Get an Ad, Get Free Stuff!

If you’ve been running a small business with a store front that caters to your local community, odds are the word “advertising” makes you cringe. You think of endless cold calls, pushy sales people and hard earned dollars turning to vapor, and all for what? A few clicks from google, a couple radio ads and a huge stack of promotional balloons collecting dust in your closet, all of which that never turned into anything?

Business owners everywhere rejoice because the world of local small business advertising is changing for the better. On the heels of Groupon.com, LivingSocial.com and some other really amazing new advertising concepts comes Ad My Auto. This new service combines the loss leader marketing concepts of Groupon with the highly effective nature of word of mouth, direct marketing and mobile billboard impressions to create something entirely new but oddly familiar.

For a low fee of $985 per year and an astoundingly attractive $50 per ad, Ad My Auto will place an ad for your business on a minimum of 50 consumer vehicles in the zip code of your choice. In return, your business provides free and discounted services to the “Ad Partners” (the persons hosting your ads). This system will be highly attractive to small business owners with 1 or more brick and mortar locations (ie., restaurants, grocery stores, spas, salons, liquor stores, dentists offices, etc, etc, etc..). Amazingly, Ad My Auto works on multiple levels of market saturation beginning by providing the micro level of loss leader marketing to groupon’s macro share. But I fear I’m getting ahead of myself.

Ad My Auto works on 4 levels:

1) Grouponesque loss leader marketing.

Your “perk program” will directly incentivize each and every Ad Partner who hosts your ad to purchase your products and services, resulting in the guaranteed acquisition of every person who hosts your ad. For only $50 per ad, that’s an unbelievable deal (We expect that price to go up when Ad My Auto launches on a larger scale.)

A great impression in rush hour traffic!

2) Mobile billboard advertising.

As your Ad Partner drives around, your business gets local impressions. Use your ads with a call to action message (mention this ad for $2 off any menu item!) or pure branding (Joe’s plumbing – The most trusted in town!) and prepare for more business. People who need a repair are quick to pick up their mobile phone when prompted by an ad in their face offering a free service call. Folks tired of eating Pizza Hut every week are looking for excuses to try something new and your Ad My Auto ad is the excuse they’re looking for.

3) Direct marketing.

Ad My Auto has a herd of Ad Partners on their waiting list who are ready and willing to put your ad on their car. For most advertising companies, this would be an inexpensive, sure fire way to meet their client’s ad quota, but it just wasn’t enough for Ad My Auto. In addition to placing your ad with local vehicles on their waiting list, they’ll go door to door in the zip code(s) of your choice asking your local, potential customers if they’d like some free and discounted services from your business in exchange for an ad placement on their vehicle. Even if the ad gets turned down, they Ad My Auto street team has still created awareness of your business as well as an opportunity to give out a coupon, menu or any other literature that you provide them with.

4) Word of mouth.

We weren’t initially sure if it was fair to include “word of mouth” as a service Ad My Auto provides, but when we really thought through it, it really made sense. Hosting an ad on one’s car leads to an array of guaranteed questions from friends and family, “what’s Joe’s Plumbing, and why do you have that ad on your car?”. People will be forced to talk about why they’re hosting your ad, and when they do, they’ll brag about the free stuff you’ve given them.

There are different levels of local penetration you can opt in to. The most inexpensive being their trial penetration. At only $985 per year and $50 per ad, Ad My Auto costs as little as $300 per month for a one-stop, all you can eat, marketing smorgasbord. You’d be crazy to not try it out (again, while it’s so cheap!). Just remember to factor in your hard costs for providing your perk program.

We’ll be watching Ad My Auto closely from here out, waiting to get in on an investment with them when they go public.

If you follow, they will follow back.

Tweet Adder rolled out a massive update to their popular twitter-follower-getter software not too long ago dubbed “Tweet Adder 3″. TA3 comes equipped with an easier to use interface and some neat new features that have helped us to earn followers on twitter faster than before! Read our full Tweet Adder Review.

