One of the methods of attracting more followers on Twitter is to make a bold and easily noticeable statement that you follow back. It’s that little extra added to the profile description that might seem like a good idea, but really isn’t. Why? Because of how it makes you look!

First, it says you’re in the habit of following spammers. Because there are spammers adding you to their followed list every day and saying you follow everyone back (automatically or not) will just draw more to you. As everyone fears spammers, your embracing them might trigger the spamming flag in some people’s minds when analyzing you as a person they might follow. Continue reading

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Guest post by Philip Rudy

Getting your website some exposure can be one of the hardest things to do, especially when you are first starting out. Getting traffic to your website revolves around a lot of different things, like making sure you have great on-site SEO and a website that has great value to begin with. Once you have these two basic (but sometimes very difficult to accomplish) things in order, the next step to gaining more traffic involves link building – which means generating a lot of back-links, meaning links that are on someone else’s site and lead to yours. Google recognizes back-links as one of the biggest key ingredients to ranking a website and the more you have the better your website will rank in Google’s search engine.

So how do you get quality back-links?

Obviously some back-links are worth more weight in Google’s eyes than others. If you’re a beginner in the website industry, then you have probably done your fair share of “how to get back-links” research. There are a ton of good ways to get back-links out there – some work and some don’t. Places people usually start are link directories and article directories, which are always good to have in your link building plan, but will not get you very far unless you pick out some great link directories and do a humongous article directory campaign. Continue reading

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Guest post by Claire Williams

There’s been a lot said about the power of social networking online in recent years and it is an excellent tool for connecting with new people and promoting your personal brand.  But I’m interested in the ways online networking can interact with real, offline events to the benefit of both, especially in the case of event organizers and attendees.

For organisers, social networking opens up a new world of promotional opportunities and chance to ensure that all attendees have an excellent time at their event.  For attendees, interacting with an event’s online networking can help them feel more at ease and get more out of the day.

So here’s how organisers and attendees can use social networks to get the most out of the event. Continue reading

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There’s been so much virtual ink spilled on building relationships on social media sites that one needs to be blind not to run across one article giving a few tips on the matter. Yet some still try their own obnoxious techniques that don’t work anyway.

One trend that I’ve recently notices and got an “oh, really?” from me was the following: add a friend, wait a bit for them to follow back and if they don’t, send them a message saying you’ll unfriend them if you’re unwilling to return the favor. Now how does that threat work? Simply put, it doesn’t.

The reason to friend or follow anyone is that you somehow find them interesting enough. If you want to get their attention, start a conversation with them, ask the right questions to get their attention and make them feel valued and interesting. They then might return the favor.

But if you act like and impatient, self-absorbed nuisance,  they will at best ignore you. Or choose to block you all together or report you. Why risk that when you can spend 5 minutes forgetting about what you want and think of what other people need. They will definitely respond in a much more pleasant manner than they would in the case of virtual blackmail!

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