It was early 2009, and I was still working in the walls of corporate America. I setup an account with the friendly little blue bird, named Twitter. It was from that moment I saw the power of the tweet and what it had in store for my life.
I didn't think twice about the Twitter handle when I set it up. I knew I loved marketing, I am a nut and my name is Pam. Without much thought the Twitter handle “@PamMktgNut” was born!
15 Years In Corporate and the Journey to Entrepreneurship
I spent 15 years working in corporate at companies such as GE, Sun Microsystems, StorageTek, Hitachi Data Systems. I took one last stop at a smaller company ($30 million annual revenue) with a goal to grow their online business. They were already in Wal-Mart & other big retail stores but hadn't gotten out of the red with online ecommerce sales. Little did I know the job was my last stop before the permanent virtual office.
Although I was in charge of marketing, which included social, our CEO had a false belief he was the social media ninja. When I started with the company they were in the red each month for $35k on their ecommerce store. Within three months we achieved a $1,200,000 positive annual revenue run rate by leveraging & monetizing email marketing, optimizing website and the conversion funnel, reducing and optimizing the Google Adwords spend and kicking off social media.
Even with the out of the roof results, we weren't empowered to do what needed to be done with social to see results. The CEO was reluctant to change and had us running in circles. His idea of a “business goal” as it related to social media was to become a viral video rockstar amoung other crazy things.
It was those moments that pushed me to be an entrepreneur. It was the power of Twitter that opened my eyes to how much social media could help businesses in a struggling economy. I wanted to go help hundreds and thousands of businesses see the same results we did. I had a dream of helping other CEOs, CMOs, and other business leaders in my shoes help educate their CEOs, board rooms on how to effectively use social for business.
After a few short months of working for the company I left to become an entrepreneur. That's a whole other story in itself of which we don't have time for in this post, but I promise to share more of in the coming months.
It's NOT about the 100k, it's about the people
It's hard to believe I hit 100,000 Twitter followers yesterday, as I have honestly never focused solely on the numbers.
Who “woulda thunk” that crazy Twitter handle (@PamMktgNut) with God at the driver seat would be part of the foundation to enable me to leave a 15 yr career in corporate America, start a business, sell a business, enable hubby to also leave corporate and we would build a life and business of our dreams. A business based on an idea to build a different more agile marketing agency with an integrated digital media platform as a foundation for ourselves and our clients.
It's not about the 100,000 Twitter followers. When I look at the numbers I think of the people, the relationships, the opportunity born. I think of the crazy and fun moments. I think of the amazing people who touched my heart in 140 characters and those I met on LinkedIn Q&A chats or Facebook business pages.
I want each of you to know that you are not a number to me. You are a human being.
More than crazy, tweeting fools!
So here we are today. We have already sold our first agency, and onto our official second agency, Marketing Nutz.
You may see us and just think we're crazy tweeting fools. However, there is much more to our plan and tactics. You'll see more of it as we launch several new platforms within the next few months. I am confident you'll be as excited about them as we are!
What a crazy road this has been. Has it all been easy? Of course not. Were there times I wanted to quit? Of course there were. Will I quit? Heck no! Every ounce of sweat, blood & tears are worth it.
A huge hug and thanks to all of you who have been there for us through thick and thin. Thank you for the tweet chats, Twitter conversations, DMs that touch my heart. Thank you for the inspiration, education, tips, infographics, data analytics, truth even when it hurts. Thank you for the insight, feedback, giggles, tears, friendship and love.
Thank you for being in our lives. We would have never gotten to where we are nor will we get to where we are going without you.
For those of you just starting out on this journey of life transformation all I can say is “go for it! Yes, there will be good, crazy, hard, sleepless, and amazing days. It's all worth it and I would not change a day of it for anything. Believe in yourself. Believe in your vision. Know that God's plans for your life are far bigger than your dreams can ever, ever be so give Him the keys and dream in super size peeps!
Luv ya' all to the moon & back (and then some!) xoxoxo
75 Things I learned on My Journey to 100k Twitter Followers
Here are 75 things I learned on my journey to 100k Twitter followers. This is not just about getting a certain number of followers. The below list includes things I learned about technology, people and myself on the path to successful entrepreneurship.
The list includes the good, bad and ugly. I had to make tough choices and no, every day was not a bed of roses. However, it was you that made it all so worth it.
- Gratitude. If there was one thing I learned on this journey, it is gratitude. I am so thankful for each and every one of you.
- Forgiveness. People make mistakes. Forgive them, even if they don't forgive you.
- Freedom. There is no better word to feel from within your bones than freedom.
- Relationships. You really can build true, meaningful business and personal relationships that start with a 140 character conversation.
- Consistency. Be consistent in your voice, and brand promise.
- Be you. Be the person that you are, all the time.
- There is only one you so be that person.