(To get the nitty gritty on Tweet Adder read our review of Tweet Adder 1.0)

We didn’t have any complaints with the original version (aside from the fact that Tweet Adder can be used as spammer software) but the folks over at Tweet Adder have blessed us with a full update to their automated twitter follow/unfollow software. What TA3 does is not unlike the original version of TA, the theory of the system is “if you follow, they’ll follow back”, and this system works to exceptional results.

What TA3 does, is to search out targeted followers based on criteria you enter based on  language spoken, keywords used and/or geographic location. Once it locates followers, it will systematically follow these users for you and then unfollow them if they don’t follow you back within 3 days (the default setting).

The slick new Tweet Adder interface

The system itself works exceptionally well for seeking hundreds of tweeters at a time who tweet about things that you’re interested in. And as it promises, many of these folks (approx 50%) will follow you back, resulting in a fast rising follower count.

The original TA already had an automated tweet feature. You simply wrote a few hundred tweets, uploaded them to the software, told it how often to tweet for you and TA would do the rest. TA3 includes an all new feature with the ability to mass produce tweets for you. The Social Net Ninjas do not condone spamming, HOWEVER, we have found a use for this tool. First let me explain how it works.

To create a massive list of tweets you need to create a base sentence for the software to use that will look like this:

“[I think,I know,I hope] the great [Tweet Adder,TA,TA3] [will work!,will help me find followers!,will go on sale soon!]”

TA will take this bracketed, comma separated bunch of words and mush them together into 27 different tweets:

I think the great Tweet Adder will work!
I know the great TA will help me find followers!
I hope the great TA3 will go on sale soon!
I think the great TA will help me find followers!
I know the great TA3 will go on sale soon!
etc..
etc..

The sky is the limit for how many tweets you can create instantly; the more brackets and the more options you give the software, the more tweets it will create. If the base sentence is made like this: “[1,2,3,4,5] [1,2,3,4,5]  [1,2,3,4,5]  [1,2,3,4,5]” you’ll have 625 tweets ready to go. Obviously, this software can be used for great evil by spam artists, but used tastefully, they can also do good! For instance, we implemented automated tweeting through TA3 to post 5 to 10 tweets per day with links to our free social media articles here on Social Net Ninjas.com. Because the majority of our tweeting is real time, live social interaction, we think it’s a-okay. Just don’t go overboard!

We have only one suggestion to the creators of Tweet Adder: allow us to choose a time zone and to select a window of time that we want our spam, erm tweets to be automatically posted.

To wrap things up, TA3 is a great update to an already very useful, well manufactured software. The interface is easy to figure out and we love the level of customization the user can choose to employ. Our only caveat is that some people will choose to use it to make twitter even more spam laden than it already is. Buy tweet adder today to grow a massive twitter following.

“How would you like your business to be at the top of google search results for a nominal monthly fee?!”

Waive the set up fees through Social Net Ninjas!

If you’re savvy you’ll recognize that line as an empty sales pitch that you’ve heard a million times. There are a plethora of search engine optimization specialists, internet marketing companies and others vying for your attention with great promises of instant, easy, success.

After reviewing dozens of companies who make big claims (and send LOTS of spam) we’ve finally found one that really will get your business listed at the top of google search results (for a small monthly fee). We’ve even personally hooked up with this great up-and-comer to get your setup fee waived should you decide to take our advice and try them out.

Who is it already?:
“Be Found” isn’t merely a slogan but a promise of things to come. The erudite internet marketers down at Local Splash have chosen these simple two words carefully, because it’s all one really needs to know about the service they offer.

What do they do?:
There was a time when the yellow pages were the place to have your ad if you wanted to get phone calls. Today, that massive yellow tome has all but been slaughtered by the rise of the internet, more specifically by the rise of search engines like google, yahoo and MSN. When people are looking for a product or service they go straight to their trusty computer. Local Splash knows this and that’s why they’ve designed a package that puts your ad to the top of google results with no fee per click!

My client Johnson's Garage Doors of Denver is listed 5th. They'll get unlimited clicks for only $159 per month, with no set up fees thanks to the Social Net Ninjas!

