Facebook is fast approaching the point where it will have over 1 BILLION active users.

50% of them log into Facebook on any given day.

Facebook is a BEAST. Pretty much irregardless of what market you’re in, your prospects ARE on Facebook. And, statistically, they’re on Facebook almost every day.

The question is…. are you dropping the ball?

Are you spinning your wheels trying to build your business with Facebook? Your fan page not getting the traction you want? Not sure how to convert Facebook people into real customers?

What about using Facebook to grow a list?

I encourage you to sign up for a special webinar on Facebook marketing done right.

WEBINAR: 7 Simple Strategies To Profit From Facebook Marketing

Our guest speaker will be Amy Porterfield… somebody who definitely knows her stuff when it comes to Facebook.

On this webinar, she will cover:

• Super Fans: What they are and why you need them
• Essentials of a Facebook Marketing Foundation
• Smart strategies to grow a lucrative fan base
• Quick tips to get your fans talking and engaged.
• How to move your fans up the ranks to a “super fan” status

The facts are this…

Chances are, you are on Facebook fairly often. You’re already chatting with friends, uploading pictures, commenting on people’s posts, and generally staying in touch with people personally.

… but it’s time you leverage Facebook the RIGHT way so you can reap the benefits of it from the business standpoint as well.

Amy lives, eats and breathes Facebook. And she has some new information she wants to share on this webinar.

WEBINAR: 7 Simple Strategies To Profit From Facebook Marketing

The webinar is held on Thursday, 12/8. And you have two time slots to choose from (yay, convenience!). So, pick whichever slot fits your schedule better.

I’ll see you there. I’m looking forward to it.

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There is a lot of advice about how to build a Facebook page properly. But what if that’s not your thing? You’re a confident person; your self-esteem doesn’t hinge on having hundreds of fans “like” you. You like yourself, and that’s good enough.

So what if everyone and their great-grandmother is learning how to create a fantastic Facebook page? Maybe you just don’t need all the hassle that comes with having a bunch of fans. What if you got more business than you could handle—what then? Who needs that kind of stress?

Well now you can relax—I am here to help. Just follow these 9-steps and your Facebook page is guaranteed to fail. Here’s what you do:

#1 – Automate your Content

Just slap up a page and feed it with automatic content. Do not interact with other users. (You don’t know these people—they could be anybody.) So don’t start any discussions or create any polls. And don’t even think about trying that sneaky, underhanded trick of adding valuable content to your page.

#2 – Buy Fans

Artificially inflate your Fan page numbers. Who wants to spend all the time it takes to gain a following of real fans? Just go to one of those sites where you can pay for and instantly get a thousand or so fans for your page. It doesn’t really matter that these are all “bots” who will never respond to your posts, the snobs.

#3 – Blast Out “Like” Requests

Post ads and blast out fan requests without attempting to target your audience. You never know, some geeks looking for the latest Wikileak hack will find your page and become a fan.

Send fan requests to all your friends immediately after putting up a basic fan page. Don’t worry about making it interesting by filling it with engaging content first. Your friends should love you anyway, shouldn’t they?

#4 – Age like a fine wine

Let your page get old and moldy. Keeping it fresh with regular updates, photos and videos like it is done on this Facebook Page will only prevent it from aging properly. Let your page “age like a fine wine”.

#5 – Ignore Zuckerberg and his People

Don’t waste your time reviewing Facebook’s own tips, tools and external promotion guidelines. Sure, they have things like that cute little “Share”, “Like” button you can add to your website so visitors can easily share your content on Facebook, but you don’t need all those fancy gizmos. You’re going old-school all the way.

#6 – Be mysterious.

Create your page and then disappear, letting your visitors do all the work by adding comments. Don’t answer any of their questions or respond to their comments. Actively participating on your own Facebook page would just take time away from more important things …like reading all of your junk mail.

#7 – Promotion is for wimps

Don’t try promoting your fan page with advertising or discount coupons or even linking to your fan page from your blog. Forget about using social bookmarks or a “Find Us on Facebook” tab. Internet traffic isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, anyway.

#8 – Ignore Advice and Tools

Whatever you do, Ignore advice like How To Use Facebook To Market Your Blog. And also, do not use any Facebook applications like contests, sweepstakes, promotions or a widget on your blog to drive traffic to your site.

