Archive | January, 2022

Jim Rohn once said:

Whose content do you most consume on social media? If it’s whoever happens to come up in your news feed that day, you might want to rethink. After all, do you want to be somebody, or just anybody?

Choose 5 people to follow online based on what they have accomplished and what they can teach you.

Then read their posts, listen to their podcasts and consume everything they put online.

If you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and you’re spending your time with five highly successful people, what do you think will happen in your life? There is one secret you need to follow though… Be sure to ACT on the most important things you learn from these mentors.

Why the picture of dogs? Frankly, many of life’s greatest lessons can be learned from them… Wouldn’t you agree?

You don’t need major skills to be a drop shipper these days. You don’t need to stock inventory, ship anything, or even guess what might sell.

Heck, you don’t even have to use your own money to pay for the goods.

You can work a couple of hours a day or week, depending on how serious you are.

And frankly the drop shipping method I’m about to show you is so straightforward, a teenager can do it.

Hint: Get your kids started with this when they’re in 8 or 9th grade, and by the time they graduate high school they’ll have a very nice nest egg for college, along with more real world business skills than most college graduates.

Now then… how do you find products? Amazon can give you a wealth of information on what’s selling and what’s hot at the moment.

Go to Google (yes Google, not Amazon) and run some searches such as…

• Most popular kitchen gadgets on Amazon
• Most popular fitness items on Amazon
• Most popular electronic gadgets on Amazon
• Most popular pet products on Amazon
• Etc.

The first few results will be from the Amazon website itself, but don’t stop at those.

You’ll also find articles showing what’s new, what’s selling and what’s especially popular.

Be sure you’re only looking at results from the last 12-18 months – anything else might be out of date, especially if you’re looking at anything electronic in nature.

Make a list of possible products you’d like to sell. Once you’ve got some research done, you should have an idea of what niche you’d like to focus on.

Once you’ve chosen your niche, dig deeper into that niche to find products. You might even choose a sub-niche to make targeting your prospects easier. For example, instead of choosing ‘dogs’ as your niche, you might choose a single breed like ‘Great Danes.’

When you have your chosen niche and your products, go to Shopify and open your own store with their 14 day free trial.

Next, go to Oberlo and sign up to get their free plugin. This is going to make it super simple to add products to your store.

Now add the Oberlo plugin to your Shopify store.

Set up your payment processor. This is probably going to be Paypal or Stripe, or whatever service you are currently using.

Last, go to AliExpress and open a new account.

Once you’ve done that, import your products to your store by using the Oberlo plugin.

Did this sound like a lot of work?

Remember, you only have to set up these accounts once. After that, anytime you want to add a new product, it will only take you a few minutes to open things, grab the product and put it on your site.

Once you’ve done these things, you’re ready to start driving traffic and making money.

If you already have a list in this niche, then that’s your first go-to place to get traffic.

Same way if you already have social media accounts and followers in this niche, you’ll want to promote your store in those accounts.

When you’ve done those things, it’s time to invest a little money and start advertising.

Let’s use $100 as an example. And if you don’t have the $100 to spare, you can always sell something on a site like Craigslist or Gumtree to get it, or just borrow it someplace.

Your goal will be to set up a Facebook page for your store and test ads until you find your winner. Plan on initially spending $10 a day for 10 days to find the ad that gets the sales.

Don’t overthink this or get stressed. If you’ve chosen hot selling products, this really isn’t going to be that difficult.

As an alternative, or in addition to using Facebook, you can also find large Instagram pages in your niche that have at least 50,000 followers and decent engagement.

To figure out the engagement rate, add up the number of likes for their last 10 posts, and then divide that number by 10 to find the average likes. Once you have that number, divide it by the total number of followers to find the average engagement rate.

You’re looking for a bare minimum of 1% engagement. Once you find these pages, send them a direct message asking if they’re willing to promote your product.

Rates for promotion are typically $15 for 50,000, $20-25 for 100,000, and $30-$50 for 200,000. But these rates aren’t written in stone. The higher the engagement, the more you might want to consider paying. And a lower engagement means you shouldn’t be paying as much. Negotiation is key.

Look for the pages that most closely match what you’re selling. For example, if you’re selling something for rose enthusiasts, you ideally want to find a page that focuses on roses, not on gardening in general.

By investing $50 to $100 in Instagram, you should get 2-6 promotions and several sales or more. Use your profits to reinvest in your advertising.

Closely monitor what’s working best, and do more of that. Tweak and test your page for optimal results. Add products, rinse and repeat.

