For me, the experience in Minds has been all over the place. It has been mostly positive, but not without its woes. I may talk about those in detail later, but for now, I'd like to keep this short.

At first, I was excited about it, then I became frustrated and left. This has happened twice or three times. But the promise of it keeps bringing me back to see if it has progressed. To see if the issues I found with it have been addressed.

The promise of protection for freedom of speech, uncensored interactions, true reach and just the philosophy of open source and everything that comes with it are very enticing for me, so that's why I keep coming back.

This should be important for you too, especially as more and more issues arise with the big social networks, like Facebook and Twitter. Only time will tell whether Minds continues to respect privacy and freedom.

But I'm back on Minds now. If you want to follow me over there, I'm under @OscarGonzalez.

I'm very happy and excited although a bit cautious with the network now. Cautious because when you're a blogger or social media professional, a digital marketer, like me, investing time into a site that isn't going to make it past the next six months can be a painful experience.

It sucks when you figure out how a site works, and you put a lot of time and effort into it and then they announce abruptly that they're going out of business like vid.me did.

Minds seems different now. The UI has been totally revamped, new features are active and have been rolled out and they are using a spiffy cryptocurrency system instead of fiat currency like when they started. That is not to say it is without problems, but it's better than before, much better.

I'm pretty confident to say that Minds is going to be around for a while. I even dare to say now that many of the issues that have kept me from spending more time on the site have been addressed, and it even seems like they're growing up a bit.

I recently reconnected with Bill Ottman, I congratulated him about the nice improvements on the site, and a few weeks later because he was in the Joe Rogan podcast.

With that kind of commitment, I'm willing to put some of the issues I disliked about the site aside and give it another chance.

In fact, I'm trying to help remove one of the main obstacles for me and other people like me to really embrace the site. This specific initiative is related to social media shares, but I'll leave it at that for now until I get something actually tangible to share.

But I was pleasantly surprised to find that they have an experimental section. Similar to how Snapchat lets you get early development builds to test out new features before they're rolled out to the general population. Or like how Gmail used to have a fun labs section in the early days.

This is one good reason to come and give Minds another try. Features like this show maturity in the software and the development of their roadmap, so that's extremely promising.

If you're interested in checking out minds, head on over to Minds.com and find me as OscarGonzalez. Talk to you soon!

ps. Don't forget about the 30 day One Funnel Challenge, starts in 4 days!

The post Minds.Com Is Growing Up. We’re Waiting for You appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I'm guessing because there really is no indication of the status, but I haven't received an email or anything, and if I go back to the developers' area, I can't create a new app.

I say "new" because I still have my old one in there, I had already set up the app settings before I started writing these blog posts, so I can see my API keys and secret keys, but I don't have a way to create a new one.

It is only recently that Twitter locked down their developer program and asked some or all developers to re-apply.

I'm not sure exactly what happened, but anywhere I had a Twitter "app" I had to re-apply for that account. For my main account, there was no problem, but for this one, it's taking time so currently, I don't have my automated content machine going for this. However, it is still growing.

Other Updates

Quick updates on a few other things. I have a few irons in several fires and I've talked about some of them to you in my VIP Email list or in social media so I thought I'd give you a quick update.

WordPress 5.0 Update, Gutenberg

I've been thinking about the Gutenberg update coming to WordPress users. As soon as WordPress 5.0 is released, the Gutenberg update will come with WordPress by default. If you do not want to use this new editor, you'll need to install the "classic editor" and use that until you're ready to move to Gutenberg.

If you have a WordPress blog, I would start testing right away. Make a copy of your website or blog and test out how Gutenberg is going to affect you and be prepared. Unless you don't care if something breaks, don't install it on your main public site right away.

If you need help with this, get in touch with me and let me know.

Eye see you random thought

This is a totally random thought, but in helping a friend, I recently started learning about eyebrows.

Yeah, I know, such a random topic but my wife got her eyebrows "done" a while ago and that could mean something different to different people. But what I'm learning about, I thought was interesting enough to share on here.

My wife had her eyebrows done with microshading, which pratically looks as if she had applied make up. But there is more to this.

As I kept reading about it, I learned that you can have your eyebrows done in a few different ways, one is tattooed, another is microbladed, or another way is microshaded.

Tattoos are permanent, while microblading and microshading are semi-permanent. They're considered a semi-permanent tatoo.

So I thought it is a fascinating topic and there's a good FAQ about microblading here. I'm going to be helping her improve that so any feedback about the content itself is welcome as well.

During a microblading procedure, they literally take a tiny blade and cut eyebrow-hair-shape cuts into their eyebrow area then fill it up with pigment (ink basically) and after it has entered the tiny cuts, the pigment is removed the customer is left with new "eyebrows."

Of course, my head goes off into the online monetization for this business, so I may be talking about this again soon, not sure. Remember, the most monetizable niches are self-care, self-image, self-development, making money, finding love…

But there's a lot of money being made in this business. The things girls do to look good never ceases to amaze me!

And while most people that "get their eyebrows done" do it for convenience or seemingly vanity reasons, sometimes this helps people with scars, or people going through cancer treatment or other reconstructive process.

Sometimes they look so realistic that they are also known as 3d Microblading eyebrows. Look here for pictures of before and after.

About the Twitter growth case update

Let's do a quick recap.

I'm trying to grow an account to help drive traffic to a niche website. It is also a passion project and I haven't talked about it much publicly but I think in another blog post I'll share a link to it.

The case study includes the methods, and tools used to achieve the goal. Check out the first post about this, then part two here and this one you're reading is technically part 3.

• Goal is 1000 (about 1/2 there)

Currently

• Following: 905
• Followers: 483
• Tweets: 325

So if you don't know, the following/followers ratio is important. You don't want to have more following than followers.

It looks weak and needy, It is always advisable to have a slightly positive ratio in favor of the number of followers. In simple terms, have more people follow you than you follow.

More followers than following

As you start, this is tricky. You have no credibility, and you don't want to buy followers either through shady companies or directly from Twitter with advertisements.

My main problem right now is that I can't follow a lot of people too quickly because if they don't follow me back, that followers/following ratio will get worse and fewer people will want to follow me back.

This part is always a little slow, it feels like when the wheels of the train are spinning and grabbing a little bit as the train leaves the station.

But we keep on keeping on and try to keep up with these 3 strategies.

1. Provide quality content.
2. Provide engaging activity.
3. Changing that ratio to a positive number.

Let's talk about the ratio part first

As you can see, I'm following a little more than 2x the number of people following me. To fix this, Rewst has a feature to help you unfollow people that didn't follow you back after a period of time (customizable) or that are no longer following you.

A good ratio is anything higher than 1.1. The higher the number the better but it's also relative so don't get too hung up about it when you develop your long-term marketing approach. For our immediate purposes to grow this one channel, this metric is important because of appearances.