#9 – Be Pushy and Sell Your Stuff

Forget all that feel-good fluff you hear about how marketing on social sites is all about helping people and engaging in meaningful exchanges. What you need to do is use your Facebook page to get in your customers’ faces and really push your company’s message. That’s how you get them to like you.

There. Feel better? All that pressure is off and you can now stop worrying.

Obviously, this is a play to get you thinking about how you can use Facebook effectively to grow your audience. Flip everything on its head and you will find 9 Ways To Build Your Audience through Facebook.

James Tayo loves to show you the tools that help you go from idea to execution in record time. One of such is Facebook and he would like you to check out his free Facebook Marketing For Beginners workshop with free reports and interviews with Facebook experts.

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You went into it with the best of intentions. You had a mighty to-do list, and you told yourself, “Hello new day. Prepare to be pwned.” You have that cup of coffee and you set out on your quest of efficiency.

Several tweets, wall updates, blog comments and emails later – it is lunch time. Well…. I guess that was work. But, I’ll get the REAL work done after lunch. Yeah…

Later, you sit down to write that blog post. A couple paragraphs in, you end up on somebody else’s blog. You like this post, so you comment. Then, you get an idea and you spend a little time dreaming and jotting down ideas. Then – back to the blog post. Then, your side vision catches that Twitter column refresh. You look and – wow, that link looks interesting! So, you click.

And so it goes. The day comes to an end. You might have written a blog post or two. You might have made a few lists, telling yourself that making a list was the same as work. But, then the overwhelming weight of reality sets in…

None of what you did that day will make you any money.

My War On Distractions

If you think I began writing this post today as a means of teaching you something I’ve figured out, think again. I deal with the above scenario all too often. Each time, I give myself a mental slap and vow to do better the next day. But, I’m tired of reaching the end of a work week with that nagging feeling that I haven’t accomplished enough.

So, I need to renew my war on distractions.

In this post, I’m going to offer my advice to you. As I do it, I’m also reminding myself. Funny how that works…

I’m going to address the major sources of distraction for bloggers. And they are…

Social Media

Twitter and Facebook have very legitimate uses. They also happen to be huge vacuums for our time and attention.

Twitter is a huge platform of people yelling into the crowd. We assume everybody is paying attention to us when we tweet, but in reality very few are. Most aren’t paying any attention, and even those who are are too busy going cross-eyed because of the blinding speed of it all. So, you might get 50-100 clicks on a link to 10,000 followers. Worth it? Hmmm…. pretty crappy open rate when you compare it to email.

But, let’s assume you just decide to take control over it. You keep Tweetdeck out of view and you just check it every so often. Still, every time you check it, you are inviting potential time vacuums. Or perhaps you feel this little draw to it because you’re wondering what people are up to… and even that little bit of stuck attention is keeping you from full focus on what you’re doing.

Perhaps you put your social media onto a side monitor, and not in your primary workspace. Fine, but then the Tweetdeck column refreshes and you see it in your peripheral vision. And, you feel compelled to check it out.

Or you’re out with your family, where you’re SUPPOSED to be enjoying THEM and living your life… but you feel compelled to check Twitter and tell people what you’re doing. So, basically, a little part of you is constantly thinking that your followers GIVE A SHIT. And, hell, maybe they do. But, your family – your LIFE – is probably more important, right? Worse yet, you’ve turned your own life into a spectator sport, constantly dissecting your life for tidbits that are “tweetworthy” – rather than just living.

And don’t get me started on Facebook. That site is engineered with a specific purpose – to keep you there once you enter it.

So, you might think that, after all this, I’m pretty down on social media. Not at all! However, I think we all need to keep it in perspective. With the way some of us use it, it ends up being a cancer on our mental focus. In the end, it is probably the single biggest source of ADD for bloggers. No wonder some of the most successful people in this world don’t mess around with Twitter!

My advice? Turn it off and enforce a strict discipline on yourself to only check it at certain times of the day, with a timer to make sure you stop after a certain block of time goes by (perhaps 15 minutes). Perhaps explore using Hootsuite, where you can easily schedule tweets. Don’t make it fake, where you act like you’re there and you really aren’t. But, if a lot of what you do on Twitter is tweet out cool blog posts you’ve found, then just schedule them. So, you spend 15-30 minutes reading your RSS reader and scheduling tweets to your favorites – then you MOVE ON. Not any different than when you queue blog posts in WordPress.

