Beware of Automated Twitter Friend Adders

Posted on November 21st, 2008

Lately I have seen an increasing number of friends being added to my Twitter account. While the first one was suspiscious, with no information on the person, MLM in the username and only one post to an MLM website, the ones after that were almost identical.

It quickly became obvious that the accounts were automated, so I went looking for the latest program. Sure enough, there it was, splattered all over the Google results when I searched for “automated Twitter adder”.

Twitter support wasted no time shutting those accounts down, which is a good sign that they are on top of these things. Either that or someone reported it quickly. What interests be though is the reason for using a program to get friends. None of the accounts had more than 3 followers, yet each had close to 20. That is apparently the maximum number of followers the software will find for you. That makes it not only strange, but also useless.

Maybe the 20 is the most at a time and the process has to be repeated. Either way, if you become their friend, the only thing you will get is a bumch of marketing ads for programs that few people know about, or even care about anyway.

Instead of following them back when you get suspiscous notices, first look to see what their profile is about, the username they created, how many followers and friends they have. All of these together are signs that a program is adding you for ill intentions.

Twitter is a good tool for social networking when used with courtesy and you hand-pick your friends.

Tags: automated friend adder, Twitter
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Affiliate and Referral Programs Defined

Posted on November 14th, 2008

Learn the difference between an Affiliate program, Referral program and joint ventures before joining one.

By joining a Referral program, you can learn various aspects of real estate while earning an income. Your commissions can eventually pay for your tuition. Many companies have Referral programs, sometimes referred to as Affiliate programs, which are basically the same thing with a different name. The difference is that an Affiliate program generally has at least two levels so you can get paid a percentage of the sales generated by those you refer to the program.

Lead Partner Programs

The Lead Partner programs are set up for you to generate leads and let the company close the sales. The web page you set up will capture the prospect information and pass it on to the company. That page does not need a strong sales pitch. It simply generates enough interest that the visitor requests more information. Of all the various programs, this is by far the easiest to set up and promote.

Referral Programs

Referral programs are set up so that you get paid either a flat rate or a percentage of the sales that you generate. It does not include sales generated by those who joined the program through your Referral link. Your job is to refer sales to the company, much like the Affiliate programs, but without the option to earn from enrolling others.

Affiliate Programs

Most often an Affiliate program is mistaken for Multi-Level Marketing (MLM), where you get a piece of the sale generated by multiple levels of others who joined through your Referral link. MLM has been given a bad reputation by so many programs being set up so that those at the top of the list get most of the money. Those at the bottom are usually left with being paid just on the direct sales that they generate.

Knowing the difference between those different programs is important. You should know up front where your commissions will be generated. All of them should be free to join, since you will be generating business for the company. The difference between free and paid programs is when you get training along with the program. In that situation, paying a training fee is acceptable.

Sometimes program managers will charge a small monthly fee to have a website where you can send prospects. That site is maintained by the company and they want to be compensated for maintaining it. Having a replicated site, one where it looks identical to the others, cuts overhead costs by the company only having to maintain one set of website files. For those, you may or may not be charged a fee. If you are, it means that the sites are managed by someone outside the sales department.

Joint Ventures

While Join Venture (JV) programs have some similarities to Affiliate programs, there are distinct differences and advantages. With an Affiliate program, you promote the product and get paid a commission. With a Joint Venture, you are partnering with someone to help you develop, market and support the product, while sharing the profits.

The percentage of profits shared is generally much larger than that of an Affiliate program, since your JV partner will be helping you with the project. If someone sets up a JV with you, simply to set up a web page and blast out some emails promoting it with their unique link, they are an Affiliate.

Someone with whom you collaborate on the project to change and improve it, is a JV Partner. The share of profits you split, the duties each of you have and the level of risk are all determined when the JV is formed. It stands to reason that you want to make the package attractive enough to set up a JV with you, while allowing sufficient room for yourself to profit. The duties are usually split by the skills each JV member has. Do what you are good at and let the other partner handle the other duties.

Sample Lead Partner Program

Getting involved in real estate normally means you are required to take classes, pass a test and maintain that license every year by taking more classes. Those are meant to keep you up to date on any changes that may have occurred the previous year. While that still holds true to be licensed, there is a way to get into real estate without having a license.

A typical lead partner program runs like the one at ShortSaleHoldings.com. You join free, get access to the members area where you have marketing resources and can manage your contact information. You can also track the leads you bring in. There is no charge for the website and when the sale is completed, you get paid a very decent commission (see website for details). In many cases, all the lead partners do it simply put a banner that the company provides, or a link, on your website.