It's important for the follow/unfollow method I said I would use. The way we're going to get the attention of a potential new follower is by following them first. And so it becomes a little strategy game.

There's a method to this madness.

A new potential follower is more likely to follow you if they see that more people follow you than you follow back.

There's a slight dash of intrigue there when they see your account and they wonder "why did this account follow me?" "I must have said something interesting or shared a good article" and they'll be more inclined to follow you back.

Love it or hate it, this is how people work. Especially in social media. Everybody's looking for that next little fix.

A little bit of chat, a little bit of praise, maybe even a little friction over a slight disagreement, but the follow/unfollow method works because it reaches out to people while helping you maintain that perception to the outsiders looking in. 

What's the right follow ratio then?

So you see, this is why it's important to bring that ratio to a greater than 1.0 ratio. Currently, for this account I'm working on, the twitter follow ratio is 0.43, just divide the number of followers by the number of following to find your own.

The bigger the number the better --generally, but at least 1.1 is necessary for this case study to work. My main account has a ratio of 3, while a celebrity or personality, like Elon Musk has a ratio of about 360,000!

I would recommend that a business maintains their ratio between 2 and 10.

It's hard to determine that more accurately since so many factors are contextual.

Rewst has a time period set to let those accounts mature before it marks them as "non-followers" and lets you unfollow them.

While that period of time is going on, I think I have it set to 3 days, I spent a few minutes each day looking at my feed and liking, retweeting and commenting on stuff I see from the people I want to follow me back.

This is also something I do to interact with them and really get into them. If you follow just for the sake of following, then there's no point.

Consider the follow and follow back process as an introduction at a networking event. You now know each other exist, now talk, get to know each other, etc. Without this part, this technique will fail!

One other tool I didn't mention before is Twittercounter. This is good just to keep an eye on the historical growth of your account.

You should go to TwitterCounter as soon as you can and ask for your stats. This will put you into their database and they'll update regularly so you can see how your efforts are working out over months and years. 

To provide engaging activity

This is where the people that just like to be haters miss out. They don't ever get to this part of the whole process, where I advocate that this method only works with good quality content and engaging activity.

I have a list of tweets I'm putting together, they'll be 100 of them. These are icebreakers and questions and greetings. These go into my Textexpander app which then allows me to reply to everybody that follows me with a quick quote, greeting, question, or something else. It's kinda like when people @ you and say "thanks for the follow" but my method works way better because I'm actually making the response to them unique and interesting.

Takes me about 2 minutes to do this for 15 - 30 people. This helps me lock down those people as followers for a long time and also increases my engagement numbers which will hopefully start adding me to recommended lists and get more retweets and likes which should increase traffic to the site eventually.

I also proactively unfollow junk accounts. The follow/unfollow method I'm working with has that as a side effect. Sometimes I'll just follow a ton of accounts and by the sheer number, some are bound to be bad accounts, bots, junk sellers, spammers, or in a language I don't want, so I'll unfollow at least a few accounts just by looking at my timeline.

The major unfollow process happens with Rewst every week or so and that handles a few hundred unfollows in just a minute or less.

It should be worth noting that Rewst is beautiful because it lets you manage those actions quickly, but it actually spreads them out over time when it executes them so that Twitter doesn't get overloaded and your account doesn't get flagged for using too many resources. Everybody wins.

Changing the Twitter ratio

As I continue with this, the ratio is going to get worse before it gets better. I'm probably going to get to a poor ratio for a while maybe around 0.375 which will be negative for growth.

But when I get to that point, the first big batch of people I followed should have matured in Rewst and I can unfollow them and close that gap a little to make things better. Right now I think I'm around 0.53

On the next update about this, I'll try to do an update about Tweet Wheel and getting that Twitter developer license. Hopefully, I'll have it by then.

The post Twitter Growth Case Study Gutenberg and Random Eyebrows. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

But I see a resurge on Twitter and I see some good things that are going on. But I'm also deeply concerned about its apparent censorship and favoritism displayed over the past year and more so in the past few weeks.

If you haven't kept up with these developments, apparently, Twitter has been revoking the verified status from many accounts. It appears that Twitter is reviewing its verification program and will probably be removing the verification status from many more accounts.

It seems that some accounts claim that they've been unfairly targeted and singled out for suspensions and even permanent bans as a result of this "review", because of opposing viewpoints or what they call "wrong-think" like in  George Orwell's 1984 novel.

Twitter never comments on specific cases, but usually points questions and requests for comments to their Terms of Service document which like most T.O.S. documents is vague and even ambiguous; this allows for conspiracy theories, and alternate possibilities to be considered plausible by some.

Many argue, in contrast, that other accounts that are more in line with Twitter's political bias are allowed to remain active and verified despite exhibiting similar behavior as that displayed by the accounts that have been reprimanded arguably because of holding the wrong set of ideas or opinion.

You can't really change any of that... but this is what you can do.

And at the end of the day, you can't do much about Twitter's decisions anyway. But you know what you can do, is be a good person, be a decent individual and stop doing these three things on Twitter.

Trust me, they make you look like an amateur and it's time somebody tells it to you straight. I'm going to make this blog post mandatory reading for all my would-be customers and existing customers.

So without further ado, stop doing these things that make you a jerk on Twitter:

#1 Sending Automatic DMs

This is one of the worse things to have ever been turned into a thing on Twitter. If you follow me on Twitter, you surely have seen my top-most pinned tweet.

I've had it on for most of the year and it gets a good reaction.

https://twitter.com/notagrouch/status/828005553519472640

Nobody cares about your life's story in your auto dm. Nobody clicks on the links you send in there. Essentially, if you use Auto DMs when someone follows you, you're a jerk. You're forcing us to look at some crappy message and usually, you haven't even taken the time to  look at our account let alone follow us for a while so we can actually get to know each other.

I'll take that back. I'm sorry, I give you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you didn't know prior to reading this blog post. Ok, but now you know so if you're still using Auto DMs, now, you're a jerk. Ok, I'll grant you a grace period, you can take a few minutes and then go turn off those automatic DMs.

Sending auto dms on Twitter is like throwing garbage out the window as you drive down the street, or like that crappy junk mail you still get delivered to your home address. Do the senders don't know that those pieces of mail survive only the walk to the nearest trash bin?

In Twitter, it's digital littering, you're doing nothing but creating digital garbage.

Please, don't. Just don't.

If you don't know how you're sending automatic direct messages because you set them up a long time ago and don't remember how, just click here to go to your Twitter apps permission page and click on "revoke access" next to all the apps listed there that you don't recognize.

This will reset your Twitter account's permissions and prevent 3rd party apps from sending those automatic junk messages.

#2 Sending Thank you for nothing messages.

Yes, it is absolutely true that you should acknowledge your new followers and engage with them. You should also engage with your existing followers and build connections with them. This is the reason we call Twitter a social network.

But don't confuse digital garbage for gratitude.