And when you’re supposed to be actually accomplishing something – CLOSE all social media sites and programs. Don’t minimize them or move them to another screen – CLOSE THEM.

Email

Like social media, the purposes of email are plainly obvious and extremely useful. That said, you can also become a mental slave to it.

Most people will check email constantly. If you see that little “(1)” next to your inbox, or hear that little chime when an email arrives, you feel compelled to go check it. Whatever you were doing right then, you stop. Your attention is scattered. And when you finally return to what you were doing, it takes you some time to get back into the groove again. Do this over and over, and you NEVER arrive in that groove in the first place. You’re constantly scattered. You spin your wheels and nothing happens.

Email is important, in most cases, dealing with email is not the same thing as production. It is maintenance.

Like social media, email should be relegated to time slots and not touched in between.

Funny thing, as I wrote those very words, I noticed I had Gmail open. Shame on me! So, I closed the email tab of my browser while I’m writing this post. Because I KNOW that, were I to get an email right then, my eyes would have gone to see who it was. And, for that little moment of time, I stopped writing this very post.

I can tell you from experience, though, that this is a KEY point when it comes to increasing your writing speed and making sure blog posts don’t take hours to write. You’ve got to get into that mental groove and just let the words flow. And that means cutting off all sources of distraction.

Instant Messaging

Some people have it worse than others, but instant messaging can be pretty bad. Think about it… you are giving anybody on your buddy list the means to proactively interrrupt you with a window on your screen – any time THEY want. Excuse me? I mean, nothing personal – people wouldn’t be on my contact list if I didn’t care about them, but that doesn’t mean I want them popping windows in my face when I’m trying to work.

In my view, any communication system we set up is not being managed correctly if we’re not in control over when that communication arrives in our heads. This is why I don’t like phones. It can interrupt you whenever somebody ELSE wants to. I switched to Google Voice so I could control that.

Well, instant messaging is the same way. Plus, we’ve probably all experienced IM spam. It seems to come in waves on Skype, where people can just pop windows on my screen because they feel as if I should check out their great rack. Hmmm…..

How you choose to manage instant messaging is up to you. Luckily for me, most of my contacts are in the same boat as I am, so we don’t interrupt each other all that often. But, whenever I feel as if it might be a distraction, I sign off of instant messaging networks. And, I always make sure that I get NO notifications when people come online or go offline. I simply don’t need to know.

Other Blogs

As bloggers, we feel the need to keep up with other bloggers. Plus, it is interesting. That said…. you can’t eat and talk at the same time. Same goes for reading blogs.

I find it sometimes amazing when I see some of my fellow bloggers tweeting links to cool posts throughout the day. Unless they pre-scheduled those things, that means that they were not only reading another blog rather than working, but they were on social media. Double whammy against productivity.

Surely, I cannot recommend not to read other blogs. It is important to do it, to a point. I can tell you that I probably read other people’s blogs less than the average blogger. But, of course, I make more money than the average blogger, so I’ll leave you to decide if there might be a correlation.

Having a device like an iPad also helps me. On it, I can check up on others’ blogs when I am in a different mode. In other words, I’m not working. So, I will scan my RSS reader perhaps while I’m in bed at night, but not while I’m sitting at my desk during work time.

If you don’t have an iPad, that’s fine. Just impose some discipline. If you want to be productive during your work time, you shouldn’t be reading people’s blogs. That’s not work. It is fake work.

Your Work Environment

Your immediate physical environment also has a lot to do with your effeciency. It can also be a challenging thing to manage, especially if you have kids as I do.

In my case, I simply do the best I can to keep the kids away from my office. My kids are young and loud, so we do what we can. If it gets too bad, I’ll need to leave the house and work. I might explore getting an outside office, or perhaps just set up shop at a local coffee shop.

I also keep my office clean. I dust and vacuum once per week. I remove all the loose ends from my desk. I like to begin every week with a clean slate.

Declare War

There is a lot more that goes into personal effeciency than what I’ve talked about today. It is one thing to remove the negatives, but it is another to introduce the systems to guide all that mental focus you will have at your disposal once you’ve stopped the distractions from preying on it.

