It's Time to Unfollow Some People!

I must admit, I'm still a rookie when it comes to Social Media Marketing. I made my first tweet on 7 September 2013. I didn't have a blog back then and mostly tweeted quotes or links to sales pages.

I remember not getting past the 100 follower mark. Then I did some research. The one thing that stuck was that I need to follow others and they will most likely follow back. This was a great method and I soon reached the 1000 mark, but was following almost 2000 people.

About 2 months ago Twitter changed it's rules and I couldn't follow more people until my following grew bigger. My following got static. I couldn't follow my followers back and I guess they took it the wrong way and unfollowed me soon.

It was decision time. I looked at the list of people I'm following and came to the "following" conclusion. Pardon the pun.

• People that don't follow me, don't see my "fabulous" articles, thus dead weight.
• It feels like a slap in the face if someone don't follow me back, even if there might be a perfectly good reason for them not to, like limits set by Twitter.
• The people you follow must not exceed your followers by more than 30%.

What can you do about it? Unfollow!!!

There is some tools you can buy to assist you to manage your Twitter account. See this article from one of the big Bloggers, Jeff Bullas. If your followers are less than 2000, I recommend you do it yourself once a month.

These are the guidelines I recommend?

1. Unfollow companies that's not in your niche. I'm in online marketing and work from home opportunities, so I unfollowed Ford, Samsung, New York Times, Kruger National Park, etc,
2. Unfollow celebrities or musicians that's not in your niche.
3. Unfollow people that don't follow you back.(Even if she is drop-dead gorgeous.)

Make space for the "real" people. People you can build a relationship with.

The next step is to follow the people that follow you.

People I avoid and won't follow:

1. People that use swear words in their Bio.
2. People promoting Pornographic or vulgar material.
3. The Egg Avatar without a Bio.
4. Occult looking designs, backgrounds or Bios'.

Lastly, we need to be persistent. The Guru's didn't get to their empire overnight.

Comment on your experiences. Do you have a funny or an embarrassing experience? Tell us.

Free Cool Traffic Review

FREE 250,000,000 Visitors to your website.

First thing I did when I saw this heading was to check if this site wasn't a scam. Funny enough, it came out clean and even got a 100% trust rating from both ScamAdvisor & Webutation. Not bad for a domain that is more than 4 years old. In fact, I got only one semi-bad review from someone on ScamAdvisor, saying that it is a catch 22 and in the end, promotes his own website.

How does it work? 

Well, basically, it works on the same principle as the old chain-letter. What makes this legal is that there is no money involved and or you get a service, in this case marketing. You enter your name, email, URL, password and surf 10 sites for 30 seconds. They supply you with your affiliate URL, which you can now promote. When someone decide to sign-up, your website will be number 1 on the list of 10. When this "someone" promote his link and get a sign-up, you'll be in position number 2 and so on until you drop of the list.

Please don't ask me how you get to 250 million visitors. I tried to work it out and got to 11 billion visitors if every sign-up get 10 sign-ups and surf 10 sites. Obviously this is impossible as there is just more than 2 billion people online.

Another factor you must consider is that not everyone would promote it and some legs may even die of on your first level, but hey, it's free remember, so don't expect the world. 

One guy claimed that he got 1000 visitors over a period of 18 months. Not bad for 300 seconds of surfing other sites. 4 of the 10 sites I surfed, didn't exist anymore, which is a good thing, because scam sites usually don't last long. So don't expect quick results. Apply and leave to marinate.

Another thing I was impressed with is that it rates 35850 on Alexa.

There is an upgrade to a Pro Membership, which will cost you $19.95. This enable you to receive the list of your down-line to add to your email marketing campaign and you receive $1 for every Pro Membership upgrade in your down-line.

The negatives I see here is: 

1. That the site needs a make-over and 
2. I don't think you'll get much sales, although it's nice to get the hits.

If I way up the positives against the negative, I'll say it's in favor of the positives. So give it a try.

Here's my link: Free Cool Traffic

I rate Free Cool Traffic 5 out of 10.

USA vs The Rest of The World

When it comes to Online Activity, is there any country that comes even close to the USA?