When it comes to Twitter, stop the automatic @ mentions messages with generic, repetitive and boring messages. Just like auto DMs, they're digital garbage.

If auto DMs are like mailbox flyers that are sent to you via postal service, then thanks-for-nothing tweets are the maybe-more-annoying door and car flyers you find after you come home or back to your car in the parking lot. More garbage and you're forced to look at it. And if you're sending these automatically, yep, you're a jerk.

These noise maker tweets sound a bit like this:

Thanks to my top #twitterfam followers (or some hashtag that sounds like a community exists): @mention1 @mention2 @mention3 @mention4 #famlov https://somefreejunk.net.

You don't need to thank everyone that follows you as if they just did you a favor. That's what people do on Twitter they follow each other. Instead, take it a step further and learn something about the person and comment on that. "Thank you for following me" messages are so 2008, and digital junk.

Generally, Twitter users fall prey to become these apps' advertising parrot-heads and use them with the promise of gaining a following or getting more "social mentions" which can be valued by some social influence measuring tools --also useless, but I digress.

At the end of the day, these tools primary purpose seems to be to generate digital garbage.

Instead, spend 15 - 20 minutes each day doing what I do to remain personal, and engaged with people on Twitter. It makes Twitter relevant again, believe it or not, there is a growing active user base on Twitter.

I explain how I engage with new users next.

What should you do instead?

From personal experience, thanks to Rewst.com and a dedicated 15 to 30-minute planned daily activity on Twitter, I've been averaging about 40 new followers each day. Thank you and welcome, all of you!

But to show gratitude, I take the time to check out each new follower and either like a few of their latest interesting tweets or maybe I'll follow them back. By the way, you don't have to use Rewst.com, it just makes things easier.

Another thing I do to show appreciation and acknowledgment to new followers is to retweet one or two of their most recent interesting tweets. I use Buffer to spread the tweets over a few hours or a few days.

Even doing an @ mention responding to a specific tweet they posted recently, or a compliment or positive feedback about their profile may go a long way.

These actions show you are there, and you're active and not just a twitter-bot pushing a message out. Taking the time to acknowledge your new followers shows gratitude.

Seriously, the other automatic, canned junk is bad. Forget it. Be real, be genuine and be there, even if it's just a couple times each day. Automatic "thank you @mentions" Just like I advise you for Twitter auto DMs... Just don't.

#3 Tweet Only your products

I'm a big proponent of automation. But you should work on intelligent automation. Once you get a work-flow going where you can read and share interesting articles on Twitter easily and timely, you can start sharing content that your followers may be interested in without any additional effort.

This video shows you how you can schedule all your tweets easily.

You can use something like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule tons of tweets in advance. But just be careful with this convenience.

Don't fall for the temptation to tween only for your products or services. You should have a mix of content.

How much is too much self-promotion?

Advice tends to suggest that we should be following a rough 80/20 split where you share industry news, relevant events information, quotes by captains of industry, interesting reports, case studies and news for about 80 percent of the time, and you share your own content the remaining 20 percent of the time.

If you are on Twitter and spend 15 to 30 minutes each day tweeting and engaging, then you'll find that you can be tweeting around 20 times organically.

Add to that count, 10 or so tweets you can pre-schedule as you read the type of content I suggest you share above. You could easily be tweeting anywhere from 30 - 40 tweets each day effortlessly. And that still doesn't count your own content.

Some people claim that if you were to just tweet your own content, you would lose followers and they'd feel like enough is enough.

But, I think if you're tweeting 40 or more times each day like I describe above, it's a fair ratio if you want to insert your own tweets 10 times a day. Mix them around in Buffer and continue to engage.

If you're trying to keep track of growth, you can also use Rewst.com to keep track of your growth. You could also tabulate the data yourself using Google Sheets, and I think Twittercounter.com will also help you track following and followers.

The big asterisk disclaimer on there is that my opinion is you should be engaging and sharing other content too to balance out your own content and to understand what others are sharing around your own topics of interest.

This means you could schedule around 8 to 10 tweets every day to your top 100 blog posts and go through them every 10 days or so. This will help you get a good amount of exposure and keep your followers looking at your content.

Neil Patel suggests you share at least 10 of your articles each day and look at the results based on the data --see video below: How to Get More Twitter Traffic (fast).

I tend to follow his advice and I usually share about 8 or 10 tweets of my own content and the rest are curated tweets.

I follow a ratio of roughly 50/50, and I think as long as the content is interesting, useful and valuable, even following Neil Patel's advice and only sharing 10 articles for your own blog may be fine.

After all if your own blog post isn't worth sharing, why did you write it at all right? And if it's worth sharing, why not share it?

Conclusion

These three things you need to stop doing on Twitter may seem a bit like rants, but based on my personal experience and in that experience of most of my clients, these are some of the biggest things that annoy other Twitter users and generally just contributes to a bad overall experience.

I'm not a big fan of telling you how to use any of the social networks. You should do what works for you. But if you insist on doing these things I listed, you have to wonder if annoying a large part of potential new followers is something that works for you.

Full automated Twitter accounts exist, and some of them have tons of followers, but they tend to be single-purpose announcement type of accounts. You can assume that all the unsolicited advice I provided here is meant for accounts that represent a person or a brand and want to actively grow and generate more engagement and traffic to their blogs.

The post 3 Things You’re Doing on Twitter That Make You a Jerk appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Minds recently crowdfunded a million bucks, Gab.ai is fighting Google. Voat wants a piece of Reddit. And I could go on and on with the rest of new social networks that are competing for our mindshare.

So today, I would like to introduce you to Vidme.

What is Vidme?

Vidme is a new-ish video sharing platform. Some say Vidme is a mix between Youtube and Reddit, some call it the Imgur of video. But I see it as a video sharing platform, one of few that seems to have the basics nailed down and is gaining some traction.

Vidme describes themselves as a platform with one mission: To build the world's most creator-friendly video community. People are talking about it, and some of the features make it attractive to new and existing content creators.

Vidme has raised a little over 9 million dollars since 2015, it appears that they started with a seed of 3.2 million. Later on, they raised another 3.2 and just recently they raised an additional 6 million dollars.

I know there are other platforms that have been around for a long time that have challenged Youtube's dominance in video; and I intend to talk about those as well in a future blog post but for now, I wanted to cover Vidme and tell you about my own experience with it so far.

What's so special about Vidme?

Vidme has some interesting features that are intended to help content creators.

The strongest features attracting creators to the platform are the monetization options. While Youtube takes roughly 50% of the earnings from ads and the other part goes to the creator, Vidme has two main ways to generate revenue, and the lion's share of the revenue goes to the creator.

One such feature is paid subscriptions, the other one is tipping. They also have an ad revenue share program in beta right now, similar to Youtube's but with a 70% cut going to the content creator.

The platform used to be ad-free, but with the rollout of ad revenue sharing system, it seems that the ad-free experience is going away.

