May
31

Internet Marketing Tweet Digest 2009-05-31

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May
29

Internet Marketing Tweets 2009-05-29

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May
27

Internet Marketing Tweets 2009-05-27

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May
26

Internet Marketing Tweets 2009-05-26

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May
25

Internet Marketing Tweets 2009-05-25

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May
22

50 Twitter Tips for Conversion

So here it is: Twitter.  It’s everywhere being hyped as the next great thing, but what can it do for your business?

Like any emerging technology the uses are somewhat open ended and there are still many questions.
A few things are absolutely certain:

  1. Twitter offers you an opportunity to engage a large number of people who are comfortable online. Which means they will either purchase online or talk a lot online.
  2. Twitter is growing dramatically. How long that growth will last is up for debate but the reality is that it is here now and barriers to entry are very low. It’s free and only requires and strategy which is embracing.
  3. Twitter can benefit your company through customer service, product promotion, marketing and PR just to name a few.

I’ve put this guide together to get you started on your Twitter campaign and strategy. It is our hope that you find this guide useful. Please forward this to your friends, colleagues and relatives!

Also I’m looking forward to your comments, additions, thoughts, and general input on any of this.

50 TWITTER TIPS FOR CONVERSION

  1. Engage your followers. Simply throwing promotional offers at people will only add to the white noise on Twitter and you will not stand out. Send @ replies, help out, discuss and be real.
  2. Reference your site frequently. You don’t even need to always reference your newest content, reference your most useful content. With the stream of messages on Twitter. There is nothing wrong with referencing.
  3. Create a custom Twitter landing page and direct users there. Use the KISS approach, one offer specifically for Twitter users, you’ll notice a huge difference.
  4. Do not be afraid to unfollow people who are adding to your white noise. Like any list you want to target your audience, some affiliate marketers out there will only Tweet offers and junk. Lose them.
  5. ReTweet valuable tweets from your followers. This is a huge thing and extremely complementary. I find on my lists that there are about 5% if the users that I ReTweet multiple times. Is that a new rule 95/5? 95% of your ReTweets come from 5% of your users.
  6. Ask your users questions. There are two ways to do it. Informally by simply throwing it out there and asking for a response. Formally by using TwtPoll, which will track responses. Either way ask engaging questions of your users, something that will incite debate and opinion.
  7. Exclusive offers. When I say exclusive I mean exclusive, don’t just regurgitate another offer, make it exclusive and time limited to Twitter users otherwise you risk being in the “white noise” category.
  8. Incentives for followers. We effectively use $50 Cash Cards for the nth Twitter follower for doing nothing more than simply following. We do it every thousand followers but pick your metric and follow-up on it.
  9. Monitor Twitter Search. You would be amazed at how many active discussions you can miss if you don’t watch the buzz. Get in there!
  10. Join Twitter Business Directories. Two good examples are WeFollow.com and Twellow.com, add yourself to relevant categories and search out potential leads on a regular basis.
  11. Engage a key individual in the Twitter dialog. A good strategy is joining your CEO’s profile to your corporate profile. Not only will you gain a wider following, you’ll have the ability to channel directly to your “go to guy (or girl)”.
  12. Follow PR and News Sources. You’ll create a direct dialog to the people who can get your message out there.
  13. Engage Anger. If you’re a business there is likely someone ready get annoyed with you. Don’t shy away from them, embrace and communicate them, you may have your next great advocate out there screaming good things about you.
  14. Live Updates from Events or Conferences. This will create buzz and excitement from your user base. No one cares if “it’s a hot day here in Glendale Arizona” but they might care about “The boss just gave a great tip on our newest product release”.
  15. Follow people. Alot. I can’t stress this enough. Some people think it is a badge of honor to have significantly more people following you than you follow. Not true. What you are really saying is I want a one way conversation, not very social at all.
  16. Figure out “Social Engagement”. How do you engage social media? You be social and engage. Why many people don’t understand this I will never know.
  17. Twitter about your competition. Why not? Even link to them, if you are confident in your product then you have an opportunity to show the world you have the superior product.
  18. Complement your competition. When your competitors do something right then do not shy away from it. Give them a shout out. It shows strength and confidence.
  19. Send useful links which may not be directly related to your business. It could be a news event or something you found useful. People appreciate tips and advice.
  20. Create a custom background for your Twitter page with your contact information. You would be amazed at how many people will reach out to you directly. Check out the Honeypot Marketing Twitter page, nothing fancy but it works.
  21. Add your Twitter profile to your email signature. Sounds basic enough but emails get passed around quite a bit.
  22. Add TwitterCounter and Twitter badges to your site. Not rocket science but highly effective. Internet marketing is a two way street, go both ways.
  23. Engage in polarizing discussion. Is @oprah adding nothing of value? Tell her, it will polarize but it will get you engaged.
  24. Auto Follow people who follow you. I use Tweetlater.com to automate this process but it is (to me) a common courtesy and I just think it works well, saves a ton of time too. You can purge lists once a month or so to keep your list up to date.
