Thank You Diana For Finding the Picture!

UPDATE ~ On February 7th (Super Bowl Sunday! ) at 1:53Pm I received my 200,000th RT which made me the 22nd person to achieve this.  #BIGTHANKYOU to all of YOU! (and BIG SHOUT OUT to @TechZader for being the 200,000th RT!!)  Now read, learn & DO these steps and you too will see a MASSIVE increase in RTs! B

UPDATE ~ On December 19th at 7:03pm I received my 100,000th RT which made me the 29th person in Twitter History (Huffington Post) to achieve this.  A #BIGTHANKYOU to all of YOU! (and BIG SHOUT OUT TO @cherluvya for being the 100,000th RT!!)  As I’ve said before & I’ll say it forever, your Twitter presence is only as strong as those you follow and become FRIENDS with! STOP looking at how many followers people have and look at TwitterLists. (How To Use TwitterLists by Mashable) *Tip anybody with over 1000 TwitterLists are GOLD!

Now get this….

The 28 other ‘brands’ on Twitter who achieved 100,000 RTs had an average of 929,886 followers each. I on the other hand had only 15,023.  So what does this tell you about the POWER OF RETWEETING and SAYING THANK YOU…….

This is unchanged ~>

Here is an article that has gotten me well over 250 Re-Tweets (RT) by one of my favorite sources of information Fast Company ~>  ‘Nine Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Retweeted on Twitter’….and believe it or not, after I wrote this blog was the very first time I ever read it! lol  What I’m going to share with you isn’t Science, but simple tips to help increase the amount of RTs you get.  So who am I to tell you how to get an RT? Well…. onDecember 6th I celebrated my 80,000th RT which according to this article ~~>http://dailyrt.com/profiles/drt-all/ Ranks me 31st most RTed person/brands in the Twitterverse, so I think I know a thing or two….  So if you’re serious about “succeeding” on Twitter, I’m going to HELP YOU reach a higher level of RTs GUARANTEED!

1. Say THANK YOU!! I can’t stress this enough. This is AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENT OF TWITTER! And this is the part of  Twitter I miss the most. I don’t care who you are, or who you THINK you are, say THANK YOU! I used to do my BIG SHOUT-OUTs (groups of 10) and did them for every RT until I  hit 150+RTs/day and it became so stress full & time consuming (had to type names manually at that time) that I had a semi-break down! lol  Personally I think until you get 100+RTs/day you should be saying Thank You to everyone.  (Exceptions & Alternatives are at the bottom of page)

2. #B-Tips It doesn’t matter how many followers you have if they’re not listening. Build friends, not followers. B

My first Tweet was sent on May 13th 2009 at 7:49pm. So for me to reach an average of 384 RTs/day (now-a-days 500+ daily) with only 14,000+ followers, obviously I’ve tried my best to keep in some sort of contact with people (usually w/ the RT to show I care enough to see what they’ve said & am thinking about them) I suggest you concentrate on friendships instead of how many people are following you.  This is Social Media btw…

This isn’t a step, just should be common sense.  Take care of your inner group of people who RT you the most first.  And en-less you’re a major news source, you should be RTing people.  If you’re not RTing in my opinion you’re just “stealing” Tweets from certain people and Tweeting them for yourself and that’s that!!

3. Killer content. And how do you find killer content? By following YOU, ya you the one who’s reading this!  Twitter is about sharing information gathered on Global scale.  A mind blowing amount of information is in each & everyone of our time-lines if we just LOOK. And of course you are only as strong as the people you’re following.  (and the people in my stream are the BEST!)  I’m not going to go into detail on how to find these ’gems of the Twitterverse’ I’ll save that for another post.