I don't mind ads except for the fact that about half the times that an ad was about to play, I was served just a black screen for a few seconds then the video would just start playing. Hopefully, it's just a glitch.

Show me the money!

Subscriptions start at $1.00 and work on a monthly basis; a subscriber can choose to pay a dollar or more each month to benefit the video creator.

Tipping works on a per video basis and the viewer decides how much to tip. Both of these options incentivize the creators to keep creating top-notch, relevant content.

Vidme takes a 10% cut of the revenue from those two options. This percentage split alone is a great incentive to join the site.

The only problem is that Vidme doesn't have the traffic that would allow creators to make a significant amount of money, yet. Hopefully, it grows more in 2017 and truly blooms in 2018.

There are some creators that have joined in from Youtube and have quickly received hundreds of subscriptions. But many of these are people that have over a million followers on other platforms already so many people are just following them.

Even so, Vidme is still fresh, and small allowing people like you and me to build a following there with little competition.

Vidme is also bouncing around the idea of having a merchandising system built in. No word on whether it will actually happen or when.

The idea of a merch store builtin to the system is innovative, but to me, it seems like out of the scope for a site like this, and I don't have a whole lot of faith in it. But it could work.

They have a sense of humor

Recently with the backlash that Youtube has been receiving, Vidme took an opportunity to take a jab at it with a promotional video. See below.

https://vid.me/KEnH

That's alright in my book. They capitalized on an opportunity and at least seem to be paying attention to what's going on over at Youtube. Now if we could just get a proper responsive embed for WordPress, that would be awesome.

So how big is Vidme?

When I emailed Vidme to get some current stats, they reported to me that they have about 25 million unique visitors "touching the product." I found that wording a bit interesting, but I'm guessing that it's just what we know as unique visitors. I was not able to find a number of creators or active creators, but if 25 million unique visits per month is accurate, then that's pretty damn respectable for a 3-year-old website.

I do have to wonder though, this same number has been reported for almost a year now. Are they being coy about their numbers or has their growth plateaued since December of last year? I'm not sure.

There's potential there, even if it's not without controversy.

I know there are lots of haters out there taking cheap shots at Vidme. I've watched the videos and read some articles.

But having the experience I have with startups, marketing, and product development, I think they are not giving the platform a fair shot. From what I can see, the "issues" some people like Eli the computer guy are complaining about are growing pains of a fast-growing company.

Most of the complaints seem like whiny rants that lack business insight. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. It seems that Vidme has been implementing changes as it receives feedback. They hosted an AMA on Reddit about 7 months ago where people got a chance to ask questions and give feedback. I think it's time they do another one.

Alexa reports Vidme to be in the top 2000 sites in the U.S. and it's climbing fast. It seems like it's about to cross that same mark globally. Their DA is a respectable 67.

It'll be a challenge to get under 1000, and even more so to get into the top 100. In contrast, Youtube is number 2 while Vimeo is at 94.

But I challenge any startup to get to 25Million unique visitors per month while hosting and serving video; arguably the toughest type of content to host and manage.

Why should you care about Vidme?

You should take a look at Vidme, create an account and use it for a couple of reasons.

They're a new company and new companies need support. Small companies need patronization from users because this is what keeps them viable, and in this specific case, it isn't good to have one single site dominate a total space as Youtube does.

When a company like Youtube becomes as big as it is, they start shaping culture, they start shaping thought, they become an entity that can control the media. They shape language, just like you "Google" stuff, people are "youtubers" and if you need to fix your broken washing machine, you'll "youtube" a video about it.

Youtube has fueled entire economic systems and with one change in policy, they can sweep it all away and drive people to lose a significant amount of revenue even if such outcome is unintentional, that's not a good thing.

It is especially disconcerting when you consider the type of issues Youtube is facing. Censorship, demonetization, and changes to the partner program status, are amongst the most notable problems bubbling up over there.

At the very least, you should try Vidme so it gets a chance to play in the big leagues. Maybe they'll fail, maybe they will be worse than Youtube. But if they don't get enough traction to prove themselves or hang themselves, we'll just never know what could have been.

I have faith that they can make it.

I think the timing is right, the product is good enough. That's not to say that there aren't some issues and needs for improvement, but that takes time and I think they're doing a good job at communicating with the users and working on improvements and trying new things.

If those reasons don't appeal to you, maybe I can appeal to your selfish nature and tell you that the site is young and open. It's not crowded yet.

From a practical perspective, it seems like it would be easy to have videos noticed and featured if you produce good content. Vidme is like an unexplored world waiting to be settled. A place where you can carve a nice little niche for yourself.

If you aren't a huge Youtuber already, it's refreshing to see that Vidme has very little competition within the site and thus you may be able to make a good amount of money in comparison to what Youtube has to offer.

And who doesn't like money? If you are already on Youtube, you can easily import your videos or just upload them to Vidme simultaneously. It would only take you a minute to fill in the title and description. Scheduling your videos in advance is available so that makes things easier.

Where can you find out more?

First, don't forget to follow me on Vidme. You'll find me as Notagrouch. If I haven't made it obvious yet, the site is at http://vid.me. Their own channel is here.

I'll be covering stuff about Vidme like I do for Youtube and other social networks here on my blog under the Vidme tag. And if you want to stay current with up to the minute news and discussions about it, the best place I found was the Vidme Reddit here.

Conclusion, TL;DR.

Vidme is a newish video sharing platform with some innovative features built in. Their goal is to help content creators by providing monetization features built directly into the platform. The site is growing and it has a little over 9 million dollars of funding. It's not crowded so it may be easy to carve a little niche and build an audience there as the site grows.

I'll write a little bit about using the site in a future blog post, but for the time being, you can find me there under Notagrouch. While I'm not leaving Youtube anytime soon, please join the site and follow me there.

1. Vidme Launches Paid Subscription Option To Diversify Creator Revenue Streams - Tubefilter, Vidme Launches Paid Subscription Option To Diversify Creator Revenue Streams, http://www.tubefilter.com/2017/05/11/vidme-paid-subscription-feature-diversify-revenue/
2. Vidme - Timeline | crunchbase, Vidme, https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bit-kitchen/timeline#/timeline/index

The post Introduction to Vidme and Why You Should Check It Out appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

The InstaWealth Growth System is part of the Wolfmillionaire offering, and as a matter of disclosure, I did not get paid or compensated to do this review in any way. As with all my reviews, these are my thoughts and opinions on this product. You can find the course at Wolfmillionaire.com

The first chapter didn't do a whole lot for me. I've been using Instagram for a while, and I know the ins and outs of the app, settings and all that stuff.

There were a few tips I picked up along the way but nothing earth-shattering yet. You may find that this is the case for you if you're also experienced with Instagram already. However, this is a comprehensive course so it makes sense that Chapter 1 would be a complete overview of all the basics of setting up your Instagram account.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BS37gSSheLJ/

Based on this approach, if you're new to Instagram or are ready to dive in seriously, I highly recommend you go through this and take notes.