What’s it cost?:
Normally, google ads are strictly cost per click. Such is not the case with google maps listings! Local Splash has designed a system to submit your business listing to google maps so that it appears every time one of your keywords is entered. For only $159 per month and a set up fee of $99 (which we at socialnetninjas.com can waive for you) your business will be at the top of search results in your area. Again, the fee is a flat $159 per month NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES SOMEONE CLICKS YOUR LISTING!

How do I get started?:
Since we’ve reached out to local splash, they’ve agreed to waive the $99 set up fee for every new business we send their way. Consider it a thank you for reading our blog! To get started simply call me directly 303-949-9670 or email me at brian@socialnetworkingninjas.com

I want your business to succeed, and I believe in these guys so much that I’ll personally set your account up for you.

There are so many businesses out there who pinky swear to deliver results. If you want to Be Found, you need to use Local Splash.

Kutenda offers Internet marketing software for small businesses. I’m sure most small businesses have experienced a similar situation to me- logging in to multiple accounts, trying to prioritize my marketing efforts and do it efficiently. Kutenda is helping to solve many of those problems.

The features included in the toolset are pretty comprehensive. Just to name a few: Web builder, email marketing tools, PPC management, local listing submission, detailed reporting & more. The ease of having each of these pieces in one place is great- it definitely helps bring some continuity to your campaigns.

The web builder has some good features. While HTML experience is not required to use the WYSIWYG editor, it can be helpful to make more in-depth changes. If you’re used to calling your web designer to make one minor change though, this is a great alternative. There is also an on-page SEO tool, which aids you in optimizing your content and really get results in the search engines. Additionally, Kutenda has a drag-and-drop form builder, giving you the ability to easily create custom forms, which we all know can be challenging.

No Internet marketing endeavor is complete without email marketing and Kutenda does this well. They offer auto-responders, professional templates and list management. Plus, their auto-responder is multi-step, allowing you to schedule several emails in a campaign, which a lot of other popular email tools don’t offer. With detailed reporting on each campaign, you can track your performance and get better results.

If you’re feeling intimidated by the idea of managing your websites, have no fear! One of Kutenda’s best assets is in their ability to train. They’ll work with you from the ground up to help you achieve your goals. Check out Kutenda and you’ll find a ton of tips and tricks to help you get the most of their tool.  You don’t have to be an expert to get started, but be prepared to set aside some time to attend their extensive, live training programs.

While Kutenda is definitely in its beginning stages, there is a lot of potential there.  If you’re managing a small business and have no qualms about getting your hands dirty with web development, be sure to check them out and take advantage of the free 15 day trial!

(NOTE: This review is for TA 1.0. Tweet Adder has recently been upgraded to version 3.0. See our TA3 review. )

I like to test products and services out for at least a month or so before writing a full review. I’ve been using the twitter tool, Tweet Adder for about 3 months now and the verdict is in: If you want to get followers fast, you have to try Tweet Adder.

Everyone wants to know how to get more followers on Twitter. With Tweet Adder, I’ve acquired over 6,000 quality followers across 4 different twitter accounts in a matter of 3 months – and they’re still growing.
Tweet Adder is a software that helps you manage multiple twitter accounts. What it does very well is to help you find good tweeters that fit the niche of your twitter account and then follow them based on parameters that you set. The philosophy here: if you follow, they will follow back. It doesn’t do what Tweetie or TweetDeck do. You can’t easily post a single tweet or see your tweet timeline. It isn’t meant for that. What it’s meant to do is to build your followers, and that it does very well.

You start by downloading the software at tweetadder.com. You can try it out for free or buy a registration that will allow you to manage 1, 5, 10 or an unlimited amount of twitter accounts all from the comfort of your tweet adder program.

After you download and install the software, you add your twitter profiles by entering your twitter username and password. When you log in via tweet adder you’ll see the amount of followers you have, how many you’re following and your follower ratio. This is where the fun begins. Clicking on “search” will offer several ways to search for people to follow. Remember the idea is: if you follow, they will follow back. Among the ways to seek out people to follow, you can search by keywords tweeted from a specific geographic location of your choosing (by zip code, city or state) and search the tweeters following someone else. When you do a search, Tweet Adder stores the tweeters that you’ve searched out in a database and will follow them for you based on criteria that you set under the “follow” tab. Even more importantly, tweet adder will remember when you followed each person and allow you to unfollow them based on whether or not they follow you back after a certain period of time has passed. More on that later.

