3 STEPS TO SUCCESS WITH TWITTER

Laying The Foundations With Sarah Cannata

 

Another great interview here with Australian freelance writer Sarah Cannata where Keith really spells out the 3 STEPS TO SUCCESS WITH TWITTER”.

Keith talks here about laying the foundations for your Twitter success with some well thought out strategies you can start today. 

This Podcast Revolves Around 3 Major Themes:

 

(1) Your Website

(This is “Home Base”)

 

(2) Your Blog

(A Place To Tell Your Story)

 

(3) Your Free “Teaser”

(Builds Trust & Momentum)

Follow Sarah On Twitter (@CannataAU)  

SARAH CANNATA

Follow Keith On Twitter (@KeithKeller)      

Keith Keller - Twitter Marketing Specialist

This podcast is part of a 4 part series I recorded with Sarah recently.

www.Twitter4Writers.com

TWEET WITH THE END IN MIND

(The Transcript)

Sarah: Hey this is professional writer Sarah Cannata and I’m back for the first official ‘Twitter Write’ podcast. Now there would be no ‘Twitter Write’ without the one and only global Twitter marketing specialist Keith Keller. Welcome!

Keith: Hey this is part two remember this is part two, last week was the teaser or are we calling last week the teaser and this is part one.

Sarah: Well that’s the way I saw it but you know

Keith: Okay that’s good, let’s do that, listen this is part one. Last week was the teaser. Last week was ‘Twitter is the launching pad’. I mean why are you going to bother with twitter? Why do you even want to do it? There are eight other choices; you are blowing your head apart trying to keep up. Last week’s episode was really- really good Sarah asked some great questions, she came up with that phrase “Twitter is the Launching Pad” we’re using that as the teaser so this is part one isn’t it?

Sarah: Exactly, so before we do jump ahead and talk about what we’re going to go through today let’s do a little recap for everyone out there. So when we first started chatting away which was about two weeks ago I had 63 followers on Twitter, now I’m up to 294, that’s insane Keith what’s going on?

Keith: Well you’re following a little bit of a recipe we gave you, which was follow 20 people a day for 90 days, because a lot of people; there’s a couple of things that you’re doing and I’m going to decode, because that’s not the only thing you’re doing, but the one fundamental thing that everyone can do when they start Twitter is they can follow 20 people a day and a lot of people have said to me “Keith, I’m in a rock band, you know I’m a writer I’ve written a novel, I’m an author, I don’t follow people back”

Okay, okay if you’re really super famous, you were Stephen King no worries don’t follow people back I don’t mind, but if you’ve just started, you’ve written a blog and no one’s reading it, I don’t think you’ve got the luxury of saying that you’re not following anyone back, because no one knows who you are, no one knows where you are.

Sarah: That’s right, we did touch on that last week, just in terms of writers often you’ve got a blog, you’ve got a book maybe or anything else up your sleeve, but realistically if no one is actually reading it what’s the point?

Keith: That’s right so that’s one thing you’re doing, you’re doing this idea of follow 20 people and it’s working, you’re getting a 52% follow back ratio, which is unheard of, not even  get that to be honest, I don’t even get that amount. So that’s the first things and second of all you’re doing stuff and actually today’s episode is about doing the stuff, laying the foundations, I mean you can’t just turn up on Twitter on day one and say I’m here and expect to get lots of followers, you’ve got to have a bit of a system, I’m going to work you through that system today, which I call ‘laying the foundations’ or (getting your story straight). What do you stand for? What are you here for? What do you want people to know, about what you’re doing? Do you have a blog? Do you have a podcast? Do you have a video series? Have you got a free teaser so that people can get a bit of a sense of what you offer, a free chapter typically, as a writer you might have a free chapter, if you are a podcaster, you might have a free teaser of the podcast that’s available, if you’re into video, a lot of people are into video, you might have a couple of video’s on You tube, and so by doing all of those things which you are now starting to do, you are blogging, you are getting featured in the Huffington post, you are doing lots and lots of things. This is why you’re getting such an enormous follow back ratio 52%.

Sarah: Well exactly that’s the thing I am driving it myself, but I mean on the flip side when people do check me out on Twitter and land on my Twitter page there’s actually things there for them isn’t there,

Keith: That’s right.

Sarah: So in terms of just the basic Twitter page what are the bare essentials that people need to have? Because I mean I myself have noticed that when I’ve gone looking through people a lot of people don’t even have a Bio up.   