- Transparency does not equal authenticity. Authenticity does not require equal transparency with everyone you meet and know. Read more here-> Are Authentic Social Relationships Over Rated?
- Don't be an egg. Remove the egg avatar from your Twitter handle. Help people that are still eggs, not be eggs!
- There are real people behind those Twitter handles and avatars. Treat them as such.
- Share. Share your best stuff, even if others don't.
- It's not only about the numbers.
- Yet numbers do matter. A balance of quality and quantity is still a must to see results.
- If you have to choose between quality & quantity, always choose quality.
- It's better to have 100 followers who listen and care what you say than 10,000 who are robots.
- Purchased followers are usually robots and fake accounts. I never fell for the purchase follower scams and am so glad I didn't.
- Robots don't read, listen, tweet, share or own a credit card to buy your product.
- People matter.
- Content matters.
- Context matters.
- Relevancy matters.
- Listen before talking.
- Less is truly more. (This is a hard one for me.)
- Relationships matter.
- Google analytics is a gold mine for many things.
- Do more than trust your gut when it comes to website optimization. Do what the data tells you over your gut and what the “gurus” preach.
- Don't put off conversations today that can ignite your business tomorrow.
- Do what you say you are going to do. It may be just a tweet but people remember.
- People and brands are listening, reading and watching your tweets. They may do so for a year before calling you to purchase your services.
- We are better together than as single silos working as one.
- Tweet chats rock. Join us on #GetRealChat on Tuesdays at 9pm et. Other good chats include #BlogChat, #CMChat, #LinkedInChat, #SMManners, #MediaChat, #PinChat, and hundreds more.
- Content syndication and guest blogging works and can connect you with people who'd never know who you are other wise.
- Benefits of blog content syndication out weigh risks to SEO if done right.
- You are going to piss people off. Own the mistake and say sorry.
- Trolls suck. Best defense is to have a comment system that tracks their IP and let them know you know their IP!
- Failing to plan is truly planning to fail when it comes to social media.
- An integrated social business plan is a requirement, not an option. No social band-aids.
- Random Acts of Marketing and Random Acts of Social Media (RAMs) will eat every last morsel of your ROI for breakfast!
- Don't random tweet every day. Develop an editorial calendar for your blog, inclusive of tweets.
- Provide value.
- Working nights, early mornings and weekends to provide value to your audience will pay off as long as it's aligned to clear business goals and needs of your audience.
- It's okay to take a break away from Twitter. Your followers will appreciate you for it and value your tweets even more when you come back.
- If not feeling inspired, get out of the house and fast.
- A trip to the beach can inspire a month of content of high value for your readers.
- If in doubt write!
- People like lists, even if the “gurus” tell you to not use lists.
- Email is not dead, period.
- Think outside of your own box, every day.
- Read more blogs than you write.
- Comment on blog posts because you actually read the post and have value to add to conversation. Don't comment to get a link back to your site.
- Give without any expectation of receiving.
- You need your own data, not just the data of “gurus.”
- Some of our highest blog traffic days have been weekends. Don't forget people are online weekends, even if you aren't.
- Build an integrated business platform. It will take more time, but it works when you're not working.
- Hire people smarter than you.
- Give people a chance. Not everyone will learn Twitter or Facebook as fast as you can.
- Watching a client's eyes light up when learning Twitter or Facebook make every ounce of sweat and tears worth it.
- Getting in the trenches of your client business is the only option.
- Getting in the head of your target audience is a requirement.
- Know where your target audience hangs out online. Where do they eat, sleep, drink, talk, laugh and play?
- Love your customers and let them love you.
- Don't be afraid to help your customer take the skeletons out of the closet and deal with them asap.
- Help your customer do what is right to see results, even if they don't want to.
- Don't be afraid to fire a customer who doesn't value your time nor work.
- Put value on your time. If you don't nobody else will. Do NOT give your services away.
- Money isn't the only goal. It's the icing on the cake, but not the cake.
- Return on relationships is key to success and results.
- Focus on sustaining your business vs short term only revenue when possible.
- Change your lifestyle if you need to so you can reach your goals. We did!
- Your changed lifestyle may include selling your house, getting rid of your expensive cars and the list goes on.
- Be ready to let go of things that you depended on for many years. They are not your identity.
- Do these things and you will again find the real you, your true identity.
- You are not your Klout, Kred, PeerIndex or other social influence score.
- Vision with a plan inclusive of goals and objectives will change your life.
- You can and will reach your goals. You can do it. I believe in you!
What you say?
What is your journey? What have you learned since joining Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn? Where do you see your journey taking you?
Heartbeat of Social Media Series
This blog post is part of a series titled “The Heartbeat of Social Media“. It includes a deep look at how communities work, what people are doing within them and how businesses can better understand how they can fit in, provide value and derive benefit as both a business as well as individual people.