But, we’ve got to start somewhere. As bloggers, we are more prone to attention deficit than many others. Our eyes are constantly darting around to many things at once, all of which are listed above. No wonder so many bloggers feel like they’re spinning their wheels and not getting anywhere!

Personally, I’m declaring war. I’ll still be doing social media, email, IM and other blogs, but it’ll be controlled.

Because dicking around with Twitter doesn’t serve you, my audience. And, as a result, it doesn’t serve my family very well. We need the bills paid, and my kids like to eat…. and tweeting doesn’t do that.

So, here’s what I’d like you to do…

I’d like you to post a comment, and let me know what things YOU can do better at to remove unnecessary distractions. What can you do to be more productive? And, what tips do you have for others in the community to help them?

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So, like a good little blogger, I installed it. Sit back and wait for the results. And….

Crickets.

Most of the time, when I’m on another blog, I see nobody has used the LIKE button. When I asked people if they use it, the answer is a resounding “no”.

At the same time, it seems it slows down the load-time on some sites. For me, it doesn’t seem to do that because it is in an IFRAME.

But, the fact remains: It doesn’t seem to work. Nobody seems to care.

Are you using it? Have you seen any results with it?

Because I think I’m about to remove it and chalk it up to a waste of real estate.

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I’ve been noticing a lot of “break up” posts in the last few months. You know, the “its not you, it’s me” post which explains why everybody is being un-friended.

Yesterday, I took to Twitter to get opinions. Here’s a taste of what they told me:

@tmohede
Go with FB Fan page. Keep the personal profile for more personal circle.

@Spenis
This seems to be the trend….Not a hard choice to make…..

@bizcopywriter
depends how thin you want to spread yourself and how much privacy you want to maintain. I keep mine separate. . .

@MortenJorgensen
I have both. Fb Profile: Personal and not spammable. Fb Fan Page: Impersonal and spammable. Works for me. Why choose?

@simplytrece
I have no problem with bloggers shifting followers to a fan page; after all, “friends” should be friends, not fans. My 2 cents.

@bradleydurham
facebook page for family & friends. fan page for everyone else.

And apparently some other bloggers I know are either doing it already or thinking about it:

@gideonshalwick
Yeah I’m thinking about doing that too – means you keep marketing and friends seperate

@christiantjr
makes sense to me! FB is going the way of MySpace in my opinion. I’m using it less and thinking of doing that same thing.

@chrisgarrett
been thinking same thing

So, the overwhelming consensus from my Twitter followers is that I should make this move.

Here’s My Thoughts On It

My online brand is as a professional blogger. However, like all people, I am a multi-faceted guy and not every thought that goes through my head is about blogging. Sometimes, in social media circles, I do talk and comment on things which aren’t about blogging. There are people (quite a few, I’m guessing) who want to connect with me as a blogger, but not necessarily listen to all my other rants.

On Twitter, it is what it is. I’ll just be myself and people either follow or not. On Facebook, it is quite easy to make that separation by using a fan page for my brand and a regular profile for me as a regular guy.

It goes deeper, too. What if I post pictures of my family on Facebook? Or talk with members of my family? Do I need to expose 1,500 of my blog readers to that? Is it potentially even a violation of their privacy to have that stuff sitting there like that? I’m a fairly open book, although there are things that don’t go to the Internet. But, my wife, kids and family didn’t sign up for being exposed to 1,500 people. And they certainly don’t care about any updates about blogging.

So, Here’s What I’m Doing

I’ve currently got almost 1,500 friends on my personal Facebook profile. I have over 50 pending requests and I haven’t accepted them because I’ve been thinking about how I want to handle this.

I have hired Social Identities to design some decent-looking images for my Facebook fan page. I plan to begin utilizing the fan page properly and start diverting public traffic from this blog into the fan page.

Which leaves me with all those friends sitting on my personal profile. What to do? Do I go drop everybody I don’t know? I certainly don’t want to come across as a douche, but perhaps that is something I’ll need to do at some point.

For now, I’m going to slowly transition into a separation of profiles on Facebook.

What Do You Think?

Obviously, the overwhelming majority of Twitter agrees with the separation of profiles. What do YOU think? Pros and cons?