Keith: Yes, yes okay that’s fine that’s actually part of what we were going to chat about next week, but let’s jump ahead. So with a Bio it’s very, very, very important that you have a photo. That’s the number one thing. There are stats to prove that if you don’t have a photo or graphic, or some image of some kind people won’t follow you back. They’ll go well if you haven’t even bothered to put up a photo or an image you’re not serious, and the better the quality of the photo, or the more compelling the photo, the more chances people will follow you back. So it’s the first thing you’ve got to have a photo. Not many people don’t do this anymore but, not many people go through the trouble of putting a really lovely photo and eventually, you can hear it now it’s May2015, I’m pushing Sarah to get a really lovely photo of herself.

Sarah: You have been

Keith: We all have these little hidden secrets, but you’ve got to get a really good photo of yourself, because you are awesome and you’re going to set the world on fire and people want to know what you look like. There is significant evidence to prove that if you have a really good photo on your bio you’ll get a lot of people following you back. You need to have a little bit of a teaser as to what you do; you know I’m a professional writer here’s my website, here’s my blog. Now if you look at my Twitter account at the moment it says “That Ausie Twitter guy” Keithkeller.com.au, free MP3 here, podcast host, a list of all my podcasts on SoundCloud. So people go to my page and say okay there’s a picture, that’s what he looks like and this is what he does, he’s a Twitter dude who loves podcasting. Okay I get that if I’m into podcasting or I need to know stuff about Twitter I’ll follow him. If they don’t, they won’t and that’s okay. It’s actually very important not to get just lots of empty followers, you want people to actually follow you and go hey I actually need a writer, I really need to make a good friend with a writer because I need my blog post written and I’m hopeless at that so I’ve got to find a really good writer, so I’ll follow your blogs, see if they’re any good and then I’ll contact you to see if you can do that for me. Or you might need a book written, and we’re in the process of writing a book aren’t we? We are about, you know entrepreneurial journey.  

Sarah: Yeah very exciting

Keith: Very exciting and so you know we’ve been brainstorming that idea, now look I’ve been around the block a few times and I’ve got a story to tell and Sarah’s going to tell it, and so I’d imagine you’re trying to attract a lot of other people who are thinking, you know I’ve got a story, I’ve got a book in me, you know I don’t know if I want to write it.  

Sarah: Well exactly and I think that’s another story out there for all the writers out there, you’d be amazed at how many people just don’t actually either have the time to write down their story or anything they’re interested in or you know they just don’t like writing like we do.

Keith: Yes like you do.

Sarah: Like writers do, like writers do.

Keith: [Laughter]

Sarah: I think you’ve made it very clear about your stand on writing.

Keith: You know a very, very interesting point of the entrepreneurial journey is that, you know I think it’s essential, not everyone agrees with me on this, but I think it’s essential that some of the tasks you do ship out, okay and I’ve got it very clear on what I do, I love podcasting, I’d even say I’m good at that, I love Twitter, I really dig it, but I’m hopeless at WordPress, hopeless, really hopeless at WordPress and I never get a chance to write, so when you offered me the chance to write my story I jumped at it, because I have got a story to tell and I’d love you to tell it. But there’s no way in the world I’m ever going to write that book. And I’d imagine I’m like most entrepreneurs busy doing it, you know I haven’t got the time to sit down and write what happened. But if you want to sit with me and convert it into a book that might be a learning for someone else I’d be happy to do that, and I think the book is going to be a great lesson, the book is going to be called possibly something like ‘ life begins at 40’ or that’s certainly going to be the first chapter. You don’t have to wait till you’re 40 to jump, but I’ve waited 22 years in jobs that I hated feeling miserable 88% of the time, I just made the calculation up but it felt like all the time, I was always miserable because I was always chasing my towel, I hated my job, I hated my life, I sometimes had a little bit of a weekend where I could catch up. There was so much stuff I had to do that I really disliked, and it took me 22 years to get out of that, and now if you’ve been following my tracks since 2006 you’ll know that I’m rocking, I’m digging it, I’m doing my thing and I’m creating some ripples because I love what I do.    

Sarah: What

Keith: And I think that’s a good entrepreneurial story and that’s the story we’re going to tell isn’t it?

