new profiles daily is the most suggested early on. This number can gradually increase as the profile ages, just as long as you watch the ratio of those you follow to followers carefully. Tweet Adder is worth the price alone for the peace of mind it brings that the ratio of followed to followers is protected at all times. Again, you can be more conservative. These figures are only guidelines. There is always some risk with automation.


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4. Do not auto-follow. Auto following tends to allow for following spam accounts, which lowers your credibility and trust on Twitter. As the ratio of followed to followers becomes higher, Twitter will place limitations on how many people you can follow daily. Slowing down on the growth of your profile is not beneficial, so be sure to follow the guidelines to avoid limitations. Social Oomph allows you to vet profiles and place them in a queue for your review before approving, which is also a very helpful feature when avoiding following spammy profiles.

Sharing Your Best Content in Facebook Groups

Sharing in Facebook groups is a good way to broaden your reach and get new friends. It does not take long, and is an easy way to promote your fan page.

Ideally you are looking for large, active groups with a lot of participation. When scanning the update in a group, you should see a regular posts, with lots of comments, likes and shares beneath each entry.

When you share, be sure your content is a good mach for the interest of the group, highly useful and relelvant to their discussion. You will get considerably better results by sharing your best content and becoming part of the community.

Do not, under any circumstances, post anything remotely promotional when sharing in the groups. Groups are for sharing.

How to Share in Facebook Groups

Finding quality Facebook groups and sharing post to them:http://munchweb.com/spokespigeon/spvidpage/vid5.php



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16 Tips For Increasing Interactions in Social Media1. Avoid negativity.

2. Focus on positives.

3. Become a resource by providing useful and relevant information, news or tips.

4. Be a hub for information.

5. Invite questions.

6. Invite comments.

7. Join the conversation regularly. Take the time to interact and answer question and comments.

8. Offer your services gratis.

9. Host a contest.

10. Host an event.

11. Make a high value exclusive offer.

12. Ask a question.

13. Make a comment about a trending topic (when relevant).

14. Refer to pop culture (when relevant).

15. Avoid being overly self promotional.

16. Use a call to action.

Using all of these regularly will increase your interaction considerably. The main thing is to be sure to interact regularly. Managing your accounts and regular posting is what ultimately makes for valuable profiles in the long term.


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Step 6- Managing Your ProfilesMaintaining your profiles does not require a lot of time. What it does require is consistiency and the commitment to make interaction a part of your social media marketing methods.

Interaction is VERY important on all social platforms. Starting a conversation helps to increase likes and shares and broaden your reach, which exposes your posts to new potential followers. In order to make the most of Facebook and Twitter, you need to be an active part of the community and join in the conversation regularly.

A virtual assistant can easily be trained to handle this portion of the process if you do not want to take the time to do it yourself, although all maintance of your profiles ican usuallly be managede in hour a week or less.

The main thing is to get the conversation started and then take the time to answer questions, interact, and learn the mindset of your target market.

Being active will help to establish you as a member of the community and an authority in your niche.

Interaction does something even more important from a business standpoint....gain the trust necessary to help your offers convert whenever you make product suggestions.

Tips for Interaction

• Choose the best comments and respond back.

• Keep your tone positive.

• Ignore negativity.

• Give personal experience or insights whenever you can.

• Answer questions when you start a conversation.

Also, set a limit on the amount of time you will spend interacting each week on Facebook and Twitter. Spending time on Facebook and Twitter can be a timesuck unless you set specific goals to interact as much as you need to keep your profiles healthy and growing and not allow yourself to get disctracted and take time away from other projects.


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Using Social Oomph to Interact on Facebook and TwitterInteracting on Twitter and Facebook via Social Oomph:http://www.munchweb.com/spokespigeon/spvidpage/vid1.php

Putting the Whole Method TogetherSummary setting up, creating content, hiring and and getting staff up to speed.

Summary of posting and promotion process.

(Optional)


http://www.munchweb.com/spokespigeon/spvidpage/vid1.php

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Hiring and Training Your Virtual AssistantA lot of people make the mistake of not outsourcing at least part of their workload early because they think it is either too expensive or too much of a hassle.

I have watched many make this mistake and it costs them a lot in profitabilty later down the line. This is mainly because they should be further along in building their business several months down the road. Instead they have spent their time working-in NOT working-on their business which greatly impacts their profitability.

The main reason they don't outsource sooner?

They are so focused on the bottom line fail to realize that time is their most important asset and not managing time well eats into profitability. Time is the one resource there is limit on and you can never get back.