Oh, and if you haven’t connected with me on Facebook, fan me up.

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There are many ways to get followers on Twitter and there is one I find particularly effective. Nope, I don’t do that follow as many people as you can and hope they follow you back in return. I hate it when people do that.

Looking For Questions

You see, I love to help people with whatever website building questions that they might have. One of the avenues that I use to find people needing help is Twitter. I just find it a joy that I am able to answer those questions.

So, how do you find someone with questions about a particular topic on Twitter? For that we are going to use Advanced Twitter Search, a lesser known feature.

Using The Twitter Search Operators

It is the Twitter Search Operators that I use to filter all those messages that goes to Twitter and find questions that people ask. Here is an example that I use regularly to search for someone asking about WordPress on Twitter.

wordpress ? -wordpress.com

When I enter the above search query, I will get messages on Twitter from someone asking about WordPress but not having a link to wordpress.com (because I’m not looking for blog posts from that site).

Answering What You Know

If you have various topics that you are looking for, using a client like TweetDeck also helps. What I like about TweetDeck is the ability to create a different column for every search query.

Now as the questions comes in, start answering those that you know. This is a sure way to start a conversation with a stranger. No harm in that. They got a question and you got an answer.

Getting Followers In The Process

Now comes the best part. When the people you answer find you helpful, not only will they thank you, they may decide to follow you. It happens to me occasionally and I love it when they do that.

What if there is no response or they don’t follow you at the end after you helped them. That’s okay. It not about getting followers but about helping others. You’ve just showcased to their followers about your knowledge. Who knows, they might follow you instead?

Ideas For Your Blog Posts

The other advantage is ideas. I get a lot of ideas on what to write for new blog posts through this method. I always have a notepad nearby when I engage in this type of conversation.

You never know what kind of questions you will get and some of it you will never thought of. I’m still surprised about people asking what is the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org.

Have Fun But Don’t Get Carried Away

So start looking for questions to answer on Twitter and start a nice conversation. Look at the Twitter Search Operators page to see how you can tweak your search queries to find the questions that you can answer.

Just a note of caution. You may want to have a schedule and duration to do this. I spend no more than an hour a day. You might get carried away and forget completely about writing that blog post. Happy tweeting!

Rezdwan Hamid maintains a blog where he writes articles, reviews and tutorials for beginners to start their own website and how to make it better.

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This report has been buried in the archives of this blog for some time. So, I decided to bring it out again and launch it with it’s own landing page.

You can grab a copy at FreeTwitterManual.com.

If you like it or just want to help me spread the word, I’d be honored if you’d retweet it for me.

Let me be clear – this report is for newbies. If you are a long-time reader of mine who is already pretty clued in on Twitter, you probably won’t learn much from it. On the other hand, if I pretty much described you in my opening paragraph, perhaps you should take a look.

It is completely free. It is not part of any launch or marketing strategy. I just wanted to get it out there. You’ll just need to get on my email list to grab it.

You can grab a copy at FreeTwitterManual.com.

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Recently I took a trip to visit a close friend. The purpose of my trip was not necessarily for business, but some how I always manage to meet someone during my conversations and interactions with others who wants to do business with me. After meeting probably the tenth person during my travels who was interested in my services, it donned on me that the questions I typically ask during my conversations with others whom I’m meeting for the first time create an infections environment where they become excited about what I have to offer them. This realization is my inspiration for todays blog post.

The Philosophy

Here is the philosophy behind my (mad scientist) methods, muuahahaha!!!

Seriously, the idea behind these methods is nothing new. It is all about becoming a social person and learning how to simply network with and communicate with others. Running an Internet business isn’t strictly done online. Remember, you are still dealing with people and your website is simply a tool to convey your message to them. Learn to meet and greet others, and make a valid effort to meet someone new every day, whether online or off. Get to know them, ask them questions and be a good listener. This can be done most effectively over the Internet, as well as in the real-world.

Everywhere I go, online or not, I always make it a point to talk to at least 10 new people a day. During my conversations with them, I ask certain questions that allow me to better understand who they are and what they’re all about. These questions will not only help you gain a better understanding of who you are talking too, but also allows you to effectively build a strong relationship with them, which ultimately leads to trust. And trust eventually leads to a sale! I’ll discuss these questions in a little bit.