Sarah: Well absolutely, absolutely and it all comes down to passion and I’ve got my passion, you’ve got your passion and they happen to you now bounce off one another and it’s a story out there for everyone, as you said you don’t have to wait until you’re a little bit older. I jumped at 27, so I didn’t even think it was worth me putting my energy into things I wasn’t passionate about, but I think we should go back to Twitter. So back to Twitter and in terms of driving it, now you mentioned beforehand that it does take a little time, but I think the message that we’re trying to get out to people there is that you might spend 20 minutes a day on Twitter, but the amount of reach that you’ll actually gain you wouldn’t reach those numbers by anything else even if you pay for it, isn’t that right, we found that out last week didn’t we? 

Keith: Well why don’t we take that story, you’ve been experimenting with Facebook boosting, I’ve never ever been excited by that idea, I’ve never ever experimented with it, but you’re experimenting with it, you’re asking Facebook if it’s okay if you spend $20 and they’re still putting restrictions.

Sarah: Well exactly and I have been experimenting for the last month or so and about in the last week or so I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten even tighter in terms of their restrictions because they do have the 80-20 rule. So basically 80% of whatever you’re putting out there has to be made up by an image and 20% by text. Now I think it was yesterday I just tried to boost an ad, so I’m paying money and they’re still knocking back my ads, so now say with $20 I might reach I don’t know about 8000 people, now how many people did we reach with our Huffington post blog last week Keith?   

Keith: We reached 2 million 653 thousand people. In one day for free, using Twitter. Now it’s very, very exciting, it’s very difficult not to get excited. Now I want to decode what’s happened there on one hand on the left side and Facebook is told it’ll make money, they charge you to boost your posts, it’s their model and eventually maybe everyone will do this, but with “Tweet Reach” we talked a little about this last week, but we really played it out. I tweet Sarah’s stuff, my friends tweet my stuff, which includes stuff about Sarah, so all of my friends get my stuff about Sarah, all my friends get to hear about Sarah for free and my highest score for that is 3 million people in one day. Now I want to be very, very clear about the tweet reach model. It’s a really cool company called tweetreach.com, now their free model, what we call freemium is that they actually catalogue the last 50 tweets mentioning you. That’s a free model; they give you a really robust report that says the last 50 tweets that talked about you added up to this number. And yes last week it was2 million 635 thousand, and then, and this is very, very cool to know, then if you want a complete report on who has ever reported about you or tweeted about you, or you’re following an event using a particular #tag, you can pay $20 U.S and you get a really lovely report, which basically details everyone that’s ever tweeted about that #tag or that Twitter handle, and that’s their business model. So for $20 you get a substantial document that details what you get.

Sarah: And that’s just priceless really, isn’t it?

Keith: So even if you have to pay money, you’re getting something for it, you’re getting a list of everyone that’s tweeted you forever, for $20. Whereas for $20 I’m guessing, because I haven’t tried it and I’m very happy for you to take the lead here. For $20 there is a Facebook boost, I mean how many people would be reached, I think 10,000 maybe?

Sarah: I think that would be a maximum and even so, you can’t even put your own messages into it. So not only are you paying for it, you’re paying to put messages out there that need to be approved, which means you’re probably going to have to take things out of it. And the other thing that got me really and is getting me really excited about Twitter is the fact that I’m driving it, I don’t have to wait for anybody to approve my ad. I don’t have to go to any traditional media and wait for them to come back to me or to run my story. This is all me , doing it myself, so yes I’m putting in the effort, but yes I will be putting in the other effort to get my message out there by via other mediums. It’s just that with Twitter I’m reaching 2.5 million people, where else in my career have I reached 2.5 million people? Not every often.    

Keith: Yes and that’s because, let’s be very clear, if you’d just started on Twitter you’re not likely to reach 2.5 million people and I’m not promising you that, follow these techniques, and they are the techniques that have been absolutely tried and tested I’ve been doing this since July 2010, I mean I have been working it, and last week we mentioned it and I was interviewed again on Friday about this, Twitter is like Pandora. It’s a planet, it’s a different language and it’s bloody hard to get your head around it. Once you learn the language and you get inside it you can create miracles, can’t you?

Sarah: Definitely and I think I’m living proof of that because what we’re seeing here is a miracle.

Keith: We certainly are, 63 followers on day one, you know what I’m you know; the day we met, the day we met you had 63 followers and coincidentally we live in the same town, we’d never heard of each other, this happens. I’m a bit shocked you had never heard of me, I’ve been working pretty hard to be famous, but you didn’t

Sarah:[Laughs]

Keith: you hadn’t, you live on the other side of town, you just weren’t in my club, you weren’t in my tribe. So you came across me, I came across you and on day one you had 63 followers, and  you now have almost 300 followers, in two weeks I mean I recon that’s ballistic. You’ll be rocking before we know it.