I'm writing this article merely out of curiosity and would love your feedback. As a South African, I know that we are way behind the USA when it comes to online usage. I remember, back in 2005, how most of my friends, didn't trust online banking. Today, we can't imagine the hassle of being without it.

However Social Media Sites took of like crazy here in South Africa and all over the globe; the US lead them all. Just look at the following stats. The top 5 Facebook users by country are 1. USA, 2. India, 3. Brazil, 4. Indonesia and 5. Mexico. More than 80% of the 20 biggest Twitter accounts are from the US. It's the same with YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+, the Americans kick everybody else's butts. (Pardon my French)

The fact is, their dominance ain't marginal, but way superior to the rest of the world. If I look at my own Blog; almost 60% of my visitors are from the United States of America.

They are also more willing to buy online. SoloAds, PPC sites and other advertising platforms like to boast when their list consist of mainly US leads, because of their openness to doing business online.

I think the major reasons for this phenomenon is that:

1. They have a population of more than 300 million people. Only China and India have more people.
2. The US has the most Disposable Income per Capita. Almost double of what Australians or Japanese have.
3. Most online creativity. Sites like Facebook, e-Bay, Amazon, was created in the US.
4. Hollywood's influence on Social Media.
5. The Americans love technology.

With more than 2 Billion internet users and still growing, it is the place to be if you want to make money or do business.

I'm busy with a new online venture and was advised to use a US voice over to get more hits. Can you believe it? Unfortunately, you got to get used to my voice, as I want to be authentic and transparent. Watch this space. 

Mega Affiliate will launch before the end of May and plan to become the Biggest and most Consistent Online Income Producing Website. Our goal is to reach 1 Billion members over a period of 15 years. 

Everybody's invited, including non-Americans.

Subscribe to my newsletter (to your right →) to receive updates on our progress.

2 Sites That Will Help You See If a Website is a Scam.

The first thing I do (and I guess most of you) to see if a site is legit is to Google it. There is nothing wrong with this approach, except for "greedy reviewers".

Let me explain what I mean with a "greedy reviewer". There are thousands of scam sites out there, so not to end up with egg in the face or to loose money we do checks on Google. If I write a review on my blog regarding a site, I'll be ranked high on Google for that specific review search. If it's a positive review, the chances are great that the person, interested in my review, will click on my affiliate link, instead of the initial marketer's link and I'll make the affiliate commission.

If I write a negative review, I won't make any money. Only if this person respects my honesty and decide to follow my blog, will I stand a chance to make money of this person. Doing the right thing for the right reason won't give you instant gratification.

However, a "greedy reviewer" will give positive reviews on most sites just to get affiliate commission even if it's not accurate.

I recommend trying the following 2 Websites to expand your checks.

1) www.ScamAdvisor.com gives each site a trust rating. It's not 100% foolproof, but if a website gets 0%, I reckon it's a good idea to stay away even if they promise $1 million income within a week. My Civil and Landscaping site had a 68% trust rating, even though the site is informative only. I contacted the web-owners and they upped it to 85%.

The reason I don't get a higher rating is because it's a free site, which I got through Google.

They also look at the age of your domain. An older website will have a better trust rating than a similar one that's new. The reason is obvious; a new site has still to prove itself as a honest one.

Scamadvisor shows you the details of the owner of the site or if the owner's info is hidden, which may be a warning sign. It also shows the IP address of the site, plus other sites link to this IP address and their trust rating.

At the bottom of the page, you can leave comments and see what other people have to say about the site. If there is plenty of negative comments you must rather stay away. When there is only one comment and it reads like this: "It looks scam to me!" It's not necessary so.

Please don't use this or any site to do your due diligence on High Yield Investments. These sites look good for a few months and then when you least expect it, stop paying out.

2) www.webutation.org also gives a rating and gives the opportunity for the owner of the website to give their view, so to improve on their rating.

What I like most about Webutation is their Social Buzz. It indicates how many times the site have been shared on Facebook and Twitter, with the individual posts, as well as the website's ranking on Alexa.

Furthermore, they check if the site is safe for children to browse and if it's virus-free.

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