Who uses Twitter?  That is a question with a never-ending answer, but Jonathan Kash (@time2simplify) of Fluent Simplicity initially created the Twitter Brand Index to begin to answer this question.  The Twitter Brand Index has since been moved to its own website, the Social Brand Index.  The Social Brand Index organizes all of the brands under the following top-level categories:

• Business
• Education
• Entertainment
• Executives & Notable Individuals
• For Consumers
• Government & Politics
• Media
• Non-Profit Organizations
• Service Providers
• Social Properties
• Technology
• Travel

 And, as expected, each category is further delineated by sub-categories.  For example, the Technology category is further categorized into

• Business News
• Certifications
• Enterprise Organizations
• Game Developers
• Mobile Applications
• Online Service Providers
• Open Source
• Platforms
• SaaS
• Search
• Software
• Tech Support
• Telecom/VOIP

I can only imagine the amount of time and research that went into compiling all of this great information. One thing that this evolving directory conveys to me is variety and diversity of businesses that is trying new and interesting ways to engage consumers, and doing it in a public forum that can be studied and picked apart by anyone to gauge its effectiveness.

It is extremely interesting to see how companies like CNN, NPR, AT&T, Ford, NY Times, Southwest Airline, and MGM are using Twitter as a new outlet.

It never ceases to amaze me of the creative ways that Twitter is being used.  If you need some inspiration, Chris Brogan has put together a list of 50 ways to use Twitter.  Chris offers some good insight on getting you started using Twitter effectively for business.  He gives steps on getting started, ideas on what to Tweet about, useful tips and tools to use Twitter more effectively, and how to handle Twitter negatives and turn them into positives.

 Of all the companies that I have come across on Twitter, one company stands at the forefront in being the epitome of how to leverage this popular service.  That company is Zappos. The company uses Twitter to not only build customer relationships and give you a glimpse into the service-oriented culture, but also to foster relationships between employees within Zappos.

Zappos has integrated Twitter into their website and it is an integral part of company communication from the CEO, Tony Hsieh (@Zappos), on down the chain.  What is interesting is that the company also offers classes on how to use Twitter, and I think that is awesome.   

Want to find out what all 444 (as of 9/2/2008) employees using Twitter at Zappos is doing?  Just point your browser at http://twitter.zappos.com/employee_tweets to find out in real-time what is happening on their public Twitter time line.

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Twitter icon from AODdesign.com

The estimated United States population by the census for July 2007 was 301,139,947. The Wireless Association (ctia.org) reports that there were 255 million subscribers at the end of 2007. Now do the simple math…255 million is what percent of 301 million? The answer is 85% of the United States population has a mobile phone. Most of these people who own cell phones are between the ages of 18-34, with 85% of them being active users of text messaging. One interesting think about SMS is that 96% of all text messages are read. Text message marketing is currently a $1.2 billion industry that is expected to grow to a $24 Billion by 2012.

Ashley Furniture Boosts Sales Using SMS
Ashley Furniture used SMS and e-mail in July to inform customers about secret sales. Before a 12-hour private event, Ashley sent text messages and e-mails, allowing it to bring in $30,000 in sales during the one-day event.

To follow up after the 12-hour event, Ashley Furniture held a four-day secret sale. The morning the sale began, 6000 text messages and 28,700 emails were sent to customers. In the end, Ashley saw $138,460 in sales. What is interesting about the two modes of communication is that although the email channel was four times that of text messages, sales from the 6000 customers who received the text messages resulted in $85,438 in sales, or 61.7% of total sales.
Source >>

Armani Exchange
A|X Armani Exchange is using SMS to allow shoppers to enter a text-to-win promotion for an “A/X $1,000 Shopping Spree Sweepstakes.” Instructions on how to participate can be found on the retailer’s shopping bags. To enter, all the customer has to do is text the keyword AX to short code 276264 (ARMANI) for a chance to win a $1,000 shopping spree. The catch is that you also agree to receive up to a few SMS marketing messages a month. Not bad at all.