It’s a Conversation

To do this right, you must learn to have conversations with others. I never engage in any interaction with others with the intention to gain new business or to sell them something. I’m genuinely interested in what they have to say. If any business comes out of the conversation, then it is the result of my gaining their trust and nothing more.

As the conversation progresses, the other person will inevitably become more curious about you and ask you to share what you do for a living. And man do I love it when people ask me what I do for a living. Partly because I’m very passionate about it, and partly because I know that almost everyone wants to know more about how to make money online! On the internet, they may ask you directly, or more than likely, they’ll visit your website to get all the dirty details.

Have a Genuine Interest

Having a genuine interest in what the other person is tell you is a must! Listen to them, hear what they are saying. On the Internet, or in any business for that matter, this allows you to clearly identify what your target audience wants and how you can fill that need. Simply trying to sell your products or services to them without listening to what your audience wants is a sure way to set yourself up for dismal sales and potential failure. Know and respect your audience, and they will take you far!

An Example Illustrated

Asking the right questions will open up the conversation for further discussion and allow you to identify whether or not you can provide a solution to the other person, or audience’s problem.

For example, while traveling on a plane to my recent destination, I met an ink salesman. I had asked the salesman, what he did and how he got started in his business, which is how I learned he was an ink salesman. I was able to quickly establish a rapport with the salesman after asking 4 simple questions about what he did for a living. What’s even better, is because I had established a rapport with him, he in turn asked me what I did for a living. I quickly answered:

“I own an internet marketing and online business development consulting business where I help individuals and small to mid-sized businesses create a strong internet presence allowing them to succeed online.”

The conversation progressed which led me to expand upon my business further at his request. This was important to him, because he immediately realized I could help him expand his sales operations online where he could gain greater reach and increased exposure, thus allowing him to sell more product. He even asked me if I could teach his entire sales organization how to better utilize the internet to increase brand awareness and sales, thus resulting in the sale of a $10,000 consulting services package for me and an ongoing business relationship with his company.

What’s crazy is, I ONLY ASKED HIM FOUR SIMPLE QUESTIONS!!!

Questions, Questions, Questions

The questions I ask are simple and nothing new. Really the key to a successful sale is in starting the conversation and treating it like a conversation rather than a sale. So what are the questions I typically ask when having a conversation with others? Well, I’m glad you asked! See, your getting the hang of this already!

I always ask these questions when meeting new people whether in the real-world or through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or any other social networking or internet based community I’m hanging out in.

1. What do you do for a living?
2. How long have you been doing that?
3. Do you enjoy it?
4. How did you get started?

On the Internet, you could also pose a more direct approach to the questions through your marketing efforts such as landing pages and email campaigns. Here are some examples as they relate to my business:

1. Are you struggling to monetize your blog?
2. How long are you going settle for dismal sales and lack of income?
3. Are you enjoying that much sought after success online?
4. Did the hope of success online not work out for you?

The point is, to ask questions that are primarily open ended and not simply yes or no questions. This allows for expansion of the conversation into other areas enabling you to build the rapport and trust needed to ultimately make a sale. Getting other people to talk about their passions, family or what they do for a living will go a long way to opening up the conversation and will eventually lead to some sort of mutual relationship that may make you money!

Set yourself a goal to meet 10 new people a day, whether online or offline. And always remember, it’s just a conversation!

Sean Smith is that crazy guy over at Powerofmore.net who shares a ridiculous amount of knowledge and expertise about the hottest internet marketing & social media trends of today and tomorrow. And yes, he believes that Johnny B. Truant invented post-it notes!

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Now, I’ll be the first to say that Twitter is just a platform and it is up to YOU how you use it. It isn’t as if there is one way and every other way is wrong. That said, this is my blog, so therefore my opinion is going to be proudly published as stated fact. Deal with it.

