We’re changing the site design and structure of this web site.

We’re in the process of migrating some old posts into archives and organizing some others.

I’m disabling comments so we can back up all the data and get things moved.

The new site design will be up soon.

~John

Happy New Year, everyone!

It’s a new decade. And there’s no better time than NOW to work hard and make your goals a reality.

I hope you make 2010 your best year yet.

~John

Only 3-feet tall. In a wheel chair. 200 bone fractures before he was an adult.

And oh yeah… wildly successful and happy.

His name is Sean Stephenson. I first met him in the summer of 2004. He’s one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever met.

Sean is the perfect example of living life to the fullest. No matter what you are facing in your own life, or what your ultimate goals are, if you can’t get inspired by Sean’s story and life then you’ve got a real problem.

Sean has a POWERFUL message to share with the world. He’s an incredible inspiration that has had a huge impact on thousands of people (myself included) and now he’s been given an amazing chance to spread his message…

The BIO Channel is producing a TV show for Sean called “The Three Foot Giant.” The first episode airs on Sunday, November 15th at 11PM PST, 10PM EST. Please tune in and watch! It’s going to be a fantastic show.

We need to get over 300,000 people to view this initial episode so they will ‘green light’ the series. Please help spread the word anyway you can! And make sure to watch it.

Click Here To Watch The Trailer For Sean’s Show!

I’ve received a TON of great feedback since releasing my free report, “Internet Marketing 2010: The Road Ahead.”  (Thanks, everyone!)

But I want to clarify a few things…

1.  My statement about “remove all testimonials.”

I was referring to RESULTS-BASED TESTIMONIALS.  That’s what the new FTC guidelines affect and the context of when I stated that.

Someone posted on a marketing forum that I was ‘crazy’ for giving such advice.  That as long as testimonials weren’t full of hype and outlandish claims that they are okay to use.

WRONG.

According to the latest guidelines (and again, I’m not an attorney and this isn’t legal advice) marketers cannot use testimonials that contain results from a product that the AVERAGE buyer of the product doesn’t achieve.

In other words, even a ‘tame’ testimonial that just says, “I really liked your book.  I made my first $50 a few days after buying it.”  According to the FTC guidelines, if the average buyer of the book doesn’t make $50 a few days after buying it, such a testimonial is considered MISLEADING and it’s against their new guidelines.

Yes, that’s how LAME these new guidelines are.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with someone stating how much they liked the product and what they got out of it, etc. but ones that state actual RESULTS (big or small) are the ones now under scrutiny by the FTC.

Will the FTC come after you if you use a testimonial that states someone made $50 a few days after buying your book?  Probably not.  But according to their latest guidelines it sure seems like THEY CAN.

2.  My statement that “Social Media sucks.”

Anyone that read all of my comments in the report about Social Media knows that I recommend everyone use it.  It’s great for building backlinks, syndicating content, and building relationships — and, yes, finding new customers.  I think social bookmarking and doing trackbacks (with great content) is a must.

Most of my ’sucks’ comments were aimed at Twitter and Facebook.  The sites most people think of when thinking of Social Media.  These are the sites that I feel many people are wasting far too much time on.  YES, you should definitely use them.  No doubt about it.

But when compared to other Internet Marketing strategies (PPC, building a list, creating products, making offers, working on copy & conversion, SEO, creating & distributing content) it doesn’t produce as much money.  Therefore, I believe one shouldn’t spend as much time using those sites.

This is exactly why I mention people should use these sites for a max of one hour per day.

Twitter and Facebook have become the new AOL Chatroom.  Even if you feel you’re using them “in the name of your business” it’s too easy to waste hours of time chatting and socializing with people on them.  If you don’t actively limit the amount of time you use them, they WILL hold your business back.

Let me start by saying this post isn’t going to be very popular with some people.  In fact, it’s probably going to ruffle a few feathers.  But that’s okay.

I’m here to help people make more money with their marketing, and sometimes the truth hurts.

There are certainly exceptions to everything, and some marketers may find a way to make auto-follow effective, but I’ve personally seen the light and believe it’s a doomed technique for long-term success with Twitter.

A couple of days ago, I unfollowed over 30,000 people on Twitter.  Many people are wondering WHY.  And this blog post explains why I am no long auto-following people on Twitter (i.e. auto-following anyone that starts following me.)

After using Twitter for the past several months, and running several marketing tests with it, I’ve learned many things about it.  I think Twitter has great long-term marketing potential, but there are definitely some powerful do’s and don’ts to making it work for your business.

