Dear readers,

Occasionally I like to comment on social media marketing lessons we can learn from other industries.  I wrote about lessons we can learn from television shows like the Voice or Major League Baseball teams.

This weekend is the largest poker event of the year, the World Series of Poker main event final table.  I thought in homage to this major poker event we’d talk about social media marketing lessons we can learn from looking at professional poker players.

We can learn a lot by looking at the Twitter accounts of some professional poker players. 

The most popular poker pro on Twitter, is probably also one of the most popular in the world. Texas Dolly, Doyle Brunson. The godfather of modern poker has done a great job developing a following on Twitter.  Doyle has over 382,000 followers on Twitter.  This makes sense considering Doyle is a legend, has a great personality, and has a lot of fans in the real world as well as the internet.

Let’s take a look now at two more famous poker pros. Daniel “Kid Poker” Negreanu and Phil “the poker brat” Hellmuth.

Daniel has 135,000 followers and Phil only has 101,000.  Phil is considered a poker legend. He has won more WSOP bracelets than any other person.  I’m not going to get into which of these two players is better. They play different types of games and to compare the two would be difficult.  For this conversation we’re going to simply talk about their Twitter following.

Why does Daniel have 34,000 more followers on twitter? Over 30% more than Phil? Is Daniel more popular than Phil in the offline world? If he is more popular is he 30% more popular than Phil? I seriously doubt it.  I know people like Daniel but I daresay more people know Phil.

Let’s examine some possible reasons for Daniel Negreanu having more Twitter followers than Phil Hellmuth.

#1 Daniel tweets more often than Phil. Daniel has posted 8956 tweets. Phil has only done 2322.  That means Daniel has had more to say on twitter. That means he gets retweeted more often. He gets more replies and comments from fans, which other twitter users see.  By Daniel tweeting more often he has an opportunity to get more followers.

#2 Personality. Phil has a strong personality but he doesn’t seem to apply it to his tweeting. Most of his tweets lately are about where he is eating and who he is eating with… or his charity or whatever… Basically Phil’s tweets are boring. Daniel tweets about a variety of topics including complaining. I hate to say it but sometimes negative posts and complaints get more responses than positive ones. I think if Phil let his personality show a bit more on Twitter, he would easily have as more followers.

#3 Daniel also recently wrote a blog post about being real online.  I think he’s spot on.  Whatever you do online you don’t want to be boring. If you want to develop a following you want your personality to show.  You’ll attract real followers and fans that way because they’ll find common ground with you. Whether you’re right or wrong, having an opinion is better than not having an opinion at all.  It seems counter productive because sometimes we want to appeal to everyone, but when we do we actually are less popular.  By appealing to everyone we don’t let our true selves show and don’t develop true fans.

Now let’s go one step further.

Famous twitter personality and professional poker pro John-Robert Bellande (BrokeLivingJRB). John-Robert is probably more famous for his personality than his poker playing.  He isn’t a slouch as a proker pro with two consecutive deep runs in the WSOP main event in 2010 and 2011 show he has some skills at the table.  However his following on Twitter shows how important having a dynamic personality can be to developing a loyal following of fans.

JRB has a little over 29,000 Twitter followers at the moment.  That is more than many top poker pros. I’m not going to list names. I don’t want to insult anyone but there are many quality poker pros that have 5k or 10k followers and yet JRB is about to break 30k followers.

What makes JRB unique is his personality.  He willing posts bankroll updates, even when his bank roll is busted (like it is currently.)  He posts pictures of the parties, the ladies, the penthouses and suites.  He posts about living the life regardless of his bankroll.  This dynamic personality, whether you like him or not, attracts followers.

Note to JRB. You will remain broke as long as you keep your twitter handle. You are telling yourself subconsciously every time you look at your twitter handle that you are broke. Can you image what it is like to tell yourself 20 times a day that you’re broke. Imagine saying “Your Broke”, “Your Broke”, “Your Broke” to yourself every day. Guess what you’ll be? Broke.  You’ll self sabotage yourself. That’s the law of attraction at work.  That’s your subconscious mind at work.  JRB is cosntantly feeding his subconscious negative thoughts about money.

