I don’t remember what life was like before Twitter but I’m starting to think about what life could be like after Twitter is gone. (Gasp! Did I just say that?! Twitter = Gone? Really?)

Now that Twitter has entered the mainstream, does it change the Twittersphere?  Is it possible to engage when you have a million PLUS followers?

You betcha!  As long as you focus on reaching people and engaging them with RELEVANT information, ENGAGING content or ENTERTAINING broadcasts.

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Now that so many tweeters are using auto-follow robots to increase their followers on Twitter  by 1,000 – 2,000 a day, is anyone really listening anymore? Has Twitter reached the tipping point of being irrelevant?

Should Twitter remove the follower count from profiles? These are the debates raging in the Twittersphere these days – ever since Ashton Kutcher and Evan Williams introduced Oprah to Twitter on her show.

One of the questions I’m asked most often is how to increase followers?  But if you focus only on building your followers… your tweeps… you’re ignoring one of the key questions you should be asking yourself: where will I be if Twitter shuts down tomorrow?

Join me this Thursday for a special Ustream LIVE broadcast where I’ll my secrets for growing your list and attracting powerful influencers so you’ll know what to do when the Death of Twitter comes.

Visit Chat with Coach Deb for more details on the show, and join my Tribe to get on tomorrow’s FREE Broadcast.

@CoachDeb

Deborah Micek is a co-founder of the international business coaching company RPM Success Group ® Inc. She and her partner John Paul are authors of the hit book Secrets Of Online Persuasion. They are creators of the ONLY Web site system to put New Media to work marketing FOR you — BLOG i360™. Also known as “The Twitter Queen” she co-authored the first published book on Twitter, available now in bookstores everywhere: “Twitter Revolution” Grab your copy now on Amazon and get the edge on the hottest social network!

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I’ve been getting a lot of questions about a service that promises to add a whole lot of unsuspecting followers on Twitter. There are still some marketers who think that all we need to do is build up a massive list of people and then they all will magically buy stuff.

I’ve been replying with “This is a chain letter.. what’s next? Will you have me send $5 to each person on a list?”

But one of them admitted he didn’t believe the claims himself, and asked me to explain why it might not work.. I wrote:

It’s never a question if the chain letter works.. in fact, they were banned in snail mail BECAUSE they were so effective.

Here they have removed the “you will have bad luck if you don’t” and “send $5′ part.. thanks to emails, you can blast this out a lot keeper and don’t need to twist arms.

So I’m not saying not to do it.. I’m just betting that the types of followers you get from automated systems will be like FFA pages and freebie list builders… short lived.

Social media does because it’s so easy to opt out of reading the over hyped messages. The average person looks at 19,000 follower in a month and thinks scam and wont want to follow you.

If you pay someone to follow you, they will be more loyal.. but it’s kind of like paying people to be your friends.

Think of Twitter like a party. You can pass out a lot of business cards.. but you’ll be known as “that guy” and shunned.

Don’t you want to be invited to the next cool party? If so.. make conversations, be helpful and build a real relationship.

Some people look at social media as a new way to build a pyramid scheme.

Fortunately, we know have control.. we just avoid following them or un-follow. If we don’t follow, they become irrelevant fast

Twitter give you the chance to meet people, build relationships and meak meaningful connections. No reason to be THAT GUY.. you will do a lot more business if you treat people right and listen to them instead of spend your time on scams and schemes

Tonight on TwitCastRadio, we talked to @MichelleCheetah, very successful entrepreneur who joined us on Twitter a few months back. She has made connecitons with customers and suppliers, but has mostly used Twitter to LISTEN and learn.

How are YOU using Twitter to accelerate your life and your business?

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2009 is only hours away. Time to tweet so love to my followers.

I’m giving away some gifts tomorrow, January 1st 2009 via Twitter.

Like most of our Twitter projects, there are no rules when we started this. About a week ago, someone offered me a piece of artwork to give to my 5000th follower.

I had done the milestone follower bit a few times before. Usually without any warning.. I’d grab number 600 or number 2000 from the email notices Twitter sends, and send out some love via Twitter.