Sarah: Well if that doesn’t get other writers pumped and ready to drive Twitter I’m not sure what will.  

Keith: Yeah, but look I want people to get Twitter and I want them to do it. I was interviewed on Friday and I wanted to share this analogy of going into the city, or going into any event and people shouting at you, you’ve got to do this, you have to sign my petition, you’re the devil if you don’t buy my book, this is what I believe, this is what you have to sign up for, march with me and you know protest. Okay people have got legitimate points, but I think you’ve got a much better chance of getting people’s attention if you do it in a softer sell. So what I really want to talk about today is what I call ‘laying the foundation’ I want you to have a really robust foundation in place so that when people come to your page, they go ah he’s a writer who has got a blog. He’s a cool person who is doing a podcast; he’s a really lovely guy who’s got a You Tube channel. Ah that’s what he’s doing I get that. You’ve got to have sort of layer don’t you?    

Sarah: Definitely!

Keith: So I’ve always said that Twitter is a secondary site, that without something to say or without giving people something to do it’s a waste of time, for all parties. You know it’s a waste of my time to tweet, it’s a waste of other people’s time to come and see my tweets because I’m not giving them anything to do. Okay I had an ice cream at the beach, who cares about that? I don’t even care about that and I like ice cream, but if you give someone the idea to say okay you found my page and thank you here’s a blog post or here’s a lovely You Tube video, here’s my latest podcast, here’s a lovely article you might enjoy, we talked about this last week with the four to one rule, we’ll keep playing back on that because that’s really the essence of the strategy, for every time I tweet about myself I tweet four other things. I personally do ten to one, for every time I talk about myself I tweet ten other things, that’s because when people come to my site they see lots and lots of interesting content. Some of which relates to me, most of which doesn’t and that’s the ratio I personally like.

 If you’re a very, very famous writer you can probably flick this 1 to 4, you know if you’re really famous and people are coming to your site because they love your books then you could tweet four times about yourself and one time about other people as a favour to them, but unless you’re famous I wouldn’t recommend that. So what I really want you to do, and I want you to pick up on this idea Sarah, I really want you to ask the question what’s your website like, your home base, what is your home base like? You know the keithkeller.com.au that is a real functioning web site that’s my website. Sarah Cannata is Sarahcannata.com.au that’s our home base, what does it look like? Is it welcoming; is it professional, does it give people a sense of what you’re doing? And you watch Sarah’s more [unintelligible 17:45] time because I’ve been challenging her on that, one thing I’m challenging her to get a professional shot, two I’m challenging her to make her website super sexy and world class, because as I said two weeks ago we didn’t know each other, she didn’t know what I knew. She doesn’t know what I know. And so I wasn’t able to giver here these pieces of you know, these pearls of wisdom that I’ve accumulated over my massive history. [Laughs] in fact is that right? Is that a good place to start with the homes base, it’s a website, do you think that’s a good place to get people to think about this stuff?  

Sarah: For sure and I think, for a lot of writers out there because writing does tend to be their passion, they don’t quite see it in terms of how they try to market themselves, and sell themselves. So and I’m talking from experience here originally my website was very much based upon the fact that I’m a writer, I like to write and that was pretty much it. But since working with you, it’s definitely started to evolve and it will continue to evolve so that it’s more about what I’m sharing with people, what am I giving them that’s going to want them to come back to my website, because I can want Twitter running, amassing say a thousand followers, but ultimately if I’m not driving people to anything interesting there’s not much point and the key here is to be receptive, because so often people will get very precious about what they’re doing, but you stand back and you just listen to people who have pearls of wisdom as you said, I think you can really learn a lot.    

Keith: I’m really fascinated by what you said there, when we met two weeks ago, it’s so astonishing how much has happened in that time so I feel like I’ve known you forever. You were thinking okay I love writing, I dig writing but you’re not thinking about what other people are perceiving you as, which is fine if you want to write in your bedroom as a hobby. But this is what you do, this is what you do for a living, and this is how you want to stand out in the world as a writer, and I want to make my living from writing. So we’ve been challenging Sarah to work on a website and the thing that’s challenging about some of the things that I’m talking about is that there is a cost involved, you don’t have to pay me for this I don’t offer this service, but there is a cost involved, you’ve either got to invest some time in fixing the site yourself or we’ve got to find someone else who can fix it for you. There are plenty of people who have come before you and there are plenty of people to watch and we’ve been watching Christy Hines who is the coolest chick on the planet, the second coolest chick other than Sarah.