How does this apply to your network marketing business and developing a following on Twitter?

• Let your personality show. Don’t be afraid to offend people.
• Don’t be afraid to have an opinion. Having an opinion is better than having none.
• Be active and participate. Being active can be a way we can pick up more fans.

MLM Training > twitter tips

Dear readers,

What  social media marketing tips can we learn from the Voice on NBC television.

The Voice is a new hit television show.  The show is a new format of signing competition, but what makes them really interesting is their total adoption and incorporation of social media.

What social media marketing tips can we get from the voice?

First, they had a plan to incorporate social media from the very beginning.

Back in March 2011 before the show began billboard magazine was reporting that the Voice had gotten Christina Aguilera to join twitter as a part of her contract with the Voice.  According to the article all of the mentors/coaches from the show would use Twitter to share with fans.

Second the show has gotten not only the coaches,  but their advisors and the contestants to all sign on to Twitter as well. They have made public twitter lists for each to make it easy for fans to follow them. (See the Twitter lists for the coaches, advisors, contestants.)

Third during the the first several episodes they introduced Alison Haislip to the audience. Alison would be the face of the show in social media as the “backstage and social media correspondent for the show“. This was very clever because the fans all feel like they are communicating with a real person.

Fourth as the show is broadcast each week they incorporate social media into the show. The initial “recorded” shows would include some fan tweets on the bottom of the screen during the broadcast.

Fifth as we now are watching the live broadcasts the Voice has now incorporated the social media element even more with the launch of the “V room”. This is sort of the social media center for the show and is also a backstage area where contestants can relax. They show the contestants using tablet devices to connect with their fans on Twitter during the show. They also show some staff members in the back who are undoubtedly helping answer questions, communicate with fans, and probably even doing some magic cut and paste of tweets to get content onto the live broadcast in real time.

This is of course hosted by the social media correspondent Alison Haislip.

Sixth the use of Twitter allows the NBC executives to see trends about the show in real time.

All of this… and we’re just talking about Twitter! We haven’t even touched what the Voice is doing on Facebook, blogs, and other social media platforms.

Hey ABC, are you paying attention? ABC you could pick up a few social media marketing tips from the voice! Maybe you could save your network by paying attention to your fan base once in awhile instead of killing shows off with poor marketing.

Have you seen the Voice yet?  Have you seen any tv shows that embrace social media as much as the Voice on NBC?

Leave a comment and let us know! We’d love to know what you think of the Voice, Alison Haislip, and their use of social media.

- Ben Fitts
Follow me on Twitter here.

MLM Training > twitter tips

Dear readers,

Here are few cool twitter tips and articles you should check out:

15 Twitter Headline Templates that Pull Twitter Traffic – steal these headlines and make them your own!

For you bloggers 7 Reasons Why Your Posts Aren’t Being Retweeted. Great tips on how to get more tweets for your blog posts including some tips I need to pay attention too!

This one isn’t really a tip, but the information is useful to know…

Social Media marketing by the numbers – How companies invest their dollars & time in social media.

Did you know Pepsi corporation isn’t running ads in the Super Bowl this year? They’ve decided instead to focus their advertising dollars on social media!

BTW in the infographic did you notice companies tend to be more active on Twitter than Facebook, Youtube, or their blog? Interesting. There must be something about all this Twitter nonsense.

Let me know if you like this post. If you do, each week I’ll post a series Twitter Tips & Facebook Tips as I find articles/blog posts about them.

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > twitter tips

Dear readers,

Are you tracking the results of your Twitter and Facebook posts?

Do you have any ideas which posts get the most response?

One of the reasons I started to use HootSuite was that they make it easy for me to track  Twitter and find out which of my posts get the most clicks. 

The HootSuite dashboard has it’s own URL shortner called Ow.Ly  (Get it? Hoot  and Owls?)  When you post a link to a web site in your Twitter or Facebook you just paste it right into HootSuite and they will shorten it to an ow.ly link. 