Where else? Guess what its right in front of you! Every Tweet contains articles or blogs that have an archive, recent post and usually MOST POPULAR.  Obviously Digg, StumbleUpon yada yada… are AWESOME sources of info for the community.  Search around you’d be amazed what you’ll find!  And get subscriptions and/or RSS of articles you enjoy reading.  I do Copyblogger, AdAge and way too mention! lol

4. DON’T REMOVE PEOPLE FROM THE RT.  Look for Tweets that have been RTed 3 or more times. While leaving yourselves 12-15 characters, so another RT can be achieved. Why?  A) This means it’s great content. B)When people see friends in an RT, they’re more likely to RT it. C) Great way to make new friends since its likely someone you’ve just RTed you’ve never met.  *I like to follow anyone I RT & people who RT me.

5. Make your Tweets sound RT worthy by adding descriptive words, excitement and purpose! One of the masters on Twitter is @Twitter_Tips.  You don’t see as much ’copy & paste’ over there.  K, think about it like this….your Tweet is actually a news/magazine headline more or less.  Look at the copywiting, structure etc… of those junk magazines beside the check out isle. I’m gonna leave it at that….but adding ‘Beautiful’, ’in the World’ or ‘ ! ‘ has gotten me a few extra RTs I’m sure

Expanding on tip #5, remember one of  Twitter’s most important features is the keyword searches. The more useful keywords you use (while avoiding duplicates) the more likely you’ll get seen. And that brings me to my next point. Add your source if its from a reputable feed.  This also builds creditability to your Tweet, and ads  VALUABLE KEYWORDS. Example, you’ll see me adding (TIME), (LIFE), (Mashable) and a great one that hits two keywords (Yahoo! News).

6. FIGHT FOR IT! You need to put the effort in to make what you just RTed SIMPLE for the next person and the next person and so on…to RT as well.  And it’s the little things you do that make it all the difference! K, so at the end of our names there is ( : ) @Flipbooks:  ALWAYS REMOVE IT! Remove any periods ( . ) located before links *since obviously the sentence ends* as well as at the end of Tweets.  Next look for ‘and’  & switch it to ’&”FYI doing this double (RT @….. via @……) is a waste!  **I’ll be going on a rant soon on how RTs are being performed on a later date…lol**

Here is a very good example of me fighting for RTs, which JD ‘@earthxplorer‘ Andrews & I got!

RT @earthXplorer: “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind”  ~Dr. Seuss (138 Characters)

What I did ~>

RT @earthXplorer Be who you are & say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter & those who matter don’t mind ~Dr Seuss (128 Characters = 12 characters left for possibly two RTs per Tweet)

7. Use #Tags, but don’t over abuse or use them incorrectly. I’m going to be brief since this subject is VERY IMPORTANT and needs to be discussed with it’s own blog. Think of #tags as a community & a place to anchor your brands message.  Too many #tags (more than 3) and you look spammy, while releasing too many Tweets consecutively to the same #tag gets you ignored and possibly blocked from Twitter searches.  You should be doing a keyword search judging flow of timeline prior to Tweeting.

#B-Tips If your user name is too long and/or difficult you should change it. If its to long you’re robbing yourself of extra RTs and if it’s too difficult there leaves too much room for error. Refer to this article by @Kim ~>   How to Change your Username on Twitter

8. DON’T USE 2 or especially 3 Links in 1 Tweet.  That’s called mass confusion & no one wants to put out that kind of effort validating EVERY link so they can RT ya!

9. According to http://TweeSpeed.com provided to me by my very good friends @ScottATaylor there are approximately 20,000 Tweets per minute.  The question is who reads yours and which of your friends are likely to RT it?  And although this next tip will annoy those not using Twitter effectively (under 1000 friends in their stream) sending out 2 Tweets consecutively will increase the likely-hood you’ll be seen by your friends.

10. Another thing to take into consideration is Tweeting during busy times.  From my experience 4-6:30am, 4-6:30pm & 10pm-12:00am PST are all peak times for me to obtain followers.  As one of my closest friends@Paul_Steele says, depending on what country you’re Tweeting in the peak times and subjects (eg. TV shows) will repeat themselves weekly.  Regardless you want to be Tweeting when the majority of your closest friends are on.