If you're completely new to Instagram, I would suggest you complete all 12 modules before you do anything on Instagram because some of the modules later in the chapter connect back to some of the first modules.

If you have had an account for a while and have been active, then you should go through Chapter 1 and fill in the gaps as you go to make sure your profile is all tidy and ready for the next sections.

Below are my comments from each module for Chapter 1

Chapter 1 has 12 modules.

Chapter 1 Intro video

Basics, intro, setting up the expectations for the course and quick overview. The introduction covers all the basic stuff from the get-go; this is ideal for anybody that is totally brand new to Instagram or someone that might want to give their profile a "once over" to make sure everything is tidy and ready for growth.

Chapter 1 - module 1

This section covers the differences between the two mobile operating systems: iOS and Android. Good tips that will help power users decide between the two platforms.

Chapter 1 - module 2

Suggests creating a brand new email address to prevent hacking and phishing attacks. Explains why and when you'll need it.

Chapter 1 - module 3 (iOS / Android)

This module covers creating an Instagram account using either iOS or Android. Covers name, username, password and best security practices. Expect a full walkthrough of the account setup process for each platform.

Chapter 1 - module 4

This module covers all the Instagram settings for each version of the app, iOS/Android.

Account verification and configuring all the settings. It's a complete walkthrough of all the fields and options available. It explains why you should use different things for each field. You think you should just use your real name? Think again.
Anthony covers all the icons, menus, notifications, linked accounts, and privacy settings sections.

Simple yet powerful tips for bio design, using the right email address, link and more in your bio. Overall a good chapter to help you get a good foundation for your Instagram account. A good review for existing Instagram users.

Chapter 1 - module 5

I noticed the first "mistake" with a blatant spelling error in the title of this module. Most people would criticize this as being careless or low-quality, but being a content creator myself I can overlook this. So far the content and training videos have been really good, so this doesn’t bother me.

Great chapter to help you protect your account against hackers and thieves. Best practices and tips to help Instagram recover your account for you should you ever have a problem with it. Also, covers how to get in if you lose or forget your password.

Chapter 1 - module 6

This module dives further into the configuration for bio, including picture and details for a better bio. A couple of neat little tricks to make your bio stand out and be more efficient. Some of the differences between using a photo vs. a logo.

Chapter 1 - module 7

This is an interesting module, it’s about 18 minutes of analyzing profiles of over 15 accounts. Covers the good and the bad, and how each profile might be improved upon with small tips and tweaks.

Chapter 1 - module 8

This section covers how to set your link in your bio to maximize its effectiveness. One of the things I disagree with is using a bit.ly link.

I think Bit.ly should be the last option to make a short link. Instead, I would recommend using your blog to create a redirect or use a custom URL shortener with your own short domain using something like Linktrackr.

If you want to link to a social media profile, you can use your own website to create a redirect to make the link look clean like Anthony recommends. I covered that in this blog post before.

Chapter 1 - module 9 & 10 (Android and iOS version)

A module covering some of the apps that Anthony recommends as essential helper apps. The only issue I have with this module is that some of these apps may become popular or die depending on user interaction so they can change with time. I think you can focus on the functionality and maybe find alternatives that you prefer.

The apps are meant to enhance your Instagram experience and to make you more efficient. These apps cover a few things that Instagram lacks and help you with some efficiency and productivity hacks to save you time.

Chapter 1 - module 11

Covers direct messaging, the ins and outs. - This might be the least useful module from chapter 1. At least it was for me, but if you’ve never used Instagram before, you should go through it to understand how the internal Instagram messaging system works.

Chapter 1 - module 12

An overview of the various places where you can find new content, explore, search, places and hashtags. A good overview of these Instagram features. This may be useful if you’ve been using Instagram but never actually ventured into these areas, but a must for anybody new to Instagram.

Covers how to find accounts, content, how to determine which accounts are verified and legitimate, also ties back to picking your name and understanding how your choices affect your discoverability.

Also, covers some of the ideas behind what niches work and how people are making money on Instagram; seems like a good segue to the next sections.

In conclusion to chapter 1, these are my thoughts.

This is a great introductory chapter to the Instagram world. It's good whether you're looking to extend your reach or make money from Instagram. I haven't gotten to the "make money" so when I get to it, I'll let you know what I think.  And you should go through it whether you've been on Instagram for a while or are just about to get started. It is especially important if you're going to really put effort into growing your Instagram following because if you don't have the basics right, not even

You should go through this chapter whether you've been on Instagram for a while or are just about to get started. It is especially important if you're going to really put effort into growing your Instagram following because if you don't have the basics right, not even Social Runner can help you.

For those of you that have gone through this, let me know what you thought about it in the comments, do you agree with my assessment? Chapter 2 is next and I'll probably give you the rundown of that section in a few days. Stay tuned!

The post Instagram Course Review. Wolfmillionaire’s InstaWealth Growth System Chapter 1 appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Before we go further, for reasons I don't discuss in this post, I think you absolutely should be on Twitter if you have a business or are trying to grow a business, but for now I'm putting in my "regular-joe" hat and ranting a little bit about the future of Twitter.

One idea tells me it's going to take off --this is Twitter's year. And the other idea is that Twitter is dead, --why doesn't it just shut down already!?

I have written a few articles about Twitter recently encouraging you to grow your Twitter account. See: How to get 1000s of followers on Twitter and How to Grow your Twitter Account. But then the most recent post I wrote about Twitter explained how to unfollow everybody and in a way, start from scratch.

One of the caveats about unfollowing everybody on Twitter was that a massive amount of people will also unfollow you. And this proved to be true. I had about 8200 followers and within 48 hours I had lost about 500 followers.

But you know what? I didn't care. It didn't matter anymore. Most of the people that unfollowed me were just reciprocating. They were "unfollowing me back" in the same way that they followed me back in the first place. I don't need those followers, I want to earn your follow!

Back in 2011, or even 2013, I would have felt bad about losing that many followers in 2 days, maybe I would have been sad, but this time I was indifferent.

Even though I bounce between both feelings about Twitter, I've been leaning more towards the notion that Twitter really is doomed, even Jay Baer thinks so. Twitter reminds me of a fish that has been out of water for a few minutes too long and it's starting to gasp for a rush of oxygenated water.

Twitter reminds me of a fish that has been out of water for a few minutes too long and it's starting to gasp for a rush of oxygenated water.

For a moment, last year we thought Donald Trump would be one of the saving graces of Twitter, and I believe his antics have attracted a large number of new users to the platform, but at the end of the day, It seems that even Trump can't save Twitter.

Twitter's stock is down and has been on a steady decline for a while now. I expect that Twitter as we know it will close down in the next 18 - 24 months.

Maybe a big media company will just buy its data and intellectual property, but I just don't think it can survive in its current course. It has issues of censorship and favoritism, where it used to be all inclusive and once helped spark revolutions.