Here Are Five Reasons Not To Auto-Follow People On Twitter

1.  Twitter Auto-Follow Is The New Email ‘Safe List’

Do you remember email opt-in safe lists?

Someone came up with an idea to help other marketers get more opt-in email subscribers.  So they created a system where anyone who joined would get the ‘right’ to be able to send emails to all the other members.

Thousands upon thousands of marketers joined these ’safe lists’ so they could instantly have access to a large opt-in email list to send their marketing to.  Sounds great, right?

There was only one small problem… barely anyone would actually read the emails that the system sent out.  In fact, it became a known technique to join a safe list and use a throw-away email address that you never used.

This made safe lists worthless for marketing.

Twitter auto-follow is producing similar results.  Think about it…

No one can possibly follow the tweets from thousands of people.  NO ONE. Trust me, I know.  

I was following so many people that I barely saw tweets from anyone.  Heck, I’d ‘refresh’ my timeline and instantly see an entirely new page of tweets.  It was just too overwhelming for me to pay attention to.

If Twitter is to be used as a RESPONSIVE marketing tool for your business then you’re going to need people to read your tweets and to take action when you want them to take action - such as to read blog posts links that you post, visit links to special offers for your business, etc.

AUTO-FOLLOW ATTRACTS OTHERS THAT AUTO-FOLLOW.

It’s an incestuous cycle.  If you auto-follow others you’re going to be attracting Twitter users that also auto-follow others.  Let’s face it, most are using auto-follow to get more Twitter followers.  But getting more Twitter followers this way comes at a price — you attract others that WILL RARELY (IF EVER) READ YOUR TWEETS.  It’s just like the safe list model.

Good marketing is all about RESPONSE.  It’s definitely a QUALITY not QUANTITY scenario.  There’s a reason that an opt-in email list of 5,000 highly targeted and responsive people can make 100 TIMES MORE than a lower quality opt-in list of 500,000.

2.  ”It’s Not Show-Friends It’s Show-Business”

That’s a great quote from the movie Jerry Maquire and it really applies to using Twitter for your business.

Something you need to quickly realize is that ego doesn’t pay the bills.  Most people want high follower counts for ego purposes.  Heck, I do and I’m willing to admit it.

Twitter is fun and your follower count is like the scoreboard of a video game.  Who wouldn’t want a gazillion followers just for bragging rights?

But at the same time, it really has to come down to MAKING MONEY.  Do you want a big ego or do you want to make maximum money from your marketing efforts?

If you want to make more money, then don’t auto-follow.  The followers you do attract will be people that only want to read what you have to say and actively follow what your up to.  Wow, what an amazing concept.  (It’s actually why Twitter was created in the first place.)

Your “@” replies and conversations will be much more valuable to your business and will yield much higher returns - because you’ll be eliminating a lot of other auto-follow marketers that will be wasting your time trying to get exposure for their own accounts by starting pseudo-conversations with you.

Keep in mind that many conversations on Twitter don’t happen from just follower-to-follower connections.

“But Is Not Following Someone Back Rude?”

Not at all.  Again, that’s not what Twitter was created for.  If you want reciprocal communication then use an Instant Messenger service.  Would you add all of your Twitter followers to your IM list?  Of course not.

People should follow you on Twitter because they want to read what you have to say.  Period.  If you want to make money from Twitter then you need to be saying and attracting YOUR TARGET MARKET.  You need to be giving enough value to your ideal prospect that they’ll WANT to follow you.  If you don’t, you’re not going to make much money from Twitter; regardless of what tricks and techniques you try and use.

3.  You’ll Get Bombarded With Direct Messages That Aren’t Worth Your Time

When you follow someone you give them the right to send you a direct message.  Rest assured, you’ll start to get all sorts of spam and worthless DMs.  I know, I was up to over 6,000 DMs before I nuked my account.

You also run the risk of hurting your reputation with certain prospects and customers if you aren’t extremely attentive to their DMs.  You’ll quickly discover it’s very hard (nearly impossible) to reply to all the DMs you’ll receive, and as a result you’re going to upset some folks that contacted you.  This can hurt your business and lose you a lot of money.

There are different methods to keep people from sending you Direct Messages on Twitter, but most are unaware of them and it can still create a problem for most marketers.

4.  Auto-Follow Destroys The Twitter Experience

As I’ve already mentioned, when you follow too many people it becomes impossible to keep up with all the tweets.  You’ll end up discovering, like I did, that it takes the fun out of Twitter.  Twitter ends up becoming just a bunch of NOISE.