8/27/2008 Update: I just received my first AX SMS that “Armani Exchange End of Summer Sales starts TODAY.  Take an additional 25% off already reduced merchandise! Does not apply to existing promotions.” 
Source >>

NFL Saints Use SMS
The NFL Saints are using SMS to interact with fans during the game. They ask fans for there favorite player and display the results in real-time. As an added incentive, participants also have the opportunity to win Saints vs. Packers tickets.
Source >>

American Idol SMS Volume
AT&T shared that text messaging volumes jumped up to 78 million during the 6th season of American Idol, up from 64.5 million sent the previous season.

The SEO Toolbook Keyword Suggestion Tool is powered by WordTracker. All you do is type in a keyword into the text field and click the Submit button and your keyword list comes back in a few seconds. The free keyword tool from WordTracker is good, but it only gives you two columns of the top 100 keywords, one column for keyword search volume, and the other column for the keyword. The SEO Toolbook Keyword Suggestion takes those 100 top keywords from WordTracker and adds a lot more value to the consumer.

I am just amazed ad the amount of information that they give on each keyword. One important feature is the “Export to CSV” hyper link in the upper-left corner of your keyword list. Click that link and you can save the keyword list to your desktop to open in Microsoft Excel. Once the file is open, you will see three columns that are labeled “Exact Match”, “Phrase Match”, and “Broad Match”.

Here is where the Google AdWords Traffic Estimator comes into play. Copy each one of the previously mentioned columns one at a time into the Google AdWords Traffic Estimator keyword field, making sure you only have one keyword per line. In section C of the Google AdWords Traffic Estimator, click on “All Countries and Territories” and then click the Add button to the immediate right, effectively adding the selected item into the “Selected Countries and/or Territories” text field. Now, click the Continue button on the bottom of the page to go to the Traffic Estimator page.

The Traffic Estimator page has some valuable information on it, in particular the “Estimated Avg. CPC” column. Click this column heading hyperlink to sort in descending order, making the down arrow appear. You should now be seeing the estimated average cost per click for each keyword that you could expect to pay if you were advertising in Google AdWords. On the flip side of Google AdWords is Google AdSense.

According to Google, AdSense offers contextual advertising solution to web publishers, delivering ads that are relevant to the content pages on a website. By knowing how much the cost-per-click ranges are, you can target only the high paying AdSense keywords by creating articles for your website or blog. For example, I searched for “Insurance” in the SEO Toolbook Keyword Suggestion Tool and copied the three sets of keywords into the Google AdWords Traffic Estimator. I sorted the keyword list in descending order by clicking the “Estimated Avg. CPC” column. The top 6 keywords are as follows:

Keyword Estimated Avg. CPC
=====================================
[auto insurance quotes] $28.61 – $38.50
[insurance quote] $28.23 – $36.19
auto insurance quotes $27.67 – $35.55
“auto insurance quotes” $27.63 – $35.56
[insurance quotes] $27.18 – $40.77
“auto insurance” $26.04 – $34.13

(Note: These keywords were copied from Google AdWords Traffic Estimator on 4/2/2008)

Wow! Someone is actually paying anywhere between $26.04 and $40.77 in AdWords to advertise with those keywords. Just imagine how much you would get if someone clicked on an AdSense ad that was displayed in one of your articles on “Insurance”. The really amazing thing is that you can pay a writer on E-Lance around $6 to $10 dollars per article, freeing up your valuable time for more important things, like using this method to find even more expensive keywords.

As you can see, using the free keyword research tools, you can get an idea about just how important picking the right keywords in both AdWords and AdScense can make to your bottom line and how much you make. I hope this little technique helps you find high-paying keyword to target for writing articles. Let me know your findings so I can share with others.

Free Keyword Tool Links:

SEO Toolbook: http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/
Google AdWords Traffic Estimator: https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox

If you are an AdWords user, also check the free Super Affiliate Helper

Features:

• Greatly minimize the work you do in Excel with Amit Mehta’s multiplier methodology in the Super Affiliate Coaching program.
• Specify a campaign name.
• Copy-and-paste an existing keyword list that contains one keyword per line.
• Automatically removes duplicate keywords and sorts keywords list.
• Automatically creates keyword list, ad groups, and ads that are properly formatted to copy into Google’s AdWords Editor.
• Automatically swap ad headlines greater than 25 characters (Google) with a shorter one.
• Creates broad, phrase, and exact matches for each keyword.
• Creates one keyword per ad group.
• Each word of the ad is capitalized.
• Sets default bids for ad group to .10 and status to ‘Active’ (or change these options in Excel or AdWords Editor).