11 . Have I failed to mention I’ve Tweeted over 35,500 times and sent over 5000 DMs in only 208 days with an average of 177.2 Tweets sent a day….basically like someone who should be in the Internet Rehab Center? lol  No you don’t need to Tweet like a mad man/woman to get RTed, but you do need to Tweet on a consistent basis to keep up with whats happening and to maintain friendships.

So I hope these tips where of assistance to you and I want to thank each and everyone of you for all your support and RTs! B

Other Notes ~

(Exceptions & Alternatives to Tip 1.)

If you are a “hard core” user of  Twitter I don’t feel the need to say thank you all the time to your best friends because its more of a “you know I’ll hit ya back soon enough my friend” kind of understanding.  I even feel uncomfortable when people who always RT me say thanks when I RT them….I think I’m the one who should be thanking them more often!

As an alternative to saying ”Thank You“ to everyone I also feel an INDIVIDUAL Follow Friday (#FF) are awesome!  Adding people who inspire you to your Twitter Lists is a sign of appreciation as well.  Writing a blog is ideal cause not only does it make a great introduction but brings traffic to your web site. (btw if you are on Twitter for business and don’t have a blog you’re wasting your time on here!)

* I do read each message everyone sends me but now I hope those of you who wonder why I don’t get back to you and/or respond to every Tweet understand the amount of effort it takes for me to deal with 1500+ RTs &50+DMs/DAY.  I would also like to mention that at busy times all the RTs & ‘@s’ don’t show up on my Seesmic app & occasionally it freezes and I’m slammed with 25-50 RTs at once. lol

*  Some people on Twitter are obviously not just rude but STUPID! I don’t care when friends RT a few Tweets then ‘copy & paste’  some of my Tweets to share with their inner group.  I do however get PISSED OFF when I follow my keywords and notice someone who has never RTed me in there life and in their Twitter stream they’ve literally stolen everything I’ve worked so hard to find.  This gets you BLOCKED immediately and if you’re really un-lucky a public lashing by me!

* Yes there was a POF banner on my pic at one point.  lol I figure its a form of social media so I’m writing another blog titled ’How POF Prepared Me For Twitter’.

* And yes as mentioned I do contract work. BUT only for large companies who are serious about ~> “There is a big difference with being on#Twitter & being noticed onTwitter” ~Blair “@Flipbooks‘ Semenoff  I know without a doubt, that if I can accomplish these Twitter goals by myself…..then I’ll teach your Team to be just as strong, and in some cases stronger!  If your ‘brand‘ is ready to be cutting edge and excel immediatetly with this AWESOME Marketing Tool that can only get bigger, then you’ve come to the right place.  I DON”T offer one day group seminar. We are creatures of habit.   And that’s why I offer ‘Twitter Brand Control‘ course which is conducted over 5 days long 24 hours a days plus other consultation throughout the contract.  If you’d like to know more please submit a request to Info@TruActionFlix.com

This is a pretty cool video created by Kemper Trautmann for the Audi quattro S4 Gefuhl…..one of my favorite cars btw (I gave you the link to N.A. site)

What we got here is a crazy ass skier maneuvering down the streets of San Fran, dodging obstacles and taring up asphalt. 

This is a great interactive adavergame campaign created by Saatchi & Saatchi BELGIUM  for Cadbury Creme Eggs.  As you can tell people are gathered around just like at an Arcade!  How many people do you think bought Creme Eggs and told people to go check it out???

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL  GUERRILLA MARKETING!! B

In Thailand, the advertising agency McCann Erickson Bangkok created the concept of fish leaflets for a supermarket. (K, first I thought this was stupid…than I remembered this is Thailand people!!!) lol Only in America would some *&@^ person steal everyone of these coupons.

The customer picks up a fish coupon and receives a 15% discount for fresh fish at the local supermarket.