Sarah: [Laughs]                      

Keith: Second coolest chick on the planet and she’s been doing this a lot longer than Sarah and she’s kicked a few major goals and Christy is sort of our role model now, because she’s got this really lovely site, she’s writing for just about every magazine on the planet and she’s really doing good work, and she’s not that much older than you is she?

Sarah: No she isn’t, she’s just, look I’ll be honest with you, you introduced me to Christy, but when I went and looked at what she’s doing, she’s incredible and I’m going to be writing a Huffington post blog about her, so that’s how interested I am in her, and in her story.

Keith: Hmm. And so it’s very important that you follow what other people are doing and you try and morph into this. So the first step in ‘laying the foundations’ is what I call the “home base”, ketithkeller.com.au, sarahcannata.com.au and by all means go and have a look at those websites today and see if they resonate with you or try and find someone else that you like and try and pull apart what they are doing, because when people come to your Twitter page or whatever Social media site you’re using that’s the first thing they’re going to look for, they are going to look for if they’ve got a website? What else are they doing? I mean that’s the first thing I look for. What else are you doing? And so that’s the first thing. Home base is that a good wrap up of that, you want to pick up on anything you’ve learnt in the last few weeks about having a good strong home base?

Sarah: Look I think the most important thing is to be clear about what you do, and I’ve heard this from a few people now, when I did have my website set up more as a hobby it was very unclear as to what I did and that was basically because the first thing that people saw was a quote that I was really into and passionate about but it didn’t actually mean anything to anyone else. I could have been a Jazz artist, I could have been a painter, I could have been anything, but now having taken on other peoples feedback, I’ve changed my website, so that it’s very clear that I’m actually a professional writer and that’s what I do. So be clear about who you are, be clear about what you actually want to do, because what you want to do, versus what you can do are two very different things. I can write about anything under the sun, you know I could write about, I don’t know the Opera, I could write about history, but what do I actually want to write about and I think that’s what other people need to ask themselves and make it very clear on their website, or else you’ll end up with people coming to you asking you about things you don’t want to do, things you don’t really dig and nothing you’re really passionate about.   

Keith: And more importantly you won’t attract the people that you really want to attract.

Sarah: Exactly!

Keith: There are two very clear paths of my person, I love podcasting, I teach Twitter, there are a hundred other things I do, I love cooking, I’m going travelling soon, I love photography, I live near the beach, but that’s not really who I am. I love podcasting and I teach Twitter, they are the two things that I talk about virtually every day. So I want to attract people that know about those two things. I want to attract people that do podcasting, share their podcast, get on their podcast, I love speaking, I love talking, I love interviewing people, and I love being interviewed, and I want to attract clients hat say okay now if I want to get this Twitter thing, I’ve got to get it, I’ve got to sort it out. You seem to know what you’re talking about, can we have a chat about that, you know I can sort of talk to people about hanging out at the beach and going away and travelling but that’s not going to generate income and help me pay my mortgage. So it’s very, very, very clear that you need to be rock solid on who you’re targeting and your language on your website, you home base has to talk to that doesn’t it?

Sarah: Certainly and I mean that’s almost the hardest thing to figure out once you start and I’m saying that because I’ve been through that recently. To figure out exactly who I want to be talking to and what language I want to be using is a challenge, it’s not going to happen overnight it will take you a month or so, but once you’ve nailed it you’ll know.  

Keith: That’s brilliant. So that’s the first thing, going to the idea of the home base. Now the home base is what I call the house. The structure that you’re living, it’s your home, that’s why I have called it, that’s why I’ve actually called it the home base, but the blog or in some cases the podcast, which I’ve seen done really well off late is your spare room. A blog is something you can do quickly. You’re trying to blog every second week with little updates aren’t you, you’re doing a little quick podcast, for five minutes, and then you’re turning that into a blog, that’s what you need to be doing constantly to get the Google juice.    

Sarah: Exactly and the thing about blogging is that you can blog whatever you want. You are the editor, which as a writer is just freedom basically. Blog about whatever you want just make sure that you’re keeping consistent with your messages.