So, here is a short list of things I see on Twitter that I think are stupid…

• Using a logo and not a real picture. Unless your Twitter account is for a corporate brand, I think not using a real picture of yourself is stupid. To me, it comes off as trying to hide. If your Twitter account is a brand, then do whatever you want. But, if it is your name, then use a picture of YOU.
• Scheduling tweets in advance. Why does anybody do this? If you’re not available to tweet, don’t tweet. Nobody really cares. I know that some don’t want their account to appear stale even though they have no time, but for me, the moment I know somebody is scheduling their tweets, it feels less personal and I write them off.
• Automated tweeting from your blog archives. I know of one blogger who continues to auto-tweet stuff from his blog archives every 10 minutes. This is essentially Twitter spam. I’ve been on the verge of unfollowing this person several times. The only reason I haven’t is because we’ve dealt with each other outside of Twitter. The trickle of traffic coming in from these tweets isn’t worth harming the ACTUAL relationships that can be gotten on Twitter. Essentially, auto-tweeting turns Twitter into little more than trolling for traffic and kills the real value of the medium.
• Auto-Following. Auto-following results in grossly untargeted Twitter followings. It is a tactic used only for the high numbers, but it results in an audience who isn’t listening to a word you tweet because they only followed you to get THEIR follower count up. It is a shell game. Remember, there is no rule that says you have to follow back everybody who follows you.
• Auto-DM. I think this is one of those things that seems like a good idea, but isn’t. I have NEVER gotten an auto-DM from somebody and cared. The timing of it tells me right away it wasn’t personal. You can tell. And my opinion of that person immediately drops unless I knew them already. Auto-DM is no different than stuffing your business card into somebody’s hand the moment they try to meet you at a party.

So, what do you think? Got any you want to add? Do you disagree with any of mine?

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There is no doubt that Buzz took off VERY quickly last week. According to Google, Buzz has seen over 9 million posts in 56 hours. It has been seeing some SERIOUS numbers from the Mobile arena, too, with 300,000 check-ins per day from mobile phones.

Now, any time Google does something like this, you’re going to see the initial curiosity. Plus, the fact that Google integrated this into the Gmail inbox was a huge boon for a sense of immediate community. Obviously, they got a few things wrong in the privacy department on that front, but that’s why they did it.

Now, in a Mashable post which declares Buzz to be a game-changer, he asks the question “Why Have Users Embraced Buzz?” Well, that seems rather premature. I checked out Buzz. I’ve posted a few things, too. But, does that mean I’ve embraced it? No. I think that most people haven’t embraced it. It is a shiny new toy, but once the “buzz” wears off (pun intended), the usage numbers will drop.

My Gut Reaction

My gut reaction to Buzz is this: what’s so new and buzzworthy about it?

It is essentially a me-too version of FriendFeed, except that it is integrated into our Gmail boxes. Friendfeed has been around for some time now and it is much better than Buzz. And guess who owns Friendfeed now? That’s right – Facebook.

Jason Calacanis sent out an email last week declaring Buzz to be the beginning of the end of Facebook. Ummmm, no. Facebook still owns the largest social network and the best technology in terms of a Friendfeed-style network – Friendfeed itself.

Integrating this into our email might give Buzz a little head start.  Gmail is still only the third most popular web mail client (with 146 million users as of July 2009), but that is still a sizable number. Still, Facebook is much larger and I’m guessing it is growing much faster, too.

Should We Pay Attention To Buzz?

I think there is a lot of overspeculation and hype around Buzz right now. It will subside. But, will Buzz end up in the dustbin of bad Google ideas (remember Knol?), probably not.

As bloggers and marketers, we need to embrace Buzz but not dive in head first. After all, the whole thing of being a relationship marketer means you’ve got to be where your audience is. And the numbers above show that people are using Buzz.

Ultimately, I think Buzz is just going to be another leg of a large tree of social branches. We’ll be looking to integrate it with Twitter and Facebook, for example. We don’t want yet another place which sits out there as a little island. Google is trying to capitalize on the whole social media buzz, and so far they’ve been unable to do it. Buzz is a worthy entry point, but there are other things out there worth far more of your mental horsepower right now.

My suggestion? Keep an eye on Buzz. Use it when you feel like it. Don’t turn it off if social media is an important part of your business. Remember, you can use the Gmail email filters to keep it out of your inbox, and I expect before long Google will provide a one-click option to keep it out of your email altogether.

But, a company as large as Google doesn’t enter the social media fray and not make a wave. It is a little hyped up right now, but when the dust settles, I think we’ll find the proper place for Buzz in our digital toolbox. Most likely as just another tentacle of what we’re already doing.

Your thoughts?

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