  25. Provide customer support. Whatever you do or sell, people will have a problem. Utilizing Twitter as a rapid response tool is incredibly effective and generally people only need a minor tip to get on track.
  26. Create a daily digest of your tweets for your blog. This not only incites the search engines into ranking you quickly (more customers!) but it provides a history and a sense that your company has fully engaged the community. That’s a good thing right?
  27. Twitter your knowledge. No matter who you are and what you know, your background and experience will help those and could position you as a thought leader. Cheesy term but true. You’ll become an expert and people will respect that and as such respect your company.
  28. Stay on Target. You want to communicate with people and lead them to and end goal. Never lose sight of that. Sketch out your conversion path (whatever it might be) and make sure you are achieving that goal. You will be surprised at how quickly results will happen.
  29. Don’t necessarily try to sell “stuff”. Selling “things” may or may not work for you on Twitter. Be realistic about your end goal, branding, customer service, lead generation. Generally using Twitter as a conduit makes it a great lead generator, not a closer.
  30. Talk about how your product helped a customer. If they are on Twitter ask them to participate in the dialog and back you up. Bringing it full circle will provide you incredible benefits.
  31. Create a Twitter Interview. I refuse to engage in the mangling of the English language for the purposes of branding Twitter. Some people call them Twinterviews – horrible. Set up a series of 10-15 questions and ask the your interviewee to @ reply them. You can even ask your followers to DM you specific open questions. Works like a charm.
  32. Ask people to ReTweet but not everyday. Asking people to ReTweet directly on occasion will indicate that this is an important message. With a good following you’ll get help.
  33. Don’t be afraid to go offline. Sometimes you can’t engage completely on Twitter so take it to phone, email or face to face (if possible). Only so much can be communicated in 140 characters.
  34. Ask your followers what they think of your offers. It’s a form of Direct Market Research. Example: “Would you rather get 20% off or a free movie pass for two? Let us know!”.
  35. Use TwitPic. Post pictures of your events, office, people in your office. Be human! No likes a marketing driod Twitter profile. You can *really* connect with people by being just like everyone else.
  36. Tweet company events. Did Joy in Accounting just have her first child? Tell everyone about it and how happy you all are for her. Unless of course your company is a sweatshop, which I highly doubt it is.
  37. Tweet the success of your customers. If you are B2B Congratulate your clients on a successful promo or campaign. Spread the love.
  38. Don’t insult people. Unless this your personal account and you’ll do whatever you want then fine. But never insult a client or competitor, you’ll look bad for ages and you can damage your own future reputation. Trust me there can be an idiot factor on Twitter and it can be difficult sometimes. I know I’ve lashed out a few times on my personal account. Oopsie.
  39. Conduct Website Testing. If you have a new promo or landing page ask your users which they like better. You are after all trying to appeal to them are you not?
  40. Define your objectives. I have alluded to it earlier but make sure everyone in your company understands what you are trying to do. Maybe directly selling your product won’t be successful but selling your service will be.
  41. Test, test, test. Twitter is an emerging technology; to be honest no one quite knows what to do with it just yet. That makes testing your message and conversion flow critical.
  42. Don’t be afraid to change course. Things change and you should change with them, if you found a sweet spot for communication or sales try to move in that direction without being scared to do so.
  43. Automate your blog and Twitter accounts in both directions. We love WordPress so it’s a no brainer for us. Every post gets an automatic tweet which will drive your customers to you. Simple.
  44. Integrate Twitter into your online strategy. We are huge proponents of integrated marketing. That includes Traditional and Emerging Marketing with the same message. Tip: when going online don’t change the message just go a bit more grass roots style.
  45. Tell people who exactly is Tweeting. You may have a corporate profile like http://twitter.com/honeypot_mkting but start out by saying “Morning All, @dannomatic is here this morning”. People like to know who you are and will be far more willing to engage you.
  46. Create a corporate Twitter Meetup. Admittedly this is a bit nerdy but it doesn’t have to be. Have an open house meeting to invite your Twitter followers to the office, then Tweet about it. Buzz is amazing.
  47. Create time limited promotions and update it on Twitter. Real and effective time limited promotions could include giving out a free whitepaper or case study for a limited time. Link via DM to a PDF but only keep access open for a few hours. When it’s over redirect the link to a thank you and registration for email download. Then you’ll capture the traffic, which is bound to happen after time has expired.
  48. Create a Twitter only contest. Be creative but run it exclusively on Twitter and give away your product as prizing. It doesn’t need to be fancy, just fun.
  49. Create a tone of helpful information. Example: “Did you know that the Magic Bullet can slice and dice? Check out the top features here…” and link to a blog post or information sheet – product knowledge is important and leads to the conversion or sale.
  50. Deep link people into your website and blog. You’ve likely invested heavily in that glitzy shiny website. Point out useful company information, employee profiles, product information, review, and news. It surprises us to see Twitter being used to link to one page on a website. Deep linking encourages people to dig deep into your site, increasing the opportunity for the conversion.
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May
21