Keith: Yeah so that in itself is really interesting, I’ve never thought of that before, this idea that we’re constantly now coming up with this idea that you can play by the rules and beg others for acceptance and for approval and for PR, you can pay Facebook money, you can try and get on the T.V, you can try and get featured in the Newspaper, or you can start a blog, or you can start a podcast and suddenly you become the news channel. You’ve got a subject you’re passionate about, you drive it, you write about it, you create the content, you tell the story. Its brilliant isn’t it?

Sarah: Exactly and I’m sure that there’ll be a lot of other writers in this boat, but how many times have you had a story not backed by a website or whatever because it wasn’t deemed click worthy or click backed. That’s not what writers do what they do for. We do it because we are passionate about what we’re writing about; we don’t do it because we want people to click on the headline. So your blog is basically yours to create, whatever you want to, you’re your own editor, it’s something that doesn’t exist anywhere else.    

Keith: I haven’t heard this story before does this happen you get knocked back because the headline is not strong enough or it’s not considered click worthy enough?

Sarah: It’s happened numerous times, I mean often if a website likes the story, but they’re not keen on the headline, I’ll just go in and change the headline, but so often I’ve had articles knocked back because they don’t think anyone would click on it, because the topic itself isn’t either what they like to publish or you know there is something  in there that they don’t think is different enough to what else is going on elsewhere. And that’s the thing you are at the mercy of an editor when you’re trying to submit work elsewhere. You are the editor in your own blog, and a lot of people out there have made you know themselves famous just by their blog and just by putting their own ideas out there.                                   

Keith: Millions of examples, you know the thing I’m really fascinated about, we’re now starting to see what we call the content tri factor play out. A lot of people are blogging and that’s just words on a page. For me it’s just words on a page because I don’t read, I don’t like reading. But we’re now starting to see that people are adding colour with blog posts that have podcasts in them, with graphics, with video, and you’re now starting to find that your story telling has changed since you’ve explored podcasting and other mediums. I’m really interested to hear how this is going, because I’ve introduced you to this idea too.      

Sarah: For sure and I’m fairly much a newbie to the podcasting, but I mean now when I’m writing I do actually think about how the podcast that I might want to put with it, will flow into the story, and it’s added a lot more colour because I think as writers we love to read, but what you need to keep in mind is that there are a lot more people probably out there that don’t like to read, so you can break up your messages with a  podcast, that’s only going to benefit you because at the end of the day what you’re trying to do is get your message to people. So if a podcast can help or if you’re more into video, you know personally I find video harder, a little bit harder to set up and editing is a bit more complicated, but podcasting, I can virtually do it on my own.

Keith: There are some really interesting stats you might have heard me talk about this before because I’m really into research and Sarah can vouch for it, I’m really into numbers, I’m really into playing around with the affinity of numbers but we know now for sure that the amount of people that are now starting to get their information from the written word is diminishing, that is a fact, it’s an undeniable fact, that people are reading less and they are trying to get their information quickly on the run. So about 40% of people when they are interviewed recently said you know I still like to read. I still read, either I have a kindle or I buy a physical book or I download a blog or I might get the paper. I still do that. Still 40% of the people do that and that won’t ever go away totally, but another 40% of people are starting to say look if you can put it in a two minute video I think I’ll get it quicker. The trouble with video is that they’re a bit complicated to do from the user; from the creation point of view, but there is significant evidence to say that if you can make a lovely video about the same subject 40% of people say they would prefer that. Now the growing area and this is the thing I’m fascinated about because it’s first of all pretty easy to do and second of all I dig it. About 20% of people are starting to say you know I don’t have time to read, don’t write for me, I don’t have time to watch videos because I don’t want to stare at my screen, but I tell you what I walk my dog every night, I’m stuck on a train every day, I get the tram every Thursday, I go for a bike ride every Saturday, I’ve got to go to the airport tomorrow and I know I’m going to be stuck there so I  might as well be listening to something. So podcasting is the new golden child, really it’s just a really interesting idea and you’re starting to explore it because it’s not very hard to do, it add a little bit of colour and a little bit of alternative at the bottom of your blog. So suddenly you’re reaching instead of 40% you’ve instantly increased your reach by 20% haven’t you? 