And, sure, there are more and more tools being created where you can ’sub-list’ your followers so you can keep up with just a select group of Twitter users, but to me that’s really DISINGENUOUS.  When you follow someone on Twitter (automated or not) you’re basically saying, “I’m going to read what you have to say.”

So if you auto-follow too many people that really does become just a big LIE.  Because, again, it’s nearly impossible to follow so many tweets.

5. Twitter Users That Auto-Follow Will Lose Credibility

If you’ve paid attention to everything I’ve stated so far then you’ll understand why most people on Twitter will eventually realize the same things.

I believe Twitter users will begin to look at others that auto-follow (which is obvious when the ‘following’ and ‘followers’ numbers are very close to each other) as POOR QUALITY USERS.  Auto-follow users will be looked at like safe list marketers.  People will look at them (whether it’s true or not) as someone that’s just trying to get as many followers at all costs, and not really caring about what those people tweet about.

Think about it… what’s more impressive… someone with 10,000 followers that follows only a few people, or someone with 10,000 followers that also follows 10,000 people?  Twitter users know that the first person in this example must really be someone worth listening to because all those people that follow them stand to gain nothing in return.  (Except for the great value of their tweets.)

There’s a reason 99% of the most influential Twitter users in the world don’t auto-follow thousands of people.

This is exactly what will lead to HIGHER RESPONSE for your Twitter marketing.  Higher response will make you more money.  This is a PROVEN FACT in marketing.

You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/johnreese.  I won’t promise that I’ll follow you back, but I’ll do my best to deliver great value in my tweets.

PLEASE RETWEET THIS BLOG POST.  SO MANY PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW THE TRUTH.

Just copy & paste below the line and tweet it.  (Thank you.)

—–

PLEASE RT: @johnreese 5 Reasons Why Twitter Auto-Follow Is Bad Marketing -> http://tinyurl.com/l2jmzf

Opportunity.com will open at 3:00PM EST today.

For now you can watch a Sneak Preview video of what’s on the inside…

http://www.income.com/images/OPP/opptysneak.html

For everyone asking, Opportunity.com opens next Thursday, May 7th.

I’ll be posting a new Special Report very soon about Affiliate Marketing.

Stay tuned.

I’m very happy to officially announce (finally) that we are rolling out a new site this month…

Opportunity.com

Opportunity.com is a very powerful membership site that will help you make money with Affiliate Marketing.

The site will have a full-time research team that will constantly scour the Internet to report back to you with the latest trends, market research, keyword activity, what the ‘hot’ affiliate opportunities are at any given time, and much much more.

Opportunity.com will contain tons of step-by-step tutorials that will teach anyone how to start, grow, and explode Affiliate Marketing income.

EVERY BUSINESS should be generating some of its revenue from Affiliate Marketing.  So if you have an existing business, Opportunity.com will make it easy to tap into your market for additional income.  (And show you how to scale that income each month.)

If you don’t yet have your own fun-to-run income-producing online business, Opportunity.com will show you how to start making money right away from scratch.

Opportunity.com will be the ultimate resource for finding new affiliate programs and CPA offers.  It will help you discover lucrative new opportunities before ‘the masses’ do so you can make easy ‘first mover’ income; as many popular offers get saturated once too many people are promoting them.

Opportunity.com will teach you the flexibility of being able to ‘mine’ different opportunities in different markets at the same time.  The sky really is the limit for the potential of the estimated $7 Billion a year Affiliate Marketing industry.

Stay tuned for more info!

Income.com Update: We’ll be rolling out the main Income.com Media & Community site as soon as we finish the development.  It’s been a long time in the works but we hit a few programming snags along the way.  We’re now in the late stages of development and getting closer to completion.

Customers are receiving their courses and are excited about getting started!

If you need anything to do with your order, please don’t hesitate to submit a support ticket at http://www.trafficsecrets.com/support2.html and we’ll assist you right away. You can also call our office at (407)310-1000.

Here’s a great photo from TS2 customer Antonio Thornton…

* Matching TS2 pacifier not included.

I just got the confirmation from our fulfillment center that Traffic Secrets 2.0 is finally shipping. They received the foam inserts and reassembled the course cases and they are good to go.

Tracking numbers are being assigned and you will receive it via email as soon as your course has a tracking number. They are processing several thousand orders so your continue patience is sincerely appreciated. You should be receiving your tracking number soon and then your course shortly thereafter.

Thanks to everyone for their patience and understanding. We did not expect the unforeseen problems and this is the first product we’ve ever experienced a shipping delay with. Please know that our entire team was working very hard to remedy all the problems as fast as we could.