Marc's Blog

7 Ways To Tell Whether Someone Is A Newbie On Twitter

May 31, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

There are obvious signs of a new driver. If the car in front of you makes a left turn with the right blinker on, stops and starts often, and is making bad turns, then you know the person behind the wheel is new to driving (I start the entire process this summer). There are also obvious signs that someone just started to use Twitter. These are seven of them:

The person does not have a lot of tweets. If someone has less than 1,000 tweets, then that person is definitely a newbie on Twitter. People with over 1,000 tweets, are not newbies.
The egg avatar. Some people have thousands of followers but still have the egg avatar. Those accounts are the exceptions, not the rule. If someone has the egg avatar, that person is probably new to Twitter. If someone has the egg avatar and has thousands of followers, then that account may be a spam account (this does not always happen, but it is common).
Statuses that do not flow. If you feel awkward reading most of someone’s statuses (awkward in the way that reading them sounds), then that person probably just joined Twitter. In the beginning, people experiment with tweets and have no idea what creates the perfect tweet.
A really bad follower to following ratio. An obvious sign of a new account is one with 100 followers that is following 1,987 people because that account currently cannot follow over 2,000 people. The people behind these accounts heard that following a lot of people to get follow backs is a great idea, but these people took it a bit too far.
These people only talk to celebrities. Celebrities almost never respond to other people’s tweets. If you sent a tweet to your favorite celebrity, then you know that I mean. Some people go on Twitter just to follow celebrities and hope that one day, their favorite celebrity will respond to one of their tweets. The people who are thriving on Twitter decided to go from talking to celebrities to talking with their own followers.
Asking for the shout out. With over 50 million followers on Twitter, Katy Perry will not be asking for a shout out anytime soon. If you are a part of the large majority, you don’t have 50 million followers. In fact, the majority of Twitter users have under 1,000 followers. These people ask for shout outs because they think that if someone with 100,000 followers gave them a shout out and they only gained 1% of those followers, that person would gain 1,000 followers. The problem is that it never happens that way. Less than 10% of those 100,000 followers will see the tweet. Then, less than 10% of those people will read the entire tweet. Then, less than 5% of the people will follow the account. Mathematically, that would still be 50 followers, but that won’t happen. Asking for and getting shout outs is the most overrated way to get more followers. Twitter users who have been tweeting for a while know that this is true.
Two tweets to relay 1 message. Some newbies will need more than 140 characters to relay their message. Instead of using less characters to relay the message, some newbies will send out the first tweet and then send out a second tweet which is a continuation for the first tweet. While continuations work very effectively in reality TV shows, they do not work well with tweets.

Those are the seven ways to tell whether someone is a newbie on Twitter or not. What are your thoughts on the list? Is there another method you use to tell whether someone is a newbie or not? Please share your thoughts and methods below.

The 5 Things That Matter The Most On Your Social Networks

May 30, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

There are many components that decide whether someone will follow you or not on a social network. All of these components come to play in less than 10 seconds. That’s how long it takes for someone to decide whether someone is worth following or not. The reason people are quick with their decision is because they do not have enough time to dwell upon the decision. If it takes 5 minutes to decide whether someone is worth following, that will drain away too much productivity.

In order to save a lot of time, people look at certain components of your Twitter account. These are the 5 things that matter the most on your social networks.

Your avatar. Your avatar will be the decisive factor of whether someone takes the next step (reading your bio) or not. If you have a good avatar, you will get enough attention to get the person to read your bio. If you have a bad avatar (the egg picture or something inappropriate), many people will not bother reading your bio. The best avatar for you (depending on the account) is either a picture of you or your company’s logo.
Your bio. On many social networks, you have a certain number of characters to write a good bio. As a result, your bio needs to be a summarized version of what you do. By writing an effective bio, you will make someone seriously consider following you. These are some ways to write an effective bio.
What you post about. After reading your bio, potential followers will look at the most recent things that you posted. If you post things that a potential follower is interested in, then that person will be very likely to click the follow button. The things you post about may discourage people from following you just because they are not a part of your target audience. When people follow you because of what you post about, you will be gaining targeted followers (which are the best kinds of followers to have).
Your follow ratio. Some people will follow you just so they get a follow back. If you are following 10,000 people and have 12,000 followers, some people will follow you expecting a follow back. If you are one of those people with 100,000 followers while following 100 people, some people will follow you because you are “too cool to follow back.” Chances are you will fit better in the first category because going from unknown to finding yourself in the second category (with real followers…of course) is much harder.
How much you interact with your followers. Some people use media while others use social media. Just because you are on Twitter or Facebook does not mean you are using social media. Too many people use Twitter and Facebook like media to spread their message. Although there’s nothing like face to face conversation in the real world, social media is still very useful. If you are interacting with your followers, you will encourage others to join in on conversations, ask you questions, and reply to your tweets. If you interact with your followers often, potential followers will want to be a part of that.

Those are the 5 components that go into someone’s decision of whether to follow you or not. While some people focus in on certain components, having these 5 components will allow your account to look appealing to a majority of the people who visit.

What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

You Probably Don’t Know What Traf-O-Data Or Virgin Vodka Were

May 30, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Traf-O-Data was a business with an objective of reading raw data from roadway traffic counters and create reports for traffic engineers. The company had modest success but quickly fell apart. This is one of the countless examples of a company falling apart, but the rest of the story is about perseverance.