[bctt tweet="Twitter used to be fun. Now it's just an automated stream of bots talking to bots." username="notagrouch"]

Please tweet that! The interaction with a human being is scarce. I appreciate and seek genuine interactions but they are so rare.

Now Twitter feels like a burden, like something you have to do if you're an online marketer or a social media manager, and maybe even if you're a small business.

The only saving grace for Twitter right now is that there isn't anything quite like it out there or anything that can replace its potential. Keyword: potential.

Snapchat has more mindshare than Twitter ever did, but it's cumbersome and arrogant, and with an IPO coming up soon, its future is going to be tested as well.

Twitter doesn't know if it wants to allow long format posts or stick to the tired 140 character limit. You can post videos and photos, even live video but none of it works as well as it does with the other guys. Video is better on Youtube, photos are better on Instagram, and Facebook live video is dominant.

They keep throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks and so far nothing has stuck and I feel like they're running out of stuff to throw up.

So why stick around on Twitter?

For the time being, I'm keeping my account because of a few friends --see my Code42 list. Oh yeah, and also for the savagery that is @Wendy's account. Forget Donald Trump, maybe Wendy's will save Twitter.

The post Good-bye Twitter? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

It can be different for everybody, but there are some things that apply to everybody. My opinion is sometimes unpouplar but I know I'm right. The major social networks are: Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Linkedin, YouTube, Google+, Tumblr, Instagram, not necessarily in that order, there's also Snapchat.

There are also dozens of other networks that are more focused or have a smaller user base but have a deeper reach into a specific niche. Sites like Reddit, Stumbleupon, Minds, Medium, Quora and others

So which ones should you join to help you promote your business? This video covers that.

Which one is your favorite and specifically for business, which other, let me know in the comments in the video or here on the blog.

Things are changing really fast now and as the youngest generation enters the workforce, new networks like Snapchat are becoming more and more influential. I have been spending a lot of time on Snapchat, if you want to join me there.

The post Which Social Networks Should I Join For My Business? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Minds is an open source encrypted social network with the ability for you to monetize your content. It's not like anything that is already out there.

For example Tsu tries to pay you a share of the money made with advertisements shown on your content; but nobody is really making money with it and it has become a spam and junk center. I dont think it will survive much longer.

So this is not Tsu, and it's not Facebook, but it has some gamification incentives and a way for you to make money with your content on a P2P basis.

In Minds, I can pay for boosted posts and you can also make deals with individuals to help promote content. You set your price, you call the shots.

Let me give you a quick getting started guide with Minds.com

Please keep in mind, that the site is still in beta so a few things may seem clunky, but it's very promising.

Sign up for an account

You sign up by visiting Minds.com, you don't need to provide any personal information beyond a username of your choice, and your email address. You can also do all this through their mobile app (Android, IOS)

My username is Oscar Gonzalez, feel free to follow me, or as it is called here, subscribe to me.

Customize your profile

The first screen you'll see is your profile and you can edit it by clicking on the pencil icon. You can always get back to this spot by using your profile icon on the top right corner.

You can customize your header banner, your avatar and bio from this page. It's a really elegant interface. The date picker to select your birthday is a little odd, but it's simple enough.

This is what I came up with on the first try, it feels a little similar to Facebook but the whole thing is a lot simpler and cleaner. I really like it.

Getting acquainted with the user interface

The top right corner has a small navigation menu with some neat features. Because the network is fully open sourced, you can actually submit a bug here and it will get looked at. If you are feeling adventurous you can also submit a feature request.

There is also an area where you can review your stats on your boosted content. Unlike Facebook, you can promote your regular posts on your profile so they get more visibility.

The small bell represents any alerts that are new since you checked lasta.

The last icon before your profile, gives you access to your wallet screen. In order for you to boost your content, you need to have credits and this is where your credits show up.

Your avatar button takes you to your profile where you can edit your profile picture, banner picture and bio.

Lastly, the three dots next to your profile open up a few more options. You can logout, adjust your global settings for the site or switch to the old interface.

This is a refreshing experience

The user experience is clean and even though the network is still in Beta, it feels solid. The user interface is clean and elegant and everything is simplified compared to Facebook or Twitter.

When you visit your alerts, you can see everything that has happened recently and you can take action from there.

The first few alerts help you get started with finding new content to explore. And as people find you, you'll be notified here when someone subscribes to you.

There is a gamification element too

This has been the downfall for many networks that have tried it but I think Minds.com has the right idea and execution. Certain actions give you credits which you can then spend to promote your content.

As you join, you'll get about 110 points or so to start. 100 for joining, then you'll get 10 points everyday for a "daily login" and you get one point for voting on someone else's post.

One thing I noticed is that they seem to be breaking the secret rules of social networks. That action which takes the most effort or commitment is, or should be the most valuable. For example, a comment is more valuable than a like, and a share should be more valuable than both comments and likes.

Case in point, if you like someone else's post, you'll get a point. But you will not get a point if you leave a comment, you should get more than one point because this is arguably a more valuable action. It represents more engagement.

After your profile is done, you can start using the site. Here's a quick rundown of what's available.

The action menu

The site features an icon-only action menu on the left hand side and if you're new to the site, the icons may not be intuitive enough for you to just figure it out. Here's a breakdown of what you can find there.

Some of the sections highlighted above have a few sub-menu actions. For example, the blog section lets you view featured blogposts, search for blogposts and create your own.

The blogging section is pretty standard and it has a WYSIWYG interface that works fine. Here is the first blogpost I created with it.

The most compelling features of the site

Social networks come and go, but the need for privacy is increasing and this may just be the best attempt at helping us with that. Minds.com is addressing this in two ways, the chats and the network are encrypted so people can't sniff what you're doing on the site.

The other way to help with privacy is to make the software open source. Developers can read through the code and figure out how things work, there is no hidden algorithm and "secret sauce."

The guys from Diaspora tried this before, but unfortunately a few years later the project is almost dead because it was too disjointed, Minds.com addresses this issue by offering a central location to interact with your connections.

Monetization is important for me and for other people that use social media sites for networking and business, and I really like the model offered by Minds. I acquired about 3000 credits and I will be putting the promoted and boost features to the test over the next week or so. I'll let you know how that goes.

For now, why don't you give it a try. Come join me, explore this new network.

The post Minds The New Social Network appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

If you actually use the Google photos service, you can get autoawesomes done all the time not just at the end of the year.

The post The Year in Photos appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

There's just so much in there. And now, Foursquare comes up with this neat thing, Foursquare Timemachine.

And it brings back memories of good Foursquare fun, and badges and the dreams of getting rewards for your loyalty to your favorite spots. So I'm thinking I may keep using Foursquare for a while, although I haven't checked in anywhere for a while.

But anyway, this is what made me think about sticking around for a while. I love big data and I love what foursquare has done with our own personal stats to create this. This is useful, this is cool, this reminds me of using social media apps for fun not just business.