Do NOT make this mistake.

Even if you choose to do most of the process yourself at the beginning, realize that as your business grows, having an assistant handle scheduling posts and maintining accounts to free up your time for more profitable tasks makes sense.

Time is money!

The Minimal Cost of Hiring a VAVirtual assitants at $2-$3 per hour are a HUGE bargain. They handle the repetitive tasks that suck time out of your day while you move on to other projects.

The main thing to understand is that outsourcing requires an open mindset, especially when searching for the hidden gem of an assistant who will help you take your business to the next level.

Sometimes you need to try out several people before you find the right one, but once you do you will never go back to trying to do everything yourself again.

Finding the right person to help you run your business is not only profitable, it is down right liberating!

By utilizing the rapid writing methods above and setting guidelines on the amount of time your assistant should spend intereacting with your followers weekly you will be able to grow and maintain your profiles for as little as $25- $100 per month and keep strict control on your outsourcing costs.


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What to Look for in a VA• Great English! I can not stress this enough. With great English and basic social

media skills you will be able to easily train the maitenance of your social profiles.

• Punctuality and attention to detail. Critical for getting quality work.

• Ability to follow detailed instructions accurately and with minimal supervision.

• Attentive to deadlines.

• They want the job and want to learn. People who are eager will ususally stay longer term.

• Ideally they will possess a group of skills you will need in your business. Finding people with multiples skills sets gives you flexibility on other projects down the road without having to go through the hiring and interview process again. I have found that a minimum of three needed skills and excellent English is a good rule of thumb.

Which Applicants to Avoid• Anyone who has few skills, evasive or is dishonest on their application.

• Anyone with questionable grammar or lack of attention to how they write. Missing punctuation or capitalization.

• Anyone who does not follow instructions or give exactly the info you ask for during the interview process.

• Anyone who does not answer your emails within the first 8-24 hours after you send them, preferably sooner.

• Anyone who does not make a solid effort to complete your prehire screening process.

• Students tend to disappear around finals time and during school vacations. Not all are unreliable, but most do not work out in the longer term and trunover tends to be higher.

Most all of these are indications of work ethic, ability to reason and turn in quality work on time. Students generally have not worked well for me as they tend to lack understanding of the importance of good communcation and meeting deadlines. Of course, these are generalizations and it depends on the person.


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How to Tell which Applicants Should Get the Job• Those who respond right away to any emails with proper English.

• Those who turn in a detailed application and are eager to interview.

• Those eager for the job and willing to learn.

• Those who have mutliple skills sets.

• Those with demonstrated critical thinking skills, customer service, or management experience. These folks tend to make the transition to working from home easily and are usually quite self directed, used to evaluating the details and willing to work independently.

Where to Hire OutsourcersThere are several options for hiring and assistant without actually making a more permanent commitment than for a single project.

Companies which offer outsourcing platforms on a work for hire basis are a good way to go if you are just starting out in outsource. You can try an assistant for just one task, test their skills and move on if the work is not done satisfactorily.

Minimal cost, minimal hassle, you do not offer more work if you do not want to. If things don't work out well, end the contract and move on. The other advantage is that you can read the person's resume, search for people with skills matching your needs and read the comments of previous employers.

Try these companies for assistants:

• firverr.com

• tenrr.com

• tenbux.com

• oDesk

• Freelancer

• easyoutsource.com

• Vworker

• Elance

• onlinejobs.ph

• va4u.com

A second option is to hire more independently. Craigslist gigs or part time job listings depending on how much work you are looking for:


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• Any US major city

• manila.tl.craigslist.com.ph/mar/

• replacemyself.com/resumesearch

• gumtree.com (UK)

You will need to handle the paperwork, payments and billing yourself but these are usually take minimal time or effort. Most contractors accept Paypal as a payment option.

Note that some, but not all outsourcing platforms like those in the first section above, deal with the payment and paperwork to ensure the contractors are compliant with 1099's and necessary paperwork in the US. Check the terms of service of each platform and the legalities in your location to be sure you are compliant and keeping adequate business records.

Hiring a VA Step-by-Step

Step 1- Register and Post Yout Ads

Register at each platform and post the letter below:

Social Media Expert/ Social Media Manager (Part Time)

We have an immediate opening for a part time social media expert and manager for our growing internet business.

Strong applicants will possess EXCEPTIONAL English skills, be very aware of deadlines, and able to complete tasks with a minimum of supervision following full training.

Required Skills

– Demonstrated experience with Twitter and Facebook.