All your ow.ly links are tracked by HootSuite.  The tracking can do a couple things.  You can sync it with your Analytics and get an overlay of your ow.ly stats on top of your Google Analytics.  Here is one such image:

In this image the blue line is my Google Analytics traffic for one of my web sites. You can see the average number of visitors for this particular site ranges from 20 to 100 visitors a day.

The green line in the image represents clicks on my links from twitter. 

This is just one of the reports HootSuite provides.

One report provides overall status of my tweets.  It shows me how many clicks I received.  It also shows me who mentioned me and provides details on the people that mentioned me.  It shows how many times they mentioned me and provides info so I can click for more details.

They also provide individual tweet reports. These reports show my individual tweets and if I click them show me how many clicks each tweet received.  That way I can see which specific tweets got more clicks.  This allows me to look for themes or content that I might want to tweet again if they were really popular the first time

Finally, I mentioned Facebook.  If you have a HootSuite account and you have Fan Pages you can connect your HootSuite account to your fan page. Connecting it to your fan page allows you to post from HootSuite but it also allows you to track stats on your fan page.  You can see how many fans you have, how many active fans you have, how many new likes you receive, how many unlikes you receive and… even get biographical stats on your fans! You can see gender, age, country, and more! I for example have 6 fans from the Ukraine! (who knew!?)  I also have 55% male and only 45% female fans.  I gotta work harder at the female audience

So now you can see why I’m a big fan of HootSuite  

- Ben Fitts

PS. Yes HootSuite launched an affiliate program today, but I had already started a draft of this post before I even knew they had an affiliate program

MLM Training > twitter tips

Dear readers,

I was talking about Twitter and Facebook with my buddy Jack Spirko. Jack is known for his very popular podcast: The Survival Podcast. (Over 14,000 listeners)  Jack has a few theories on how to use Facebook and Twitter that I thought were pretty cool.

He records and posts his shows early in the morning.  When he posts a new show he posts links to both Facebook and Twitter.

This is how he explains his process to me in an email:

I use a plugin called wp to twitter, that posts the blog posts to twitter, I visit twitter right after publishing, I answer any direct tweets or anything interesting and grab the bit.ly link and manually post the update to Facebook.

I use a bit.ly api key with wp to twitter that automatically generates a bit.ly link for each post. I set the wp to twitter so only posts are sent to twitter and only one time, not if I do an update to a post or put up a new page.

A few notes on what he said… One of the things he mentioned to me over dinner was that the things like networked blogs which automatically post links to Facebook didn’t work very well.  I think part of the issue Jack was having with networked blogs was in how the links were displayed.  By posting the link himself he can control the text better. The wordpress plugin he uses generates bit.ly short links.  He can put this in his Facebook posts. Bit.ly also gives him stats on how often the link is clicked.

Here was one of the interesting things…  After he posts to Facebook and Twitter he makes sure to take an hour or so to spend online.  He said that most of the comments and replies he gets about a show happen quickly after the link is posted.  He can then reply, thank people for retweets, etc. during that time.

This was really interesting to me because we’re both fans of the 4 hour work week.  We discussed things like checking our email in batches so that we don’t waste time.  He understands that he can maximize his time on Facebook & Twitter by making sure he is available just after he posts his daily podcast.  That way he can be around to answer responses immediately.  This also helps with Facebook because as his post gets more “likes” and responses it will show up in more   people’s newsfeeds.  It also maximizes the use of his time as he only spends an hour or so online on the social sites.  He can then take the rest of the day off.  Maybe he checks the social sites again in the evening but he doesn’t spend all day on them like some people.  After all we don’t want to get sucked in to hanging out on Facebook all day. We want to enjoy the fruits of our home business and enjoy our day

To recap:
WP to Twitter Plugin
Bit.ly for links
The Survival Podcast
TSP on Facebook
TSP on Twitter

I hope you enjoy hearing stories of how real world business people use Twitter and Facebook.

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > twitter tips