Check out screen cast page that demonstrates one of many methods for getting keywords, and then shows how to copy those keywords from the Super Affiliate Helper into the AdWords Editor.

Check out the Super Affiliate Helper!

I welcome any comments, feedback, bugs, and any and all donations.

By bringing in increased traffic, you are not only getting your message out to more people, but you’re developing a stream for passive and perpetual revenue. From Google’s AdSense to traditional associate programs, increased traffic can bring in increased income.

The advent of search engine optimization and the necessity to write “inorganic”, or optimized subject matter, has brought about an increased need to provide substantial and relevant content. Generally speaking, the more content, the better.

Most online searches for content are focused on how to do something. How to clean a spot off a dress, how to find a good doctor, how to write a great resume. The more “how to” content you can provide on your site, the more traffic you will receive. Turning yourself into a self-appointed authority on a subject commands respect as well as repeat visitors. After writing your content and becoming an expert in your subject matter, time must be spent submitting your articles to various article submission services. By going to Google or Yahoo and searching for “article submission”, you will find a list of sites that you can use to submit your article throughout the internet. The more you write, and the more you submit, the greater your traffic will be.

Taking your newfound expert status a step further, producing a small instructional video and placing it on YouTube is an incredible opportunity to show your prowess and, in turn, bring even more traffic to your site.

People love a good controversial website. It’s no secret that radio personalities such as Michael Savage or Don Imus have the following they do because people love them AND people hate them. By creating a controversial blog, people will return to your site often to hear what you have to say and leave comments. The more comments you get, the more money you will make. It’s that simple.

Millions of people search the internet daily for new contests to enter. A simple, fun contest can bring an enormous amount of traffic to your site. A contest with even the smallest of prizes will bring a lot of traffic to your site. A contest that occurs on a regular basis (weekly, monthly, etc.) will have internet users bookmarking your website and returning time and time again.

Another fun way to bring people to your website is to offer a survey. Websites such as Zoomerang.com or Surveymonkey.com offer free survey development, enabling you to produce surveys free and with little effort. People love filling in surveys, emailing the link to a friend, and comparing results. Tickle.com is a great example of a website that is simply surveys and the traffic it brings in is enormous.

When trying to bring more traffic to your site, it is important that you think outside of your usual circle of friends or clients. What would make a stranger come to your site? What can you do to make it stand out from all the other sites? By offering up some of the above suggestions, you can create a website that will produce passive revenue through increased traffic.

In her down-to-earth, sincere and often humorous style, Rosalind Gardner guides you through the entire process of building an affiliate marketing business on the ‘Net.

Frequently revised and updated to reflect industry changes, the Super Affiliate Handbook now consists of 235 pages and 235 screenshots that will show you step-by-step how to become a Super Affiliate. , you’ll learn how to pick the best programs, negotiate a commission raise and save time, money and effort on everything from affiliate software to web hosting.

To learn exactly how she does it, Click Here.

Seven Steps for Creating Successful Marketing:

1. Find the inherent drama within your offering.
   Example: Speedy energy drink is the only product that has Gingko, Ginseng, Gurarana, Mangosteen, Caffeine, and Africanized Bee Honey.
2. Translate that inherent drama into a meaningful benefit.
   Example: Online other products, Speedy energy drink is safe for all ages.
3. State your benefits as believably as possible.
   Example: Speedy energy drink lasts twice as long as other drinks.
4. Get people’s attention.
   Example: Hand out Speedy energy drink at the mall, events, or grocery stores.
5. Motivate your audience to do something.
   Example: Hand out time-sensitive discount coupons to create a sense of urgency to purchase Speedy energy drink.
6. Be sure you are communicating clearly.
   Example: use simple and concise language to convey the benefits of Speedy energy drink.
7. Measure your finished advertisement, commercial, letter, or brochure against your creative strategy.
   Example: Did the creative strategy for Speedy energy drink match the expected outcome?