– Knowledge of Social Oomph, Postcron and TweetAdder

– Ability to rapidly write quality posts with good grammar

– Attention to detail

– Thorough knowledge of the internet


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How to Apply

Please submit a full resume and write a short (25 word Facebook post and 120 character tweet) on the topic of 'Chihuauas' for consideration.

You may also include any additional information you feel relevant to your application.

Appliants who pass initial screening will be shortlisted for a possible interview via Skype.

Thanks,

[your name]

Note: it is easiest to create a separate email to be used only for hiring tasks in order to easily see all applicants in one place.

Step 2- Greet Applicants You are Interested In Hiring

Sift through the applications, and respond to anyone you are impressed with who meets the qualifications and has done the test questions correctly.

Automatically reject anyone who has not followed instructions, has poor spelling, grammar, writing skills or has not done the writing samples correctly.

Send the letter below to applicants who are not being considered for hire:

Hi [THEIR NAME],

Thanks for your interst in our company. Unfortunately, you were not selected for an interview at this time.

Regards,

[YOUR NAME]

Send the letter below to applicants who will interview:

Hi [THEIR NAME],

Thanks for your interst in our company. I'm happy to say you have passed our intital screening and we would like to schedule an interview via Skype with you.


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I will be available on [INSERT DATE] from [INSERT TIME]. Please let me know the most convienient time to chat with you.

My Skype: Your_skype here

Regards,

[YOUR NAME]

Important: Don't forget to pull down your job postings at this point.

Step 3- Interview Via Skype Chat

A lot of people skip the interview via Skype, but taking the time acutually has two distinct advantages:

1. You get to assess English, reasoning skills and how the applicant puts together answers to your question.

2. You present your business as a better opportunity for long term growth over the countless internet compnies that are looking only for temporary help.

I have found that the overall quality of appicants improves when there are several steps in the hriring process. Those looking for temporary work or not serious about their career tend to stay away from anything requiring effort and the better qualified applicants are a bit easier to spot. It is also useful to negotiate price per set or hour in a more personal setting.

Step 4- Hire and Assign Task

After your interviews hire the best applicant and assign the task.

It is best to give detailed writing instruction or you can give the SpokesPigeon training to them to facilitate their understanding.

When assigning tasks to outsourcers, immediate and clearly defined feedback and instructions work best. You will get from an outsourcer exactly what you direct them to do in most cases.

Clear instruction including video, screenshots and visuals are very effective training.


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Step 5- Assess Work and Either Train or Dismiss

Most of the time, the work will not ber perfect the first time through. If it is horrible and way off the mark, start over with another person if you do not forsee right away that they possess the ability to be trained quickly.

If not, make corrections and follow up often until your assistant is well trained. Overall, you are looking for a person who is reliable, has good English, is a solid witer, attentive to details, attentive to deadlines and wants to learn. If you find this combination then


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Advanced Methods, Leveraging and MonitizationThis is the fun part where you can start making the most of your social media profiles!

Advanced Methods and Leveraging1. Build your Facebook account with the methods above, then import to G+ for broader exposure. To export your Facebook data:

– You will need a Yahoo email account since you can not directly export from Facebook and import to G+.

– Login to Yahoo, G+ and Facebook.

– Complete export and import steps as in the video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uHh3CkT-1Ok

2. You can leaverage your time by inviting new followers to follow you on other social networks in your thank you message in Social Oomph. To set up a rotating series of thank you messages use the format below:

{message 1 | message 2 | message 3 | message 4 }

Each message should thank new followers for following and also invite to follow you on another network. You can rotate G+, Facebook, personal blog etc. to leverage your time and expose your other content.

3. Once you get a fair number of followers, it is a good idea to run backups on your profiles. You can backup your tweets, friends and direct messages for free at http://tweetake.com/ . Tweet take will allow you to downland all the information you need to restore your account in case of a #fail into a simple .cvs file.

4. To backup your entire Facebook profile inclucing messages, wall posts, photos, status updates and profile information:http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=155491277843192

5. Want more retweets? All you need to do is ask...and you should ask often! See the study from hubspot.com below for some interesting findings on how to get more retweets:

Strong calls to action and spedific direction work well:

Average number of retweets with no call to action is 4.2 per tweet.


http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=155491277843192

http://tweetake.com/



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'Please ReTweet' averaged 20.1 retweets pers tweet.

'Please RT' averaged 6.1 retweets per tweet.

Using the Please ReTweet call to action greatly improved the number of retweets pers tweet.

Calls to action work well on any social platform to begin the conversation and encourage sharing.