One of the people who founded Traf-O-Data and watched it collapsed was some guy named Bill Gates. Even one of the richest men in the world had a business that fell apart. Bill Gates learned from Traf-O-Data’s collapse and created Microsoft.

That’s one story of an entrepreneur going from one collapsed business to creating something remarkable. There are many entrepreneurs who have gone from collapsed businesses to successful enterprises. One of those people was Richard Branson.

When you think of Richard Branson, you probably think of Virgin Airlines and Virgin Records. Chances are you do not affiliate Richard Branson with Virgin Coke or Virgin Vodka. Virgin Coke and Virgin Vodka are two of Branson’s businesses that quickly failed. After learning from his mistakes, Branson was able to start Virgin Airlines and become a billionaire.

The list goes on and on for entrepreneurs who first failed and then became very successful. Henry Ford’s first two car companies failed and left him broke. Mark Cuban was a carpenter and waiter among other things before becoming a billionaire. When looking at successful figures, we often forget that there was a point when these people were not successful. There was a point when all of the billionaires were struggling to make a living. The reason you didn’t know what Traf-O-Data or Virgin Vodka were is because few people accept the fact that billionaires were once regular people who just wanted to make it in the real world.

Maybe you may be in what seems to be a hopeless situation. Being broke after creating two businesses that failed, selling vodka, floundering amongst low paying jobs, and watching a business that was successful completely fall apart also seem like hopeless situations. Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Henry Ford, and Mark Cuban were in those hopeless situations.

The Biggest Mistake Bloggers Make With Their Subscription Boxes

May 29, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

There are millions of blogs. Although a majority of bloggers have a subscription box on their blogs, many of these bloggers are creating ineffective subscription boxes that take up space and get no subscribers. In order to establish a powerful presence for yourself on the web, you need to have a subscription box that is going to get you more subscribers.

Here’s where the mistake comes in. Most bloggers decide to caption the button something like, “Subscribe Now” or “Subscribe For Free Updates.” The mistake is that the buttons include the word “Subscribe.”

Even when my blog’s traffic started to increase rapidly, I continued gaining a small number of subscribers. Even though my blog was getting thousands of extra visitors I was not getting a lot of extra subscribers. In some cases, I would not get a new subscriber to my blog for a week.

Then, I made a small change to the subscription button. The original button said, “Subscribe Now For Free Updates,” but I decided to make that button say “Count Me In!” Right when I made that change, I immediately got more subscribers. Now I am gaining several subscribers every day.

Growing your list is one of the most important ways to build a strong presence for yourself on the web. By growing your list, you will be able to get in contact with more people who want to buy your products. Does your subscription box say “Subscribe Now” or something similar? If you are using the word “Subscribe,” then you need to change that to get more subscribers.

How The “My Life Isn’t Good Enough” Mindset Works

May 29, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Mindset

In one of Tony Robbins’ videos, he discussed how the “My Life Isn’t Good Enough” mindset can set you up for success. It was an interesting video where he interviewed Frank Kern and John Reese about success. One of the parts of the formula got referred to as the “My Life Isn’t Good Enough” mindset.

Most people who think in this mindset know they have been dealt with an unfair hand, and they use that unfairness as an excuse. The people who constantly make excuses will not get themselves out of the “My Life Isn’t Good Enough” mindset. While most people see this mindset as a way to crush dreams and settle with being unfulfilled, there is another way to take advantage of this mindset.

There are many people who have used this mindset to become very successful. The people who used this mindset to become successful realized their lives were not good enough, but took action to make their lives better. That’s why you hear about the stories of people going from $100k in debt to making over $1 million in 1 night. That’s why certain people get to become professional athletes.

This mindset is the creating or breaking point of your success. If you use this mindset to limit yourself, you will remain limited. However, if you use this mindset to realize you need better results and be inspired to take action, then this mindset will allow you to become very successful.

4 Factors That Go Into Writing Content That People Will Love

May 28, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Quality Content

More people focus on writing content while less people focus on writing content that visitors will love. In order for your blog to grow, you need to write content that your visitors will love. This will encourage visitors to stick around and eventually subscribe to your blog. In order to get more people to write content that your visitors will love, you need to have these four factors.

Some people love the content because of the story. There is a difference between a 38-year-old writing this blog post and a 16-year-old writing this blog post. There is also a difference between an average person writing blog posts on the Shoemoney blog versus someone who used to live on a friend’s couch writing blog posts on that blog. You need to have a story that people love, and then your content looks a little better. This is not the difference between good content and bad content. A good analogy is that the book on a $0.99 discount looks better than the book at a regular price. The blog’s content with a good story looks better than the blog’s content without a good story.
Write blog posts that are easy to read. The only way your visitors will love your content is if they read it. Your blog posts need to be easy for your visitors to read. If I smushed all of the content of this blog post into 1 big paragraph, it would be more challenging for visitors to read the blog post. By spacing your content into several paragraphs, your visitors will have an easier time reading your blog posts.
Write quality content different from other bloggers. The word quality is just as important as different. Writing a blog post with typos in every sentence is different, but that does not mean people would love to read it. Write about topics and go into detail about those topics in a way different from other bloggers.
Proofread your blog posts before you publish them. No matter how good your blog post is, one typo will hurt a lot. In order to avoid publishing blog posts with typos, you need to proofread them before you publish them. Spending 5-10 minutes reading 1 blog post will allow you to feel more confident about your blog’s content.

In order to write content that your visitors will love, you need to have these four factors on your side. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips? Please share your thoughts and advice below.