Sarah: Well exactly and I think also because podcasting is something that actually really attracted me I spend a lot of time commuting on a tram so my options are to listen to music, stare blindly out the window, or maybe learn something in a podcast, so that’s something that really attracts me and I think that’s why I’ve been even more open to the podcasting idea, because all of a sudden I’m starting to look around on the tram and see who seems to be listening to a podcast , because you know you can hear music, you can hear music from people’s earphones and I would say a lot of  people are listening to podcasts.

Keith: Were you doing this before we met or have you simply just amplified the amount of times you’ve done it since we met?

Sarah: I’m completely new to podcasting. I had done it here and there for my first job, but it was never driven by me and honestly if I’m very honest with you I tried to avoid it. But I mean it’s so easy to do when you’re just talking about things you’re passionate about completely.

Keith: And you’ve got a podcast coming up too, sort of sums up your first week of your Twitter journey. But were you listening to podcasts yourself as sort of as a user? You were familiar with them or just not thought of it?

Sarah: I knew about them and I had listened to them in the past but there was no way that I was listening to them on a regular basis, I was; basically my commutes were made up of music and now that’s very different. And that only happened since we’ve met basically.

Keith: Isn’t it great, isn’t it great that you’re going on a trip, you’re on the train for an hour and you think you know by the time you leave the station or you leave your house, by the time you have gotten to the city, you’ve learnt something. You’ve learnt something completely new you might learn a little bit about You Tube, you might learn a little bit about a subject, you might learn a couple of words of Spanish you know it’s really empowering to think that you’re using that time to be improving your life isn’t it?  

Sarah: Well exactly and a lot of the podcasts that I have been listening to have actually been your past podcasts, so all of your different Twitter variations and everything, the amount that I have learnt is just priceless. 

Keith: Thank you, well I have been doing this a long time, actually I use Soundcloud, Soundcloud.com which is a lovely site, I really love that site. It looks very, very visually pleasing in the Twitter feed and it creates a really lovely player, so if you ever see any of our podcasts they are always on Soundcloud. Most people put their podcasts on iTunes which is of course another format which is very popular on Apple products but, the other thing that I want to talk about is really a three point plan.

One is you need a home base and you need something else, you need a spare room, either it’s a blog with embedded podcasts, or it’s You Tube video’s or it’s something and iTunes podcast, something that people can get you about, so that you’re; because in the world in the 21st century we need to be constantly creating content, because everyone is busy and it’s not that we are lazy it’s just that we’re doing stuff, and if you’re not doing stuff every week people will forget you. You’re awesome, you’re always going to be awesome, but if you’re not, you’re not doing stuff regularly people will just forget how awesome you are, they’ll just forget, they won’t think about you.

So the second part of the plan is to do something regularly whether it’s a blog, a podcast, or a You Tube video and we can imbed some of those examples throughout the course of this series.

So the third thing I want to talk about, we’ll wrap it up here with this idea of a free teaser, because virtually no one thinks of this and the reason I use the analogy of a free teaser is because everyone is busy, and I want to use the analogy of this guy standing in the city, if you’ve ever been in the city and there’s a guy standing on the corner, shouting at you to you know get his latest political opinion, and it’s annoying. He’s got very little chance of getting your attention because he’s over killing it. What he might be better off doing is saying, if you’re interested in my views, here’s a little book about it or I’ve actually created a CD for you and that’s cost me a bit of money but why don’t you take that little CD and listen to it on the train, on the way home, you might be more compelled to do that, if getting is approach across is very important.

So what we do in the internet marketing space you can see this very clearly on my website keithkeller.com.au. I’ve got a free e-book, it’s absolutely completely free there’s no cost at all, which is what free means, I just have a habit of saying things three times.      

Sarah: [Laughs]

Keith: Top right hand corner, free E-book, and you get my previous ten part podcast series and an E- Book that accompanies it. Now why that’s important is that if in case you haven’t heard of me, Sarah hadn’t just in case you’ve never heard of me, you’ve got ten opportunities there, ten, ten minute podcasts to go “I think this guy is good, I mean he knows his stuff”. I’ve never heard of him I can’t believe that, I’ve never heard of him, but he’s good and I need to, you know I mean my work too needs to know about Twitter, so we’ll get him in.

So the idea of a free teaser in the writing space often means a free chapter, okay you’re not convinced that my new books going to be any good, here’s the first chapter, and if you like it then click here and buy the rest.

Have you seen this play out, this idea of a free teaser in the writing space? How do you think it would probably morph out?