6. Push your blog content to your Social Oomph account for increased reach:

– Add your blog by going to the tab in the left navigation column >>> add new account >>> add new blog.

– Add your social account or accounts to the system.

– Add your RSS feeds by going to blogs >>> add blog feed.

– Schedule the publication of your blog post by going to blogs >>>schedule new blog post.

Social Oomph will do the rest and post your new blog post to your profiles at the time you designate. The system will then read the RSS feed and push your content to your Twitter and Facebook accounts.


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Monetization

Twtitter MonitizationKeep reading for some detailed instructions,and pretty unique ways of monetizing your Twitter account. Here is Michael D. Forbes with the rest of the Total Twitter Domination Video Series:

Making Money from Twitter- How to make money from your Twitter account. Pay very close attention to the do's and don'ts of making money with your profiles.

Making Money from Twitter (part 2)- Monetizing on Twitter with direct and indirect offers. All the ways you can make money with your Twitter accounts. Multiple options for some extra cash with very little effort.

Maximum Twitter Domination- Advanced techniques for maximizing your time, productivity, exposure and profits.

Facebook Monitization

Facebook has a several good ways of monetization and make a passive income:

• Post 100% relevant affiliate promotions in a fun and engaging way - think of images posted to Pinterest of products, Amazon product recommendations or other affiliate offers that match the interest of the community.

• Advertise posts and content on your own site

• Seed your own viral campaigns and awesome content by posting it in your FB account.

• Send traffic to URL shorteners.

• Present 100% relevant CPA offers.

• Do sponsored posts.Do porduct posts by posting images of products and say...'I want this', 'Would you buy this?'', I love it, 'X just released X' etc.

• Use a Facebook app to engage visitors and create a list.





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Offline Monitzation


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Offliners can generate significant profts by signing just one new client a month. A social media manager can realistially charge between $500- $2K a month for nothing more than one post a a day and minimum interaction. This is a VERY scalable business model with low overhead for outsource and high profit margins.

You will notice in the graph above we figured revenues very conservatively with an average of $1K per client and a generous $200 a month for outstouced labor. If anything the figures above are low!


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To Sum Up• A strong social media presence is a must. If you don't have one, your

business is missing out on the benefits of higher traffic, greater profitability, a branded presence, social proof AND an asset that will generate income for years to come.

• Building social media profiles is a lot like building a very responsive list, only with the advantage of exposing all of their followers and friends to your content. The relationship with the list is built by providing good content, perceived value and credibility in exchange for the ability to market to them. Build once, maintain a good relationship with your list and reap the benefits for a very long time into the future.

• Much like building a list, the quality of the social media profile will determine both your success and profitability. Paying attention to the quality of those you choose to follow and have follow you will determine both how targeted your followers are how valuable your social profile ultimately will become. Unlike email lists, with auto responder costs, social media is a very cheap alternative to auto responder services who charge more as you become more successful.

• Because social marketing is extremely cheap, this method offers exceptional margins and can be fully automated. When automated correctly growing social media profiles requires little effort or expense for so large of a potential payoff. So little effort, that is, if you have automated the process of managing your accounts.

• How much automation you choose to integrate is up to you. There are several methods for accomplishing similar results, although being fully automated is difficult to beat. That said, free tools will get the job done if you choose to use them and don't mind utilizing semi-automated tools. In my opinion, the most efficient combination of software is Social Oomph / TweetAdder and Postcron.

• Take care to build your new profiles at a reasonable rate to avoid any difficulty with account limitations on any social media platform. With the recommended levels of 25-50 new followers daily on Twitter, you should be able to take only minimal risk while building your profiles at a steady rate.

• The flexibility automation brings can easily offer you numerous options for monetizing. Do it. You are limited only by your own creativity.


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• You can achieve building authority profiles in just a couple of days a year and minimal interaction time or completely outsource the entire process for as little as $25-$100 a month. The cost varies by how systemized you are, the efficiency of the software you use, and the efficiency of your VA.

Checklist

✔ Select your software.

✔ Set up and configure your Facebook and Twitter profile and Fan Page.

✔ Find souces of quality content in your niche and set up RSS feeds.

✔ Hire and train VA if you are using one.

✔ Write content.

✔ Schedule posts.

✔ Interact 30 minutes a week or less to engage your community and keep the conversation moving. (Optional but beneficial).

✔ Monetize.

✔ Profit.


Documents

SpokesPigeon - MunchWebmunchweb.com/spokespigeon/eBook/SpokesPigeon_eBook.pdf · • Social media is great for list building. For those who think social traffic won't convert, they