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You really have to be very careful these days when you put yourself out there in front of the public, especially when you begin to build a name for yourself. There are a lot of nut cases out there who can’t wait to take pot shots at you…some of them not so nice. This article is going to deal with Twitter specifically since it is so popular today. These are just a few common sense tips that should help keep you out of trouble. Nothing is fool proof, but these will help.

At the top of the list, and this goes for any place online and not just Twitter, never give personal info about yourself such as where you live. You never know who’s going to send you a ton of junk mail to your postal address just as a joke. It won’t be a joke when you have to go through all that stuff. For some people, it’s probably not a good idea to even use your real name. I found that out the hard way. Of course I like to brand myself so I have to expect to take the bad with the good. Ultimately, it’s your choice as to how much of yourself you put out there.

Next, you want to make sure that you keep all your info, such as passwords, secure. In fact, you might want to regularly change your password. In choosing one, what I do is let Roboform do it for me. Roboform is a great little utility that remembers all your passwords for you plus, if you allow it to choose yours for you, it comes up with some pretty hard to crack ones. They’re all a minimum of 8 characters and pretty well mixed up. They’re certainly better than the ones most people come up with themselves.

But what if somebody steals your identity or makes trouble for you over at Twitter? No problem. Simply report them to Twitter and let them handle it. They have a form that you can fill out where you can choose the offense. One of them is impersonation, which is a great way to damage somebody’s reputation. In order to prove this, you do have to provide Twitter with your personal information so that they can contact you. In this case, you won’t mind it.

Sad as it is, it’s a dangerous world out there. I have learned this first hand. You can never be too careful and no, nothing is 100% fool proof. But if you take enough precautions and report any violations, you give yourself the best chance of surviving the social networking jungle that Twitter is a part of.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to know what the 7 Deadly Sins of Internet Marketing are? Get my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/7deadlysins/7deadlysins.html and save your business from going down the tubes before it even has a chance.

Everybody loves Twitter. I get. Heck, even I spend some time on it each day. The operative word being “some.” I do not live there. I do not make it my home away from home like some of you marketers do. And the question that has to be asked is this. Even if you are getting a following on Twitter and making some cash from doing so, are your efforts worth the time spent when maybe you could be doing something else that would bring you a bigger return? This article takes a look at that issue.

I’m going to throw some hypothetical figures at you here in order to illustrate my point. These are in no way meant to reflect actual reality because the truth is, everybody is going to be different. But this should give you some idea of whether or not your time is being utilized properly.

Let’s for argument sake say that you spend two hours a day on Twitter chatting with your followers and getting new followers. Okay, great. Let’s say that those two hours a day, after a 30 day period, bring you in an additional $500 a month. That comes out to about $17 a day more or less. So you’re working two hours to make an additional $17 or at a rate of about $8.50 an hour. Now I don’t know about you, but I can make more than that working at a McDonalds.

Now, I know what you’re going to say. If you didn’t spend that two hours, you’d have $500 less at the end of the month. BUT…what if you were to spend those two hours a day writing articles and submitting them to directories instead. With the proper niche research, two hours of article writing a day could easily mean an extra $1,000 a month. That’s twice as much income as what you’re making chatting on Twitter.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use Twitter. I use it. I use it all of about five minutes a day and that’s been good enough to increase my blog readership by four times. But I’m not going to put an exorbitant amount of time into Twitter when I know that for that same amount of time, I could be doing something that will bring me more money.

Too many people don’t value their time, and that’s the problem. They look at their time as free. It’s not. In fact, once you’ve spent your time on something, you can never get it back. Money, you can always get back from a decent return on your investment.

Think about this the next time you decide to fritter away your day on Twitter.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to know what the 7 Deadly Sins of Internet Marketing are? Get my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/7deadlysins/7deadlysins.html and save your business from going down the tubes before it even has a chance.

In case you haven’t noticed, social networking, especially Twitter, is very big. There are people out there who have tens of thousands of followers. Maybe you’re one of them. But, I have to ask this question. Are you screaming to be heard? If you are, you’re going about things all wrong. There is a right way and a wrong way to be successful with social networks. I’m going to show you the right way. What you decide to do is up to you.

If you frequent Twitter for any length of time during the day, you’ll notice two kinds of people. Well, actually three. One will be successful, one will be so-so and the third will fail. If you don’t know which is which, I’m going to point them out under no uncertain terms.

Let’s start with the so-so guy. He’s the one who talks about what he ate for dinner, his latest golf conquest or maybe the TV show he’s currently watching. He just likes to chat. He doesn’t really offer anything in the way of useful info but he’s not intrusive. He’s certainly pleasant enough. And maybe, the rare occasion when he puts out a link to a product, he might make a sale…maybe. But he’s not very successful with using Twitter.

Then there is the guy who is just a total failure. Not only that, he’s the guy who usually ends up getting thrown out of the network altogether. He’ll do nothing but send links to products…all day and night. He’ll send direct messages with spam to everybody who follows him or even personal replies to people with that same spam. He has nothing useful to share. He’s just there to sell you stuff. He annoys everybody he comes in contact with. Yes, he is a total failure…not just as a marketer.

Then there is the successful person. He’s the one who shares important info…maybe a news item that people need to know or an article with important tips on doing something. He doesn’t chat a lot, but occasionally lets people see a social side for fun. He mixes it up but always provides value for the people following him. He’s subtle about his promotions, usually including them at the end of the articles he sends. He actually helps people when they have questions and problems.

So, which one are you? I know which one I am, and as a result, my blog readership has increased by over four times. See, you don’t have to scream to be heard. All you need to do is provide info that people need.

Yes, it’s REALLY that simple.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to know what the 7 Deadly Sins of Internet Marketing are? Get my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/7deadlysins/7deadlysins.html and save your business from going down the tubes before it even has a chance.