The thing about having fun while doing an interview over the phone is you sometimes give up TOO much information.

The other day I got to talk to Robert Plank on Skype about how I optimize my blog for profit. We talked for 30 minutes and had such a great conversation about blogging… that many times I forgot that Robert was recording the call!

We shared our favorite strategies, favorite plugins, our favorite marketers, and more. I came at it from a copywriter’s perspective, which is something you probably haven’t seen before. (So let me know what you think)

In the future, only people who join my email list will get access to this interview. And while I hope you have signed up to receive announcements, I am going to let you access the recording today with no restrictions.

Here it is: http://www.stephensblog.com/robertplank

Hope you enjoy it, and don’t forget to check out Robert Plank’s blog. He set a goal to make $30,000.00 for the month of February and he’s almost there. I’m sure he’ll let you know if he makes it at the blog.

PS In the video I talk about using testing, multivariate testing and some plugins. A while back I made a video showing how to do all of these things. I’m going to do a 24 hour special for the video tomorrow; it’ll be for $15.

But as a thank you for reading this entry, you can get it now for $10 through the Paypal button below.

The 2 Hour Sales Letter ($70).

The 7 Deadly Copy Sins ($35).

Tapping Michel Fortin’s Brain Vol. 1 ($35).

Tapping Michel Fortin’s Brain Vol. 2 ($35).

My Personal Sales Page Template ($20).

These are just some of the copywriting products I’ve had for sales over the past couple of years.

Whenever someone comes to me to learn about copywriting (including my family members), these are the tools I point them to.

Until 2pm tomorrow you can get all of these products (and a few more) for $19.95 TOTAL. Not $19.95 each, but $19.95 TOTAL.

To read more about it, click here: http://www.stephensblog.com/wso/24hour.htm

At the top and bottom of the page, you’ll find an order link. I’ll manually send you the access information shortly after your purchase.

This offer will be taken down at 2pm tomorrow.

Remember when I had Click2Mail send me a test postcard for ad campaign? I wrote about it here: Sending Postcards To Advertise Your Product Or Services.

Well it finally showed up yesterday. It took a LONG time…

…because of user error. My fault. I accidentally picked “standard mail” instead of “first class.” Instead of 4-5 days it took 9-15. (And I saved a whopping 11 cents!)

So that’s one mistake I noticed. The other is the graphics program I used to create the postcard.

Microsoft Paint just isn’t going to work! I saved the image I made in paint as a .jpg file, which looked fine until it showed up on a printed postcard. There’s too much noise surrounding the words… as a result of Paint not saving the .jpg at a high enough quality.

It’s possible that Paint might be able to work if I save it with another image format. But whatever…

Instead I’m going with Gimp. This is a free software program that acts a lot like Adobe Photoshop (a great program, but very expensive).

Gimp will be able to make a high quality screenshot and fix my postcard.

One more note. I took the advice to keep all of my content an inch up from the bottom in case the post office put a sticker on the bottom. The postcard did not get a sticker. In fact, I think the “sticker” was printed on the card.

However, I don’t want to risk it unless I need the extra space. So I’ll continue to heed that advice for a while.

The other day James Brausch asked via Twitter:

Someone tell me why I should twitter in addition to blogging at JamesBrausch.com | 23 days ago from web

Good question. Here’s why I twitter…

List Building

In some ways, twitter is just another way to keep in contact with your visitors/customers.

There’s postal mail, phone, email, RSS… and now social media outlets like Twitter.

But Twitter might currently be enjoying this advantage that other’s dont: It’s very easy to get new followers. Because Twitter is new people seem to follow anyone for any reason. Maybe that’ll change the way that it changed a bit with email… but for now that seems to be the case.

Once you’ve got followers you’ve got an audience.

It’s considered bad etiquette to ONLY use twitter to promote blogs, websites and products… but it’s certainly acceptable to do so in between socializing and providing value. (Similar to a blog.)

But there’s more to Twitter than just a way to stay in contact with your customers…

The Party Down The Street…

First, let me give credit to Perry Belcher for describing social media as a big party (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn1cspHx7DU).

And that makes it a big distinction from your blog.

Your blog is your house, Twitter is the party down the street.

Now, if you’re popular enough, you may never have to leave your house. You can have the parties at your house (your blog).