So, if you sell motorcycle helmets you can find people to follow in your area tweeting about motorcycling or just set tweet adder to follow everyone who follows Harley Davidson. Of course, the following is the easy part. The goal of all this is to get those you follow to follow you back.

To get people to follow you back, you need to tweet often with consistency. Tweet Adder has a solution for this, but it will make you the very thing the Social Net Ninjas despise most about twitter: A spammer. Tweet Adder can tweet for you. Simply come up with a bunch of tweets (140 characters or less of course), enter them under the “tweets” tab, let Tweet Adder know how often to tweet, and Voila! You are now a spam artist.

The Ninjas have said it before and we’ll say it again: Social Media is supposed to be SOCIAL! If you want to build a quality following, leave the “tweets” tab alone, post daily tweets yourself via tweetie and use the other great features of this software.

If you follow... they'll follow back.

We recommend:
Choose a search option that makes sense and fill your list to about 10,000 people to follow.
Let Tweet Adder follow 35 or so people for you per day.
Let Tweet Adder follow back 20 or so people for you per day.
Let Tweet Adder unfollow 60 or so people per day.
Only unfollow those who don’t follow you within 10 days.
Set your follow ratio to 3 to 1 and check it.
Set your unfollow ratio to 1 to 1 and check it.
Under the “Automation” tab, UNcheck “Automatically Post Updates…” and “Automatically Post Replies…” Check “Do the following tasks..” “Automaticall unfollow users…” “Automatically Follow Back Users…”

Watch what the people you’re following tweet about and tweet back at them. Retweet their tweets, comment on what they’re doing; just be social and they will follow you back.

TIP:
It’s easy to end up following and being followed by spam bots. Following these bots is hazardous to your twitter health because they will muddy up your tweet timeline. You want to see real tweets, from real people so you can interact with them in a timely fashion. It’s tough to have a dialogue when you have to filter through a bunch of get rich quick schemes and ads for penis enlargers. To avoid spammers, under the “search” tab, select “search by tweet keywords” and use a word that your target audience would use but that a spammer likely wouldn’t. Keywords like “going shopping” or “making dinner” will be tweeted by moms or dads, but not by spam bots. Use your noggin, and find people to engage. If you grow your twitter account this way, you’ll be able to activate a real audience who follows you in twitter because you’re real!

Other cool things Tweet Adder does:
Mass delete up to 150 DMs per day via the “Misc” tab.
Send up to 250 DMs per day via the “Messages” tab.

Be patient and tweet with consistency and the twitter gods will reward you with a growing list of followers. With its automated tweet and automated reply features, Tweet Adder can be used for good or evil. Leave “tweets” and “replies” tabs alone and use it for good! As always, if you don’t have the time to work with social media, we offer social networking services.

With their user base of 20,000,000 tweeters growing every day, it’s obvious that twitter is here to stay. But for how long?

New, viable technology seems to come out of the woodwork every few months or so. MySpace was the king of the social networking kingdom until facebook came along and conquered it. Now twitter is here, and while facebook hasn’t become obsolete as a result, twitter is most certainly eating into facebook’s market share. What’s next? Fardo? Zigmat? Breadstomp?

Thus, this social networking ninja believes it inevitable that by 2015 twitter will be an afterthought. With that said, I should add a caveat that as twitter hasn’t even established a real revenue model it’s a bit early to be playing Chopin’s Funeral March. Instead, I’ll bring to light some potential draw backs and flaws with twitter as it currently stands.

Firstly, like most social media, twitter is home to tens of thousands of spammer accounts. There isn’t anything quite like a solicitor to drive people away from, well, anything. While I feel it acceptable to use software and trains to find niche followers, the use of automated tweeting programs is wholly antithetical to the purpose of social networking. Social media is supposed to be just that: Social. It is my opinion that spammers crack the foundation of social media such as twitter and as such they should be unfollowed and left to die or change their methods. There isn’t a thing wrong as far as I can tell, with promoting your blog, website, business, etc, with honest to God, helpful, informative or otherwise REAL tweets.