The post Foursquare Time machine appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

There's a cool app that lets you create a short video summarizing some of your social activity and that includes Twitter. They say that a picture is worth a 1000 words, then a video must be worth 1,000,000 words right? Well here's a quick view of my Twitter account.

The app is called Vizify and you can find it here. It does a lot more than create a visualization of your Twitter account, but that may be the funnest feature they offer. Enjoy!

The post My Twitter Account in 55 Seconds appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Growing my social media presence and activity also helps me in two fronts. Increases my value in Empire Avenue, which in turn gives me more Eaves to promote my business, and it also helps me rank better in search engines. More importantly, social media is part of my system. I talked about having systems in my Online Profits Guide. And don't be mistaken, social media is personal, but I also use it for business.

Despite what many people will have you believe, it is rather simple to increase your numbers in social media and do it in a meaningful and rewarding way. And trust me, numbers matter; I'll explain more on that later. You simply have to be consistent and good. You don't even have to be great.

You know my strategy and goals, and you have an idea of my tactics. So here I'm going to spell out the tactics for each of the major networks. This will also serve as my daily workbook. You could use it as well and it is in fact an abbreviated version of the basic tactics design I provide for my customers.

Facebook personal profile.

• Post 1 interesting picture.
• Post 1 interesting news article.
• Post 1 question.
• Respond to 5 interesting posts.
• Like 30 - 50 things.

Why? Because Facebook holds most of the everyday conversations about anything going on. People are there, and don't want to leave. Total time to complete, approximately 15 min.

Facebook business page. Oscarstech.

• Post 3 news articles
• Post 1 interesting question/challenge
• Re-share 2 - 5 relevant posts from existing audience.

Total time to complete, approx 10 min.

Facebook business page. IM Scoop.

• Post 5 articles
• Post 1 customized image/infographic
• re-share 2 - 5 relevant posts.

Time to complete, approx 15 min.

Twitter. @notagrouch

• Tweet 4 - 9 original content packed tweets
• Talk to 5 different people
• Retweet 5 good tweets
• Follow 10 new people

Why? Twitter is like the radio. Topics and talks come and go, but you can build relationships that transcend Twitter if you cultivate them. Time to complete, approx 20 min.

Instagram. @notagrouch

• Post 5 photos
• like and/or comment 15 - 30 photos

Time to complete, approx 20 min. Why? Instagram is growing incredibly fast, engagement is huge and I really like it.

A bit of background.

The reason for using all these is to stay in touch with people, have people remember me and think of me when they need one of my services and to increase my earnings on Empire Avenue so I can help promote my blog and other businesses. The total time comes to about an hour and a half, and this is strictly for the mechanics of nurturing these networks. These actions pretty much guarantee activity and growth, but I still have to spend some personal time. I expect the time to vary between 45 min - 2 hours each day. It is also worth nothing that the facebook business pages can be scheduled and automated in advance so the time may be less in those cases.

It is about the numbers

The social media purists will have you believe that it is better to have 100 loyal followers than 1000 followers that may not always read your postings. But I disagree. Social media marketing is the same as any other marketing. It is about the numbers and if you target the right groups and the right audience, the more numbers you have, the better you're off. You can engage with more people if you have more people following you. You have better chances of reaching your target audience if more people have a chance at being exposed to your content. So long as your readers are real, having a lot of them also positions you as a leader in the eyes of your prospects. It's a psychological thing. Low numbers don't impress anyone.

But it is also about engagement

Something else worth noting is that what I posted and shared up here is purely mechanical. Yes, the numbers matter tremendously, but you must also know that having a large following doesn't guarantee engagement or genuine interactions with people. Those two aspects of social networking cannot be automated or predicted. I still have to care about people, talk to them at a personal level and make deep meaningful connections and build relationships.

Don't mistake the tools and schedule I am giving you as a way to "do social media right." There is another part to the equation and that's being genuine, personal and actually engage with people. Follow my schedule if you want, but also see how I actually interact and use each network. I'll talk more about that in upcoming blogposts; it's just hard teaching you how to be sociable and human.

The post Social media growth tactics appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

But as I hit over 1000 followers, I know that not all of them come from Orange County. But I can guess that they are mostly from the US. Lucky for me, one of my favorite apps has this information.

Here's a little info graphic that Statigram sent me to show me where my Instagram followers come from. As I suspected, most of my followers come from within the United States. The app doesn't tell me exactly what area but it's still fun to see where they come from.

Statigram is free and it has been one of my favorite Instagram apps since I discovered it. You can easily manage your followers, see your posts and the posts of those that you follow, you can also like them, comment and sometimes they even have contests. Check it out at http://statigr.am/

The post Where do your Instagram followers come from? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

So far the group has been awesome and we are growing. We host monthly blogging challenges and help each other out with our blogposts. We encourage each other and keep each other motivated. If this sounds like something that interests you, why don't you join us?

We have bloggers of all levels and in all niches. It doesn't matter if you blog about food, or technology. We even have some internet marketers in the group. So long as you like to make new friends and meet new bloggers at a more personal level then this group is for you.

Simply visit the group page and request access.

The post Facebook Bloggers Group. Come Join us! appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

We're starting off with small groups, and so far we've had two small meetups. I would like to extend an invitation for you to join. You can find the group called Smart and Social on meetup.com.

I've done one small webinar already as part of this new group. I used Google Hangouts, and last week I had my first Blogging group meeting. That was an introductory meeting and we've set the schedule for a six week program for the group. We start next thursday and this is an early group. 8:30 am.

I spend a lot of time training people on how to use websites, social media and technology in general. Most of the time I spend time one-on-one with people and although it is very valuable and I enjoy doing it, I think we could use a bit of a collective approach sometimes.

In about two weeks I'll be starting out another group that will meet at later times. If you are not into blogging, maybe you want to learn about social media? or just find some really cool tech meetups? Come join me for free at Smart and Social. And remember, live meetups are in the Orange County area, but you can join the group even if you're not in the area because we'll have virtual meetups using google hangouts, or Ustream or other methods so that anyone in the world can participate.

The plans are to have live and virtual events covering the following:

• Meetups to showcase or teach you about websites
• Meetups with WordPress hands-on workshops
• Guided 6 - 16 week business and technology program
• Accountability groups

The post Smart and Social, a new Meetup.com group in Orange County. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

One thousand words should fit into this image nicely, but I still give you some annotations, check it out.

1. The link goes to a known website and it is not Gelson's own website where they might sell Heirloom tomatoes. In fact, if you think about it, the whole post almost implies that you can purchase this type of tomatoes at Gelson's. But they don't tell you that, instead they give you the link to a recipe where you can use these tomatoes. Also goes along with Seth Godin's idea of telling stories.
2. Niiiice picture showing the tomatoes. We're visual creatures, feed us!
3. The post was well received by the community.
4. Someone in the community thought it would be good to share this post with their own group of friends, somehwere outside of the Gelson's wall. This is huge for a business because it is an endorsement from your customer to their friends, family or collegues.
5. This is a good sign, the community is supportive of each other. Not everybody leaves comments, some people (the majority) simply read the posts. Other people like the posts and other people's comments to show support, agreement, or acknowledgment of the new post or comment.
6. This is also a good sign, the company is actually available and responsive to people's feedback.

