I’m not going to lie – I’m supremely jealous of Twitter. Really, I am. And to be honest who isn’t? The company came from practically nowhere, and in just four short years has become a household name, with just under 200 million users worldwide posting an average of 750 tweets per second. Entrepreneurs, naturally have tapped into this ever-expanding market to capitalize on the immense worldwide audience, and whilst using Twitter for business was initially a novel idea, now even Joe the dry-cleaner has latched on. If only there was a way to cheat the system…

Going on the assumption that you have been exposed to 21st century society post 2006, you’ll be aware of how Twitter works, so there’s no real need to go into too much detail here, only to tell you this – there is a way to dramatically speed up the process of building a Twitter follower base, without you having to do anything much at all. Let me introduce the concept of “auto-add”, where a program will automatically add targeted Twitter followers for you, up to the daily limit of 2000 followers. Yes, they really exist, and no, they’re not illegal.

The crappy part is that there is a one-time cost involved, and the even crappier part is that systems like this used to be free of charge (that awesome Greasemonkey script, anyone?) until the evil lords of the universe at Twitter waged war and shut it down. But, if you value Twitter as the business and marketing tool that it is, then this program may well pay for itself in a very short period of time.

Tweetadder: The Lazy Twitterers Salvation.

“Meet THE Ferrari of Twitter Friend Adder and Promotion Software!” is the slightly pretentious slogan one is greeted with upon visiting the cheery and colourful Tweetadder website. I am a Ferrari lover myself, and so am slightly offended that a program designed to cheat the Twitter system is being likened to my favourite brand of luxury car, but overly-zealous marketing strategy aside, the program largely lives up to the hype.

Although presented in the world’s most unimaginative interface, Tweetadder does an excellent job of finding Twitter profiles according to keywords you specify, and then promptly following the accounts, one per second, until the daily limit is reached. Compared to the “manual” way of individually adding a single Twitter profile via the main website, Tweetadder is a refreshingly easy way to build a solid, relevant follower base in a short space of time.

Twitter, apparently, doesn’t mind you using the software, as long as you are not adding ridiculous amounts of people per day and then proceed in rampant unfollowing (is that really a word?) when you are not followed in return. In my own tests, I was able to follow approximately 400 people per day, of which about 100 followed me back – one in four is a pretty good conversion rate. The only roadblock we hit is a Twitter policy that stipulates you cannot add more than 2000 people until you have 2000 followers. Once you’re past that number however, the amount of people you can follow is essentially limitless.

Tweetadder is cheating, Period. But, the amount of time saved in building a twitter follower base probably makes it very easy to oversee this small detail. If you are intending to use Twitter as a business tool, then Tweetadder is unsurpassed in regards to ease of use and practicality. Available for both Mac and Windows, this entirely legitimate program (no, it actually is legitimate) sells for US$55. In my opinion, money well spent.

Go to the Official Tweetadder WebsitePurchase Tweetadder (US$55)

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Monetizing a website is an exciting yet challenging process, and depending on website traffic it can be very easy or extremely difficult. There are thousands of choices out there which will almost always come down to just two options – pay-per-click advertising or affiliate marketing? So what should you choose?

Advertising Pay-Per-Click

Let’s start with advertising. To keep it simple, we’re going to compare the most popular form of web advertising, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), a system used through countless advertising programs, the most well known being Google Adsense.

the advantages

The biggest advantage of using PPC advertising on your website is that it’s immediate, easy money. Earning 25 cents or whatever the amount may be per click is as easy as implementing a small amount of Javascript, and you’re earning straight away. The entire process of installing the advertising script, watching your profits grow and receiving your money could not be any easier, and this is the primary reason why these types of network are so popular among so many websites.

Recent advancements, particularly with the Adsense system, mean that advertisements are now targeted specifically at users using the information stored in their web browsers. How fascinating, I hear you say, but what this means for you is visitors are going to (potentially) click on more of your ads, more often, increasing your profit. And you didn’t even have to do anything.

the disadvantages

The problem, as far as PPC is concerned, is about your income, and how it can change very rapidly. PPC networks traditionally are very secretive as to how much individual clicks are worth, and this can be annoying, because your monthly profit can change very quickly.

The rules and regulations surrounding PPC advertising is enough to give anyone a headache, and limits some of the freedom you have for your monetization strategies… AdSense Policies

Using PPC advertising on your website can be a great for blog income, but you don’t have complete control over your marketing strategy. On the other hand…

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the other option here – so how does it compare?

the advantages

Affiliate marketing means you become the salesperson. YOU are flogging someone else’s product, and getting a cut of the profit upon that product being sold. The immediate advantage with this is that it allows you to work with products you choose – affiliate marketing provides much more flexibility in regards to what you are actually advertising compared to PPC. You can implement affiliate links wherever you like, you can encourage people to click on them however you like (within reasonable limitations) – the choices are up to you, and when done correctly your profits will be larger than what you would receive from equivalent PPC advertising. And above all, you’ll know exactly how much you’re going to earn every time someone buys a product using your link.

The sheer amount of affiliate products out there means you can advertise products relevant to your own website. For example, we are affiliates with WooThemes, a wordpress theme company, and we provide affiliate links in our Wordpress themes posts. Unlike PPC which can only estimate what visitors would be interested in, by using affiliate links we can directly target our visitors with relevant products that will benefit them.

the disadvantages.

What makes affiliate marketing great also makes it suck – there is work involved. Well, not necessarily, but if you want to make the most of affiliate links, you’ll have to put in the effort. Sure, a simple banner advertisement with a link will garner you some profit, but to make the most out of affiliate links, incorporating links strategically into content, recommending products to users, creating custom banner advertisements and trawling through the countless number of affiliate programs out there will mean you need to put in the work. But when done right, the reward will be well worth it.

Affiliate marketing does not provide that instant profit that PPC provides, either. Visitors clicking on a link is (usually) not enough to gain a profit – they have to actually buy the product for you to get a cut, meaning the products you are affiliated with have to be worth your visitors time.

So what’s the better choice?

Ideally, both. No one said the two cannot work together in perfect harmony – employ both systems to get the best of both worlds. But we know you didn’t read this blog post looking for that answer, so if we had to choose? Affiliate marketing would win every time.

PPC is a godsend for small websites, or for webmasters who want the easy option, but affiliate marketing affords you so much more freedom to advertise what you want, how you want, knowing exactly how much you can expect to earn off each purchase.

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