When you visit the site you will see that there are two distinct Referral programs. One is for referring short sale clients. The other is for referring others to the short sales training program and learn how they can do the short sales themselves.

Summary

• Affiliate Program: May have one or multiple commission levels. Multiple levels pay a percentage based on the sales generated by your referrals. The first level always includes product sales commissions.
• Lead Partner Program: Generate leads for the company and let them close the sales. This is the easiest of all the programs.
• Referral Program: Single level with commissions being generated through direct referrals.
• Multi-Level Marketing (MLM): Usually 10 or more levels with commissions being generated mostly by the fees paid by other members to join. Some products will be sold, but the primary focus is more often to get more people to join.
• Pyramid Disguised as MLM: This is where the sole focus is to recruit others who pay a membership fee, from which you are paid. Little, if any, product is sold.

Sample Sites

Lead Partner Program: Refer short sale leads at ShortSaleHoldings.com
Affiliate Program: Short Sale Investor Training ShortSaleHoldings.com/training

Tags: affiliate marketing, affiliate programs, joint venture programs, JV Partners, lead partner programs, MLM, pyramid schemes
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How to Get Free Website Traffic Using Link Exchanges

Posted on November 12th, 2008

Exchange Links with Related Sites to Get More Visitors

Look for industry-related sites and request that they either link to you or exchange links with you. The one-way links are best because each link is a virtual “vote” for your site and used by the search engines to help rank your site in the search results for your topic.

Reciprocal links also get traffic to your sites because you are exchanging “votes” for each other. You will also be sending traffic between your sites if the sites compliment each other. If your product or service can be used as an add-on to the services of the other site, or vice versa, then you will have a good match and both of you can benefit from the link exchange.

Linking to or between unrelated sites does not provide your visitors with useful information. If you link to Affiliate sites, make sure those links are not on your main page and they are kept at a minimum. Having a whole page of Affiliate links, especially products or services that are not related to your site, will drive your visitors away. They will get the idea that you are only after making sales, not providing them with useful information to gain their trust.

When looking for sites to exchange links with, look for criteria such as the number of links on their site; Stay away from “link farms” – sites that have hundreds of unrelated links on one page; The Google Page Rank of that site – available with the Google Toolbar and online at WebsiteManagers.net in the marketing section.

Link managers come in various packages with some of the more complex scripts costing usually $50 to $100. Those are the ones that allow you to create categories, ban users, along with many other features. One of the full featured programs is AutoLinksPro Link Exchange Software.

PHP Junkyard has a free link manager named PHP Link Manager, also known as LinkMan that I often use. The setup is fairly easy, but requires editing some files with a plain text editor.

Once the files are in place, you will use the Admin section to maintain the links that others put on your links list. This software will check the linking site to make sure it contains a link back to your website. If the link is not there, the reciprocal link is removed from your list.

A Word of Caution: Not keeping your list cleaned can get you a negative Google Page Rank. Yes, negative. I made the mistake of allowing some links stay on the list that were unrelated to mine, added a “nofollow” tag to the links so the search engines would not follow them, and the links page achieved a Page Rank of -1.

Yes, that is a minus one. Getting busy in life is good, especially if it means that your business is growing. By having various processes set up properly, you can let them run with little maintenance. Make a mistake along the way though and you will spend more time trying to fix it, like I have done with my reciprocal links list.

If you want to allow non-related links on your site, then put them into a separate folder or category. Example: I copied LinkMan into a separate folder, changed the settings to reflect the new location and named it “Games”. That is because I received so many requests for gaming links that it was becoming a problem to keep them cleaned out. This way they have a list of their own.

If your website only focuses on one topic, then you will only allow links from that industry and remove the rest. That will keep your list focused and clean.

Software to Help You Generate Links

There is a program called HyperVRE that helps you create web pages search engines love. The VRE stands for Virtual Real Estate, which is basically what websites are.

Some of the benefits include:

· Generate THOUSANDS of fresh, unique content-rich web pages from highly-targeted keyword lists.

· Add extremely targeted auto-refreshing content to your website by using rotating keyword definitions and put your niche keywords on steroids. Fill each of your web pages with content the search engines will love.

· Keep your web pages fresh with unique content by placing several rotating RSS feeds to ensure that all pages are unique and highly related to the topic.

Learn more about HyperVRE and how it can help you get more incoming links to your site.

This article is a sample from my book, How to Get Free or Low-Cost Website Traffic.

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Jim Hutchinson
Author of How to Get Free or Low-Cost Website Traffic

Tags: free website traffic, hypervre, link exchanges, link managers
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