Most of the time, there no “gift”.. just tweet from me, comments on blogs, and a bit of promotion to help them gain some new followers.

It was so much fun, I started doing it all the time.. like “who needs a reason?” <grin>

So when the idea came up for the 5000th follower, my first reaction was that I did not want to create a rush of new followers just for the number. Instead, I decided that I’d use the occasion to give away MORE GIFTS.

This morning I tweeted that I needed some gifts. Response has been huge. There are some fabulous books and “real world” items and lots of digital products and even some services.

I’ve been doing give away cross promotions for new best seller books over at ZeroCostPromotions.com for years. I know this works. We’ve seen business deals for tens of thousands of dollars come from the connections made by partners and had dozens of best seller books in the process. Giving stuff away build reciprocity and great relationships.

Next step will be to sort through them and figure out how to give them away. Most likely, you’ll be seeing tweets on January 1st announcing it. Maybe “9 prizes for 2009″ as the theme.

What can we learn from this experience?

1. People are willing to give. I didn’t promise to pay, or to make them money. People just like to jump on board then there is a fun promotion
2. You can’t plan social media from the top down.. It’s not going the way I envisioned. It’s better and the only limit is how much time I can spend arranging the gifts
3. You can connect and build a relationship quick. Tweeps contributed within seconds and you can be sure that I’m not going to forget them soon (nor will the winners)

Subscribe to this blog, follow me on Twitter and watch my twitter stream and the hash tag #Happy09 for more on the Happy New Year Gift giveaway

@WarrenWhitlock

2009, twitter promotion, twitter book, twitter revolution

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We are going to answer all your questions about Twitter, and share how others are using tools like Twitter (and apps) to build their network of meaningful connections, public relations, and get more done

Join us for this FREE event

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I’ve been holding off reviewing and recommending Tweetlater becuase so many tweeps in Stage 2 use the autoresponder to try to sell me.

I’m not against auto-responders (remember “no rules”).. but annoyed at the “hey check out my blog” copy that most use.

I’ve been using TweetLater for months to send a post that I know will be timely at a time that I’m not sure where I’ll be. Sometimes the “TwitCast tonight” posts are done in advance (though often a lot less than I think I could).

I’ve been using the new feautures a lot more. I like getting my @ messages in my email inbox and assume others will like knowing that they can catch more without actually using Twitter as much as me

@incSlinger wrote a good review of Tweetlater. I especailly liked the last line of his comments on auto-repsonders and auto-follow:

There is much written about auto-responders and their place in Twitter. Some people feel they are very useful, some feel that they are so un-human that it takes the Social completely out of Social Networking. Guy Kawasaki admits that he autofollows everyone on Twitter that follows him. Others send an auto-response with a link to a welcome video (an idea I quite like) but it isn’t for everyone. Some users feel it is rather like going to a mixer and having a taped message that you play to people who come up to you and say hi.

Read the full review of TweetLater here

My recommendation is to use caution with any auto posting. Twitter is about connecting person to person and there is little allowance for abusing people on social media today.

But if you use automation.. there are few tools better than TweetLater.

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I was asked by a Facebook friend why he should bother with Twitter.

Right away, I could tell he was in Stage 1.. so I wrote back:

I’d only recommend using Twitter if networking is important to you business. If you need to meet new people, build closer relationships with your network or keep in touch with a lot of people Twitter is the tool for you.

Most people go through 3 stages getting into Twitter.

1. It looks like a complete waste of time and “why would anyone want to know what people had for breakfast”
2. Friends say “use Twitter” and you get an account to secure your name while you can and still think it’s a waste of time
3. You get into a conversation with someone, pick up a new recruit, learn about some news and start saying “how did I live without this?”

Stage 1 is most of the world right now. I’ve seen people in stage 2 for over a year.

FYI, these same three stage occurred in other technologies. For instance, when telephones came out, most executives assigned someone to make calls (if they had a phone at all). The same thing happened with email, Facebook, etc.

If you don’t use Twitter, that’s ok too. Most of my friends are also in Stage 1. I even know a few that refuse to use a phone. No sense worrying about getting everybody to do things the same way.