Words of Wisdom

Can anyone guess who said this? Please comment and take a shot at it:

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings
but shorter tempers, wider Freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We
spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger
houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have
more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more
experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too
little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too
tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk
too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years
to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and
back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We
conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things,
but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the
atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan
more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait. We
build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies
than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and
small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are
the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken
homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway
morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do
everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is
much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when
technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can
choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete…

Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not
going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe,
because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is
the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a
cent.

Remember, to say, ‘ I love you ‘ to your partner and your loved ones,
but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it
comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person
will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the
precious thoughts in your mind.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the
moments that take our breath away.

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May
14

WordPress Backup Plugins

In the last few days the Gumblar malware injection attack has been making the rounds and hopefully you’ve taken preventitive measures to ensure that you are as safe as you can be from this annoying injection attack.

Just so you’re aware the reason for this attack is Blackhat SEO spammers are attempting to insert a hidden link on your site for the purposes of link building. The problem is it’s not only illegal, it’s incredibly lame.

Here’s another scenario, let’s assume for a second that your site did in fact get hijacked. Likely what you will be left with is an annoying script in a tond of your WordPress site pages. Not just in your theme but in anything beneath wp-content that they could inject.

This might include:

  1. Your theme files.
  2. Your plug-ins (a very good case for limiting and auditing new plugins you add).
  3. Your wp-admin files (this is extremely annoying as well).

Your only solution at that point is to reinstall WP (thus over writing the compromised files), re uploading your theme (backup!) and reinstalling all of your plugins. That would then get every file restored.

Now that’s a time consuming and lengthy pain in the ass process to be honest. So let’s be a bit proactive and add some functionality to your WordPress site that will automate some of these things for you.