Subscribe to the series for updates and access to special videos, webinar training and more. Would love to hear your input and have you participate in discussions and debates as we challenge each other to be part of what makes the social network heartbeat healthy and alive!
- Worksheet: Download Content Inventory Worksheet to maximize to monetize your content!
- Worksheet: Download our POST audience analysis worksheet to help you identify and prioritize your top audiences. It is based upon the Forrester POST methodology.
- Blog Post & 51 Slide PowerPoint Deck: 34 Social Media Truths
- 15 Things Every CEO, CMO, CIO, CTO Must Do Before Hopping on Twitter
- 10 Tips to Get the Twitter Conversation Started
- 21 Tips to Get Your Tweet On
- 55 Tips to Get Retweeted on Twitter
- 20 tips to Tame the Wild Social Media Beast
- Social Media is Not Rocket Science
- 15 Reasons Random Acts of Marketing (RAMs) and Social Media Don't Work
- 15 Social Media, Lies, Myths & Fairy Tales”
Your Authenticity is inspiring Pam!
Awww thanks @twitter-554526785:disqus ! If only we had learned such 20 yrs ago, heh? ;)
Epic list Pam – but then you’ve a couple of years of experience(s)! The one thing that may be different if you start out on Twitter now is how easily you become part of someone else’s business model. Even if you do not buy followers yourself, you may end up on a list for ‘audience seekers’ by following (back) the wrong account.
Very true @twitter-201637095:disqus . Though we can’t control who follows us we can definitely influence such by not following robots. Usually if you unfollow them they unfollow you! ;)
I believe we can control who follows us, by blocking them after they do, if they are garbage.
Congratulations on passing the 100,000 mark! I actually found your post through triberr and was fascinated by the title (good titles always grab my attention). I love your list on things you have learned along the way. I especially was enamoured with number 49 “Read more blogs than you write.” I am firm believer in reading other peoples content and being a stay-at-home dad that can be challenging! The only way though to built relationships is by getting to know other people and sharing ideas. Thank you so much for sharing this great list!
Aaron
Yes, I agree. I have been only reading over Christmas break to fill my brain with other ideas. Excited to get back to the blogging deck next week though!
Glad you liked the post. Thanks for your comment & kind words. Have a great weekend!
[…] Moore has an absolutely excellent article on her website. She has a list of 75 things I learned on my journey to 100,000 twitter followers. First of all, way to go! Second of all, wow I can barely imagine having that number. I am, […]
I love #29. It made me think of something I learned from the Business Buddha, Dean Jackson.
When you start making offers of helpful information rather than “BUY NOW!” or “CALL NOW FOR YOUR APPOINTMENT!” you’re going to get more leads coming to you and within these leads will be people who aren’t ready to buy or take the first step now, but will be in the future.
When you get leads in volume, say a 100 or more, you can start to see what path these 100 leads took relative to what actions they took and when. This helps you establish some predictability into what the next group of 100 leads will do. The bigger the bundle of leads, the more predictable the outcome is which is converting leads into clients.
The Inquiry Handling Service is one of the largest lead conversion companies. This company manages the inquiries that come in from magazines, trade shows, etc. and what they found after handling millions of leads over multiple industries is that approximately 50% of the people who inquire will actually buy what they inquired about within 18 months.
About half of the people will do what the business seeking the lead ultimately wanted them to do, buy something, but not always immediately.
You know that leads are going to either buy or not buy. But what most people never give attention to is whether they’re going to buy now or later.
If someone isn’t going to buy now or later, they don’t matter to you. This is where getting a volume of leads is encouraging because if you get one lead from an ad you ran and they don’t buy, this sucks but if you get a hundred leads, it’s safe to say that around 50 of those people are going to buy at sometime.
The other stat that’s important to keep in mind is that only around 15% of the leads you get are going to buy within the first 90 days and the remaining 85% take longer than 90 days to finally be tipped off the fence and buy.
So if you like to have favorable odds when you bet, you’d naturally bet that most of the leads that come into your pipeline aren’t going to give you the lay down instant gratification you most desire by buying immediately and this is why educating and motivating people is the most important thing you can be doing when it comes to lead generation.
Most people’s business is set up to only cater to people who are ready to buy now and they leave behind the massive amount of money that can come to them by ignoring the majority of their leads who need some time to make a decision.
The money is in your ability to lie back, be helpful and cool in the eyes of your prospect via emails, post cards, consumer awareness guides, blog posts, etc. and wait.
Treat Every Lead Like They Were A V.I.P.
There’s no way you can look at the next 100 email addresses or Twitter followers you get and know who’s going to buy and who isn’t.
I don’t know about Twitter yet, but the only thing you know for certain now is that around 50% of those email opt ins you get will turn into buyers if you can stay in their face and be a helpful addition to their life for at least the next 18 months.