As we say.. NO RULES in today’s marketing. Just give people what they want, whenever, wherever, and in whatever format they desire. We all demand that today.Technorati Tags: need twitter, twitter book, facebook twitter, social media networking

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I’ve been thinking about the Top 50 Tweeples to FOLLOW survey, and wondering what YOU think.

Do you follow people just because a lot of other people do?

I find that the number of followers a person has is not always the best guide. I’m leary of a survey that is just a popularity contest.

Don’t get me wrong.. I’m hoping you will vote for @coachDeb, @WarrenWhitlock and the cool Tweeple we have on the TwitCast… We’d like the publicity for the radio show, this site, and the book.

What say you?

Do you follow people that you know in real life? Those you meet elsewhere on the net? friends of friends who are saying cool stuff? Or just popular tweeple?

Leave a comment here. Then join me on the TwitCast tonight. We’ll be talking about “follow worthy” and answering your questions.

You can see what time the TwitCast airs by clicking here.

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My Twinterview with @Scobleizer, known for his heavy use of Twitter, stong opinions and vast following

Here’s what he had to say about our project

twitter, scoble, warrenwhitlock, twitter book

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I received a polite tweet this morning suggesting that we add a RSS Feed Button to this blog.

Great idea, even though there is a list of reader option in the left column of each page. I’m all for making it easy.

Here’s a button just for @colderICE Be sure to follow him and tell him thanks

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Chris Wilson @aithene, a Multimedia Design Specialist at Freelancers

I had been on twitter for several months by by late 2007, and was enjoying a small, but cozy network of just under 200 friends, many of whom I really enjoyed chatting with on a regular basis. As the co-host of the Answers for Freelancers! podcast, I’d started playing in social media, dabbling here and there, and had found the most enjoyment from my Twitter network over any other social media space I’d dabbled in.

Anyway, just before Thanksgiving of 2007, my sister-in-law went missing. When the case stalled out with the Florida police, the family started looking for other means of finding her. As a web designer and new media hobbyist, I fell back on my skills and started a Wordpress Blog with all of the details, and then turned to my Twitter Network.

We were unsure what anyone could do, since this was MY network, not my sister-in-law’s, but we put the call out there, figuring that if nothing else, we might generate some diggs and try to get some media attention and coverage to help out the search.

What really ended up happening, though, was that it made my twitter network aware of what I was going thru, and this awareness began shaping things in a very unexpected way. It became a truly mind-opening experience for me.

Dozens of knowledgeable folks began offering advice on where to look, who to call, what needed to be done, and what information still needed to be gathered. Many of these were people who had lost friends and family in a similar way and who had experience with the ins and outs of a missing-person search. See, I didn’t approach a network of people who had been involved with missing people, but one immediately formed around me. They provided information that my family didn’t have and that wasn’t provided by law enforcement. The police, in fact, offered very little in the way of advice on what we could do. They opened a case, told us they were looking, and then after they determined that she’d left the state, kind of quit. So, having recommendations come from people who have gone thru all of this before was priceless.

One grand Kudos goes to Christopher Penn (@cspenn) who provided a real turning point in our search efforts. Because of Chris’ marketing background, he is VERY well versed with MySpace. Since Manessa’s social network lived on MySpace, Christ volunteered his time and expertise to set up a MySpace page and invited all of Manessa’s online network to help join us in searching for her, then turned the keys over to us to manage. This was something that no one in our family really knew about, and we might have ended up waiting for days before it happened if left to us. Immediately after this site was up, however, we began receiving all sorts of information. We knew what state she was in, we knew what friends she’d been hanging around with, and we had several ’sightings’ of her.

There were also twitterer’s who offered time and support in other ways, all of which were appreciated. In the end, this group of friends and colleagues that I had hoped MIGHT act as a small Digg army (which they did very well, by the way) and possibly pass along some links, had self-organized around us to create a small, but very knowledgeable task force in a very relevant, but completely unexpected way.

This was such an unbelievably organic response, it caught my family and I completely off-guard. It gave me another perspective on, and a new respect for something that had beforehand simply been a playground and pass time for me.

Do you have a story of finding what you need using Twitter. Please Share you Twinterview below. Include your Twitter @ handle so we can follow you

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