Here’s a list of trusted management, backup and resoration plugins I use on all my sites:

  1. WP-DBManager – this is a great plugin by the prolific Lester Chan (one of my favorite plugin authors). It will let you do database work and backups directly from your WordPress Admin. Very handy.
  2. WordPress Backup – this is also a highly recommended plug in that will backup more than just your post data. Run it regularly and better yet, automate it. My rule of thumb is that if it can be forgotten it will be forgotten. I’m the worst case of that.
  3. WP-DBBackup – this will help you automate that process and keep a nice fresh copy of your database on hand for that disasterous moment.
  4. eFiles Backup – this is a good one for a smaller site. In general any injection attack won’t hurt your database, just the content files. This little guy puts your files on eFiles.com – I haven’t tested it but I might actually give it a whirl.
  5. WordPress Automatic Online Backup – this is another promising service which I have not tried out but am thinking of giving a whirl. Like I said automation is key.

In general people do not like to think about things like backups. It’s not a very sexy subject to say the least. But from my experience there is nothing worse than having to weed through a mass of files, downtime, and just the frustration of repairing things.

These backups can make a bad experience like getting injected relatively painless. It’s a bit of a “set it and forget it” scenario.

If this is your first visit here you might want to have a look at my other WordPress Security and SEO Posts

All the best,

Dan

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May
12

WordPress Exploit Gumblar .cn

Looks like there is another WordPress exploit out there dubbed Gumblar .cn – I was actually made aware of it through a pingback from Growmap.com on their: Watch Out for Recent WordPress Gumblar PHP Exploit post.

These attacks are extremely time consuming to clean up, trust me I’ve had to do it before in the past. It’s not a quick or easy thing to have to deal with at all.

There is also an excellent explanation of Gumblar here: Gumblar .cn Exploit – 12 Facts About This Injected Script

Please proactively protect yourself against this exploit!

Update: I’m quoting a bit from Scansafe’s excellent Q&A about the exploit:

Is this a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack?

No. The compromises appear to be the result of stolen FTP credentials and direct manipulation of files on the Web server.

What is the intent of the malware distributed through the Gumblar compromised websites?

The malcode distributed via the compromised websites attempts to exploit PDF and Flash exploits in order to deliver malware that redirects infected users’ search engine results. In these particular attacks, the malcode appears to be targeting Internet Explorer users and Google search. In addition, the gumblar.cn malcode installs a backdoor that connects to 78.109.29.112 – an IP address of a known botnet command and control that has historically been associated with malware engaged in malicious redirections.

Reference blog post: http://blog.scansafe.com/journal/2009/5/8/google-serps-redirections-turn-to-bots.html

How do these malicious redirections work?

Similar to a man-in-the-middle attack, these redirections occur as a result of a man-in-the-browser attack. The malcode injects itself into the browser process, monitors the requests processed by the browser, and injects fraudulent traffic. In the case of the Google SERPs redirects, the malcode replaces legitimate Google SERPs results with links pointing to malicious or fraudulent websites.

Millions of websites have been compromised over the past year; what makes these particular compromises unique?

A typical series of website compromises reaches peak within the first week or so and subsequently begins declining in intensity as detection is added by signature vendors, user awareness increases, and website operators begin cleaning the affected sites. (This is why attackers are constantly pushing new waves of compromise).

In the gumblar.cn attacks, the opposite is occurring. As website operators attempt to clean up the original compromise or otherwise make changes to the original source code of the .htm, .php, and .asp pages on their sites, the gumblar.cn compromise is injected. The gumblar.cn mal-script appears to be dynamically generated and thus varies not only from site to site, but also from page to page on the same site. In addition, the resulting mal-script is heavily obfuscated, further hampering signature detection methods. As a result, the gumblar.cn compromises are increasing – up 188% from last week and a 61% increase from yesterday.

Here are some related articles I’ve written that might be helpful:

WordPress Injection Attack

Blocking Spam with WordPress

WordPress Security Plugins

Best of Luck,

Dan

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May
07

Jaxson Daniel Nedelko

Well it’s been a rough 2 weeks but Nicole and I are now the proud parents of Jaxson Daniel Nedelko. Nicole was in labor for 23 hours, then 2 hours in the OR giving birth then 2 hours in surgery after it was all said and done.

It looks like Nicole will be recovering for 4-6 weeks from the birth and surgery. Poor girl.

I’ll be posting pictures here from Flickr today.

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