If you have followed our posts about Good Energy, Happiness, The Validation Movie, and the power of short messages to make someone’s day or even change lives, you have encounter our friend @Iconic88, Twitter self proclaimed CHO.

@Iconic88 has the best quotes, compliments and warm wishes every time we check into Twitter, and claims to have never once tweet a harsh word.

You may not be able to make his public appearance, but do follow him.. and watch the clever video used for his upcoming appearance

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I got an email this morning from a networking contact I met on LinkedIN.

He asked:

I have a question. Currently I have about 15k twitter followers adding about 250 per day, how the heck did you get to 50k+?  Have you been able to monetize your followers in anyway?  Connect in multiple ways?

That’s actually 3 questions.. so I thought I should answer them all here to help others who ask.

My reply:

Funny you asked about Twitter in an email after I reached out to you on Twitter yesterday with didn’t get a response there.

No worries. I’ve found it’s best to listen to my market wherever they want to talk and respond to help if I can.

I’d say you are in Stage 2 the Three Stages or Twitter Acceptance

Your question about monetizing was a dead giveaway.

I took a quick look at your profile and it’s obvious that you are trying to broadcast on Twitter. Not a single conversation on the first page.

The secret to Twitter (and marketing in the future) is to LISTEN and LOVE.

LISTEN: Read others Tweets. Learn what your market wants and get it for them.

LOVE: Respond to questions, refer people to resources.. especially ones that aren’t your own sales process and say thank you whenever you can.

Stage 3 conversations are where the fun lies. Have fun helping people and you will be attractive or “Follow Worthy” as we talk about in Twitter Revolution

You may be getting advice that some system will get you more followers and automate marketing on Twitter. Many of them don’t work, even the ones that do will make you look like a 20th century marketer and could get you labeled as a spammer. (read more on “Don’t Be THAT GUY at the Social Media Party” here)

The “followers” number posted on a profile is not the best indicator of whether someone is helping other. It is one indicator of activity. Other indicators would be

• The number of conversations you have
• The time you have recommended a good link that doesn’t point to a self serving sales page
• How often someone says “thanks for the help”
• The use of the retweet functions (RT) to share others tweets.

A few “famous off Twitter” people build up a following regardless of whether they engage the public. Most of use won’t see any value from Twitter until we engage in listening and love (caring).

“People don’t care how much you know until the know how much you care” — Stephen R Covey

There are many examples of sales through Twitter. Dell attributes $6.5 million to posting deals. Dell can do that, they are a multi billion dollar company.

Zappos is a better example of a company that gets “listen and love” The CEO tweets as @Zappos and most of the office staff does too. You may see a special offer, but mostly they are listening to their customers talk about shoes and joining conversations to add value, help and spread love and good energy.

The Secret of High Follower Counts

They don’t do much for click through results. More connection give you more opportunities to listen and love and more conversations result in real people, real relationships and real business. However, when I post a link with tracking data.. the results are about the same as when I had 1/10 the followers. Twitter is not a broadcast medium.

The revolution in sales and marketing is just starting. With the technology we have now, there is no reason to ever try to pitch someone that is not anxious to hear from you. Rather, we teach our clients monitor the Tweet stream for conversations and questions of those that are looking for a solution (Listen), then where appropriate, join in the conversation answer a question give advice without any expectation of making a sales pitch (LOVE).

You can focus on helping people in your target market, or just help in general. People will be attracted to you when you GIVE.. it’s the Law of Reciprocity (you can get anything you want if you help enough others get what they want).. we want to do business with givers.. people that we know, like and trust. Asking for a sale too soon kills that process. Fortunately, the technology today allows us to meet and network, get to know people and build a trust relationship fast.

A good salesman knows that marketing is a process and hones his skill. Today, the skill that we all need to learn is “listen and love” .. it’s a lot more fun than cold calling, much more productive and will transform us into better people.

Why waste time selling to someone that doesn’t want to buy.. there are millions looking for whatever you have.. just go help them!

Follow People Who Are Doing Social Media Right

My Twitter Radio show has guests with news and tips.. but our primary goal is to allow Twitter users to meet and mingle with leaders in social media.

This Friday’s show will feature @JayBerkowitz who wrote The 10 Golden Rules of Online Marketing. Join us live for Social Media Radio to chat with hosts, guest and others who are doing social media this way or listen to the Twitter Show on iTunes

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I’m teaching a class on how to promote yourself on Twitter.

NOTE: It’s not about adding a lot of bogus followers and spamming them

To promote yourself right, be part of something bigger than yourself. That’s I’m inviting EVERYONE who wants to show they are a GIVER to tweet along with us, make new connections and build relationship with REAL PEOPLE today.

HOW TO PLAY

Simple to join us:

Starting today (July 23) at 2pm Eastern (11am Pacific) I will tell our class about the #GREENLIGHT hash tage and the link to this explanation — http://budurl.com/greenlight (this link will come back to this explanation)

I’ll teach them to follow the thread of posts and add their own so they can network with you and other GIVERS on Twitter.

If you post a tweet with #GREENLIGHT during the next few hours, thousands of givers will see it.. and see that you are one of us. So will like what they see, real human tweeps with something to say and a giving attitude. You will get a few new followers that see you as a Twitter user who “get it”

The event continues after the class ends and I go to meet up with fans of WHO’S GOT YOUR BACK by Keith Ferrazzi. If you are in Atlanta, you can join us FREE but the for our purposes.. it’s just a great excuse to promote GOOD ENERGY. I’ll tell everyone there about #GREENLIGHT and the group of great networkers will check and see your tweets too.

What’s Good Energy?

Anytime you help another person, pay it forward, or just treat your fellow human beings as important individuals, you are spreading good energy.

On 9/9/9, people all over the Earth will be part of Good Energy Day.. but you don’t have to wait to 9/9/9. You can spread good energy any time.

1. Tweet with #GREENLIGHT
2. Follow tweets with #GREENLIGHT to meet like minded people. 
3. Add a comment here with your thoughts,
4. Keep sharing GOOD ENERGY.

It’s as simple at that.

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