See how easy that is? Yet I know that 98% or more of people who read this won’t do it. Which is good news for you… much less competition that way. Ready… Set… Go!!! 😉

With so many tweets being delivered to every Twitter user, it can be difficult to get your tweets seen and clicked. Twitter has 400 million current active users and growing so it’s no wonder why the average Twitter user’s tweets aren’t seen (but you’re not average)…

Done correctly, Twitter can still be a great source of traffic.

And as you know, if your Tweets aren’t driving traffic, then they’re not doing you or your business much good.

That’s why I’ve compiled this list of 15 ways to get your Tweets seen and clicked on by your followers.

1: Add Images

Did you know that tweets with images receive 18% more click-throughs, 89% more favorites and 150% more retweets?

And you can create multiple images for each blog post, using attractive colors, centered headlines and interesting textures.

Don’t forget to add your brand or URL, too.

For a slew of free design tools, check out this infographic: http://feldmancreative.com/2016/08/free-online-design-tools-infographic/

2: Use Faces

Studies show that few things in print or online media captures people’s attention faster than faces, so why not use them?

3: Use Your Own Face

Don’t forget to tweet your own face now and then, especially if you’re using a logo as your profile picture.

You’ll increase the stopping power of your tweet as well as build more of a personal connection with your followers.

4: Use Brackets

This is a great subject line trick as well – include something such as an afterthought in brackets, like this:

“Love the shoes [too sexy!]”

5: Quote Someone

Twitter users love quotes. They can be funny, famous, timely and so forth. When you come across something inspiring or thoughtful, by all means share it.

And if the quote is over 140 characters, feature the quote in an image.

Here are 20 tools to do just that. http://louisem.com/2573/make-picture-quotes-easy

6: Hashtag Your Topic

Your tweets are usually seen only by your followers. But if you add a hashtag or two, your tweet can potentially be found by others as well.

7: Make Your Tweets Contagious

To get your tweets shared, Jonah Berger, the author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On, says to make them viral using any of the following:

• Social Currency – how smart a user looks to others when they share your tweet
• Triggers – top of mind content people are triggered to think about
• Emotion – focus on feelings rather than function
• Public – built to show, built to grow. Think of a brand that puts a red bottom on all of their shoes and you get the idea.
• Practical Value – news you can use
• Stories – tell stories people want to share

8: Add Emojis and Symbols

Non-text characters make your message stand out. If you’re using a smartphone, you’ll find the emojis right on your keyboard.

If you’re on a computer, you can download a Chrome extension or copy and paste Twitter symbols from a Twitter library such as this one. https://www.piliapp.com/twitter-symbols/

9: Ask Questions

Posing questions to your followers is an effective way to engage people.

Be sure to follow up with everyone who answers you so they know you’re listening.

And you can always highlight answers by retweeting them with your response, keeping them alive and inspiring even more interaction.

10: Use Polls

Twitter Polls are a great tool for attracting attention and engaging followers.

Click the “Add poll” icon beneath the tweet box, add up to four questions, and choose how long you want your poll to run.

11: Thank Profusely and Often

When your fellow tweeters have promoted your content or even contributed to it, thank them. This makes you look like a really nice person, plus it’s great for building relationships.

12: Use @ to Get Specific Attention

If you want someone specific to see your tweet, mention them by including their username preceded by the @ symbol.

13: Use an Image to Grab Group Attention

If you want to get the attention of a group of people, include an image in your tweet. Then when Twitter prompts you with “Who’s in this photo?” you can tag the image with up to 10 users without affecting your character count.

14: Use Twitter Cards

Twitter cards let you include additional media types – such as images, videos, audio and download links – in your tweets.

They’re not the easiest thing to use the first time, though, so you might want to follow along with Twitter’s CMS Integration Guide. https://dev.twitter.com/cards/cms-integration

15: Tweet Multiple Times

Tweets go by so fast, many of your tweets will never be seen.

That’s why you want to tweet about that new blog post of yours several times over the course of a few days.

This service lets you increase the reach of your content as you share free links. Here’s how it works:

First you add a branded badge with content within any link.

Let’s say you’re sharing content from Mashable – you simply add a branded badge to the link.

Next, you share your third party content to increase engagement. After all, a link from Mashable will often get more clicks than a link from your own website.

And by the way, this doesn’t just work with Twitter – it works with Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and several other social media networks.

Lastly, your re-shared links continue to carry your recommendations to new audiences, exposing them to your content.

And you can track, measure and get instant insights on the performance of your third party content, too!

Make the very most of your Twitter time by using these little tricks to get your tweets noticed and shared. If you’re going to be Tweeting, make sure that your song is heard!