I've told you about the good stuff I see with this post, can you spot any opportunities missed? Let me know in the comments.

The post Example of a Good Facebook Post appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

If you have seen my video rant about Klout then you is might see where I'm coming from. Today, I have a much more practical approach to my thoughts. The gaps that the services have are tremendous, for example they don't measure Yelp yet. They can't measure your activity in a forum, and with the exception of Empire Avenue most of them ignore your own blogs. Blogs are arguably the center of a lot of social media interaction.

As cliché as it might sound, Content is king. So blogs and websites, especially individual's websites are the place where people find content to share across their networks. We need the measuring systems to quickly build a more flexible framework to which we can plug in all the smaller websites that we participate in. Whether it is our personal blog, GetGlue, GoodReads, Daily Mile, Daily Booth, and even StumbleUpon. If we are going to truly measure influence, or social activity then we must include all the avenues in which this interactions take place, not just the big ones or the ones that are convenient or most lucrative. Until then Klout, Peer Index, Empire Avenue and even Kred are nothing more than a sociology experiment; albeit, one of the funnest experiments I've participated in.

The post The Failures of Measuring Social Media appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

• Updating from cron or automated tasks
• Updating from your terminal
• Update certain events from a logfile
• Updating Twitter from a low-powered computer, TTYtter runs on anything that has a web connection and can run Perl.
• Checking or updating when you're stuck at a slow internet connection.

Maybe you don't need a reason and just want to try it out? Maybe you're just more comfortable in the command line than in the graphical interface. No matter your reason, you'll be glad to know that you can now update Twitter from the command line. Or will you?

TTYtter has been around for a while now, and it seems to be updated regularly; last update happened just recently, in August. The reason I found this handy little app was because a couple years back, my buddy @skehlet and I ran some quick scripts that would update Twitter from the command line. That ability to use my script broke after Twitter made some changes to how apps authorize (earlier last year, see this reference article). The secret to authorizing to or with Twitter now is to use oAuth, and I haven't had time to learn a whole lot about it.

After my script broke, I went on the hunt for a new way to update twitter from the command line, but instead I found a full blown client. TTytter, a Twitter client for Perl. The application is pretty cool and you can get it setup quickly. You'll need Perl though, if you don't know what that is then stop reading now. This isn't for you, I promise!

If you're still with me, then you probably like torturing yourself with the command line,  just for kicks. So I'll tell you that I installed TTytter on my on my Dreamhost account and bam! I was up and running with TTYtter. I had a fully interactive Twitter client in the cloud, on my Dreamhost server.

Now I don't expect anyone to jump out of their seats with excitement about this, after all this isn't a replacement to your current Twitter client, nor should you try it as such, this isn't even new, but I am excited because I just discovered. But if I have you reading past my warning above, then you might find this tool to be pretty  amazing if you know how to use it. If you're interested in automation, and automatic searches and those kinds of things this might just be the client for you.

Just like most good command line apps, this one does something and gives you ouput, apparently you can also feed it something else, like the output from another script. Get my drift?

I'll let you read through all the guts over at their own website , but TTYtter could be that simple utility you can use to schedule updates from the command line, or via cron, or even automated tasks. I found it because I need to have a reliable way of updating a twitter account for a brand new project. I'll let you know how my experience goes. This will also help our Liberam project that I mentioned a couple months back.

This isn't for the casual user of Twitter, nor is it for the social media enthusiast, it really isn't for anyone that likes their afternoons and sanity... unless he or she likes things like Vim or Emacs, Perl or Bash, or get excited about connecting via ssh to wget stuff.

Oh yeah, and TTytter gets props for reacting in an intelligent way when out of old habit, I issued an "exit" command while still in command line mode. Old habits die hard right?

TTytter - Twitter client for Perl - http://www.floodgap.com/software/ttytter/

The post TTYtter, yes Twitter from the command line appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Simply, you need to do it and learn some of these great insights.

The book is available for free at The Zero Moment of Truth (PDF, Kindle, Nook, ya-name-it)

These are some of the more memorable quotes and some of the interesting figures:

70% of Americans now say they look at product reviews before making a purchase.
83% of moms say they do online research after seeing TV commercials for products that interest them?

Talking about customers and how we buy stuff...

They browse, dig, explore, dream and master, and then they’re ready to buy with confidence. And what they learn, they share with others. ~DINA HOWELL

How the whole "Zero Moment of Truth" came to be, actually based on P&G's First Moment of Truth, that moment when you're standing in front of the shelves at the store and will pick between one brand or the other.

This moment was so important to P&G that they created a position titled Director of FMOT, and tapped Dina Howell to fill the job. And The Wall Street Journal found it so influential that they put it on the front page.

Oh but You think your business is different. Think again... I've been telling EVERYBODY for years that they need to be in this space, that they need to know what's going on and get involved. Some people listen, most tell me something like "my product doesn't sell well online" or "my service is different" You must reconsider that position, now.

If consumers will do research online for houses and health care, they’ll also do it for Band-Aids and ballpoint pens.

Although sometimes I hate the inconvenience of this, the truth is that we're a selfish society, and we want things right now and right here. Mobile is the key to the future of marketing and people want to talk to you when they feel like they want to talk to you. You must be engaged and available to cater to this; if you aren't someone else will be.

It really is understanding that you must be present in a conversation when they want to have it, not when you want to.

Reviews are huge, important if you want to be the company that a consumer chooses to buy from. Good reviews are awesome, but bad reviews are good too, for they give you authenticity. And people don't necesarily buy based on strangers' reviews, but rather..

People look for others who have been in the same situation as they are now.

And

They make decisions based on the opinions of people like themselves

The entry barrier for people making reviews is virtually zero now...

Yes, people take the time to leave messages online about how much they love Scotch Tape. That’s because the effort is down to zero. You would never get in your car, drive to the library and walk up to the second floor and ask a sleepy librarian for Consumer Reports before buying a 39-cent ballpoint pen. The effort and the item are imbalanced. But now there’s no friction. You can pull out your mobile phone and look it up — or leave your own opinion — on the fly.

Other things I learned...

• Things change, but the mental change within us also breaks boundaries. Read the part about the 4 minute mile. Amazing.
• This new model (even though it isn't new, just mainstream) is applicable to business to business and business to consumer type of enterprises.
• Mobile searches on Google doubled last year.
• Find Your Zero Moments
• Answer the Questions People Are Asking

What are your thoughts on the whole thing? Are you already implementing the ZMOT principles?

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