Most people treat their leads like they’re one star prospects and their horrible “BUY NOW! BUY NOW! BUY NOW!” instant gratification oriented marketing talks these leads out of buying which only serves to reinforce in the business owners mind that lead generation is the process of seeking people who buy immediately . . . and that the tire kickers are the devil.
If you treat ALL of your leads and (live person) followers as if it’s only a matter of time before they buy, you’ll be operating from a winning formula.
[…] thank you for sharing this journey with me. I thank you for the the time we will spend together in the coming days, months, and years, […]
Great stuff Pam! I follow you on Twitter and I learned a lot from this! Thanks!
Awesome @twitter-157377962:disqus
[…] 75 Things I Learned on My Journey to 100,000 Twitter Followers […]
[…] 75 Things I learned on My Journey to 100,000 Twitter Followers […]
great article. Just loved reading it!!
Great to hear, thanks Scott!
Great Article Pam!
Thanks Tony! Glad you liked it. Hope your biz is going well.
Hey Pam,
What an epic list! My favorite was “It’s better to have 100 followers who listen and care what you say than 10,000 who are robots.” Twitter’s different for everybody, but it seems the ones who get the most out of it focus on building relationships.
I also loved #73. As I told someone on Twitter recently, “I’ve never had anyone tell me, ‘I’d love to hire you to write for us, but April over here has a higher @klout score.’
I’m going to come back to this list. I’m sure I missed some gems through my sleepy eyes! :)
Great list! It’s very helpful to me as I try to establish my brand. I have so many different interest, it’s difficult to narrow down. Currently, I brand myself in social media, sports, and writing. Still seems too broad, however, thanks to tips like yours, it’s more specific than it was. I am an educator, interested in social media marketing/management. Again, great content!
Thank you @twitter-29023706:disqus Glad you find value in the content. Just keep doing what you are doing and connecting with your audience. They will help you refine your message, value proposition and unique positioning. Stay true to your passions and offering value to others and you can’t go wrong!
[…] 75 Things I Learned On My Journey to 100,000 followers – pammarketingnut.com […]
Pam, great list and I love reading about your success! It was great to meet you in Moorseville with Lowes! We should connect!!!!
The feeling is definitely mutual Sandy! Loved meeting & talking w/you in Mooresville. Yes, let’s definitely connect. We had lunch with Colleen Burns of the ICS group yesterday.
This is a great example of a post that will always be relevant and is truly inspirational. Thank you for sharing.
My pleasure @twitter-335508759:disqus. Glad you liked it :)
That is an excellent list. I especially liked number nine. Congrats on building a solid, quality, 100K. I go to great lengths to block and block and report spam, the people who follow me but aren’t of value. It will be a long time until I get to 1OOK or even 10K, but I agree, it is quality that matters.
Absolutely @twitter-103512565:disqus! Keep up the good work. We all start somewhere. It truly is about quality and relationships above all else!
[…] 75 Things I learned on My Journey to 100,000 Twitter Followers […]
great list and all true. lol about helping the “eggs” not be “eggs”.
Amen @twitter-157112422:disqus!
[…] If you take Aaron Lee’s advice and grow your Twitter following to epic levels, you’re in for an incredible journey. Marketing geek and social nut Pam Moore gives the inside track on what it’s really like to be a Twitter superstar. […]
[…] I think back to just a few years ago when I left all the perks of a high paying 15 year career in corporate America to venture out to the world of social entrepreneurship. Wow, it’s been a crazy ride, but a ride I wouldn’t change for anything. You can learn more about my journey here “75 Things I Learned On My Journey to 100k Twitter Followers.” […]
[…] I think back to just a few years ago when I left all the perks of a high paying 15 year career in corporate America to venture out to the world of social entrepreneurship. Wow, it’s been a crazy ride, but a ride I wouldn’t change for anything. You can learn more about my journey here “75 Things I Learned On My Journey to 100k Twitter Followers.” […]
[…] 75 Things I learned on My Journey to 100,000 Twitter Followers […]
Thanks for this very helpful list and congrats on 100,000 followers!
great article! Rocked my world!
[…] 14. Quality over quantity. Don’t be intimidated by not having hundreds or thousands of Twitter followers. Instead focus on providing value to each and every follow you earn. Read-> 75 Things I Learned on My Journey to 100,000 Twitter Followers […]
[…] It was early 2009, and I was still working in the walls of corporate America. I saw the power of the tweet, what it could do for my career, business and life. […]
[…] 75 Things I learned on My Journey to 100,000 Twitter Followers (blog post) […]
[…] 75 Things I learned on My Journey to 100,000 Twitter Followers (blog post) […]
[…] 75 Things I learned on My Journey to 100,000 Twitter Followers (blog post) […]