Sarah: Well I think as you’re saying you’d probably give someone a free chapter and then engage them, get their interest and then of course you’re more likely to buy something because you’ve been given something for free, because I mean everybody is time pulled and I mean people do watch their money, but if you’ve given someone enough to hook them in and they are genuinely interested why wouldn’t they go ahead and buy what you’re offering. 

Keith: Hmm and I want to share where this is going because obviously you know we need to pay our respective mortgages, well Sarah needs to get one first, but she’s got some costs and you know what I do, how I make my money is, I make my money from coaching, if you want to know more about that you can go to crackthetwittercode.com and I offer coaching by the hour via Skype. But what Sarah now does, and this is brilliant, she does blogging for various companies around the world and she is getting increasingly good at it, and so these free teasers that we’re offering in the podcasts here and in the E- book that’s going to come from that is an introduction to what we do, from the point of view that we do this for a living. It’s fun, but more than it being fun, this is what we do, this is what we do for a living, so if you want to know more about Twitter I can coach you for that, if you want to know more about writing Sarah can do that for you, and that’s exactly what this idea of a free teaser is. We’ve introduced ourselves and have you seen this done, have you seen any examples in your field of how people are doing this? You got any examples? There’s Christy for example, what does Christy do?

Sarah: I’m not actually sure what she’s doing at the moment in terms of freebies, but I mean I think once you’ve also established yourself a little bit better you’ve probably got you know a little bit more leeway in terms of having a bank of clients that are coming to you as opposed to having to set something up for free. So I mean Christy might be a little bit different in that respect.   

Keith: And who do you imagine would be the perfect client for this podcast? Do you think it’ll be professional writers, writing for others or would it be authors who have written a book?

Sarah: Look I think it could be either and both, I think you just need to keep your mind if you are an author you’ve got say a twelve chapter book why not give away the first chapter, I mean especially if you believe in that book and you believe that you’ve got something worth sharing, won’t harm if they’re giving away one free chapter to entice people to buy the entire book  

Keith: That’s the word ‘entice’

Sarah: Exactly, and in terms of professional writers you do need to be giving away freebies so that people can see your work, because otherwise, this is where the whole blogging is; blogging is a little bit more personal. If you land on my blog it’s not copywriting, it’s not anything but me writing out of passion. But I think at a certain point you need to get you know your head; you’re geared together so that you are giving people something free that can show them what you can offer them, that’s what it’s about at the end of the day. What can you offer other people?   

Keith: Yes, and look I mean a lot of this stuff is complicated for people who have not come across this idea, I work in the internet marketing space, I work in the Social Media space where I’m driving my conversation. I tweet 10 times a day about content that I’ve written; content that I’ve come across interviews where I’ve been interviewed or done the interviewing, so I want you to start thinking about this, I want you to start thinking about having a lovely home page, a home base. I want you to think about having a variation amount of spare room if you like, a podcast, a blog, a video, possibly all three in one if you can manage it, because there are good examples of that now. And then I also want you to think about how do you entice people, do you entice them with a free chapter? Do you entice them with a podcast? Do you entice them with free samples of your writing? And then once you wrap all that together, you’re well on the way. So the next section which is about getting started, getting in deep with twitter and hitting the ground running, getting lots and lots of followers as I said Sarah, almost 500% increase in followers in two weeks and that’s because she’s had all these things in place already and we’ve just topped her up yeah?

Sarah: Exactly, I mean they’ve all been there but nobody has ever know about them, so this is just basically a way of cutting through the noise and getting people to look at me.

Keith: Look at me, look at me, donkey, donkey

Sarah: [Laughs]

Keith: So we’ll leave it there, we’ve gone a little bit over time but there’s a lot of stuff here, I’ll edit these three little sections together, we’ll edit those together and we’ll put those out on Soundcloud today. This is going to turn into an e-book, which again is going to be completely free and you’re listening to ‘Twitter Write’

Sarah: Exactly and people can follow that #tag can’t they?

Keith: Yeah #twitterwrite and if you want to know more go to Twitter4Writers.com and I’m creating a lovely blog, as best as I can, but we’ve actually got a sound cloud player there which will have all of the podcasts, this is the second one so far, we’ll have them all  listed there in sequence so you can actually listen along as we’re creating the miracles.    

Sarah: Exactly and people can follow you on Twitter @KeithKeller and they can follow me @CannataAU 

Thank you very much for your time see you later.

Keith: See ya.

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