The solution to this problem? Unfollow spammers. There are several great tools that work to that very simple end. TweetBlocker gives a grade (A+ thru F) to each and every person you follow. When it finishes compiling the data, which may take some time for larger accounts, simply sort by grade and delete Fs and Ds. Aside from using software to fix our problems we also have to be diligent to moderate our own accounts. If you suspect someone you’re following to be spam, have a look at their recent tweets by clicking on their avatar (their picture). If you see them tweeting over and over about mundane things like what show their watching, it’s likely that they are spamming with some kind of automatic tweeter. If every tweet they make contains a link to a site or some kind of sales pitch, unfollow them.

I’m pro-twitter for sure, so let me just remind you that scrubbing our accounts clean of spam will help ensure twitter stays viable for as long as possible.

Lastly, a downside I see with twitter is that as it’s going on year 4, it still suffers technical problems like downtime and over-capacity errors. I don’t know what they’re waiting for to fix these problems, but I haven’t personally seen the same issues with facebook. If the trend continues as twitter grows, it’s likely that people will get frustrated with it and move on. And what will they move onto you ask? Well, as I mentioned earlier, those with the technical prowess and creativity to come up with the new frontier in social media will provide something. And that’s really all it comes down to. Maybe it will be a page that follows what you’re doing on the web right now. Maybe it will social bookmark, update and post comments on blogs for you based on your surfing habits. Maybe it’ll remind you to buy milk next time you’re out. Whatever it does, it’s coming!

Is Twitter great? Yes! Will it be here forever? No. Our recommendation: Tweet on, don’t automate your tweets and give those that do the boot. Also, be aware of new, rising social media. And like you should do with twitter, ride the wave as long is it will last!

I’ve gotta admit feeling a little bit giddy as I signed into my LotusJump account for the first time. Based on the taste I got at Pubcon Vegas, I was prepared for a multifaceted SEO tool. After an hour or so of hands on time, it was obvious that Lotus Jump is more than a tool; it’s a veritable SEO assistant.

What’s it do?
LJ’s main function is to help you boost the search engine clout of your website and to make you aware of favorable web networking and traffic driving sites.
It searches the internet for back linking, directory submission and and even article submission opportunities. What you might not expect, and what LJ does phenomenally well is provide step by step instructions for submitting those links, urls and articles. It’ll even provide you with html code you can include in your text and blog comments (”html code”: a fancy word for a “link”).

How does it work?
Sign up for LotusJump.
Choose a domain.
Choose keywords.
LJ will take the domain and keywords and return a list of simple SEO tasks to complete.
Click a task, read the easy to follow instructions and follow them.
Done.

It sounds so good, there’s gotta be a catch.
Well, the only draw back to Lotus Jump is 1 single bug I found that sometimes lists tasks that cannot be completed. An example would be a task that asks you to comment on a blog but fails to indicate how to do so. After a month of using the application I only ran into this problem 2 times. Each time I simply deleted the task and moved on.

What’s it cost?
LJ has 2 levels of subscription. $24 a month will get you access to tasks based on any 3 keywords of your choosing for 1 domain name. Opt for the Pro package at $49 a month and they’ll more than triple the keywords (10) and add a competitive backlink task that isn’t included in the basic package. If you’re working with multiple websites you can manage them all for an additional $19 each.

Sum it up?!
LJ was created for the internet layman. Yet, it is a smart, savvy, all-in-one, SEO assistant that this Social Net Ninja would dare call indispensable for anyone with a website. Go with the $49/p mo package to get the extra “Competitive Backlinking” task and triple your keywords and you’ll be cooking with gas.

Tips for using LotusJump:
-Filter tasks by keyword and then complete them by task type. Click filter options, choose one keyword (uncheck all other keywords) and then choose one task type. Click apply filters and complete all task types that LJ assigns you.  Once you get in a groove with a specific task type and keyword you can really fly through your tasks.

-Article Submission tasks: It may seem like a lot of work, but I recommend writing different articles for each article submission. Many sites require that the content you submit be original and unique. At the very least, if you intend ignore this advice and use articles you’ve already written, never use the same article twice.

Jump on LotusJump!