But I think stepping outside every now and then is a good thing. And for a few reasons.

1) Replies

A reply is when someone puts an “@” in front of your username inside of a tweet. Usually this is put at the beginning of a tweet, but it can be placed anywhere (although twitter might not spot it).

Here’s how replies can be so valuable.

On your blog, people can leave comments. But the only people who see your comments are other visitors to your site.

That’s not the case with twitter. When someone replies to your tweet, ALL of their followers see it. (Almost like they just sent an email to their list about YOU.)

2) Retweets (RT)

On a blog, you may be able to set up a plugin where people can forward a blog entry to a friend’s email address. Or if the person really wants to take action, they can make a post on their blog linking to your post.

In my opinion, both of these are limited compared to the retweet (RT).

A RT is when someone likes what you say in a tweet, so they send the tweet to their followers with “RT @YourUserName” at the beginning of the message.

It’s extremely easy for someone to RT (especially with software like http://www.tweetdeck that does it for you with 2 clicks).

And once it’s done, your message (and your username) has been sent to all of the followers of the person who made the retweet. It’s viral!

Replies and RTs Equal Social Proof And More Followers

Just like at a party, there are people on Twitter who it seems like everyone wants to talk to. They’re the popular folks that people tend to crowd around.

Of the people I follow, MattBacak, PerryBelcher and barefoot_exec seem to be the most “popular.” I can tell because they’re constantly sending @replies back to the people talking to them.

If I didn’t know who any of these people were, this would be great social proof. Just like I’d be attracted to the center of a party, I’d be attracted to their tweets, sites, products and so forth.

I also check out who they’re replying too. This is probably the main way I find new people to follow.

And it works the other way around. Immediately after Matt Bacak sent me an @stephenpdean, Mark Joyner began following me. Sweet!

Matt lent me some of his social proof and I got a cool new follower.

Viral Tweets And Matt Bacak’s $100 Contest

The replies and RT features of Twitter allow things to easily go viral. That’s just the nature of them…

…and Matt Bacak proved that last night.

He sent out a tweet offering $100 to the first person who could guess what he sold out of his wagon when he was 9 years old…

…the guesses came fast and furious. Over 2000 guesses came in that ALL started with (@MattBacak).

That means over 2000 people broadcasted a tweet to THEIR followers starting with @MattBacak…

Tens of thousands may have had @MattBacak appear on their computer screens because of one viral tweet.

Not only that, but Matt also said the tweet for his contest reached the 4th most ReTweeted message on twitter that night.

That’s even more exposure! And probably a lot of new followers. (It looks like Matt added over 5,000 new followers this week alone.)

Of course, new followers by itself is not enough when it comes to business. The questions needs to be asked…

Is Twitter A Profitable Business Tool?

I think so.

However I think this question is still being explored.

I know that Frank Kern has been testing Twitter-only launches.

Michel Fortin has been testing limited launches on Twitter.

And it looks like they’ve gotten results they were pleased with. But I don’t think this question will be concretely answered until the Twitter community matures and it is embraced by the masses.

For me, I’m a copywriter. And most copywriters know that the best way to get new clients is to go to a seminar and socialize.

People get to know you and then they want to work with you.

Social media platforms, like Twitter, may end up providing that same social setting.

It’s worked for me so far. I’ve only been on Twitter a short while but it has already translated in to a few projects.

In Closing

Twitter is still finding it’s place. People are still exploring ways to use it and benefit from it… just like they’re doing with the Internet.

Will it end up being an essential business tool like many people think it will (@garyvee included)? I’m not sure.

But I am sure I’m going to stick around to find out.

Shoot, guess we weren’t ready yet.

No questions for the copywriting Q&A. I tried to prime you guys up by asking you to leave more comments this week. We got 60 comments in 5 posts!

But no questions have come in yet for the copywriting Q&A. I guess I didn’t talk much about copywriting last week, maybe that’s something to learn from.

Listen, I’m going to answer copywriting questions on Monday even if I have to write them myself. LOL. But I’d love for you to submit a question to me.

Just look at the last copywriting Q&A session, it was great!

http://www.stephensblog.com/copywriting-qa-answer-time/

I’ll be sending out a prize to the best question, by my judgment, worth more than a $100. Let’s have ‘em!

I just noticed an interview I did for Edgar Boutaric in April of 2008. There were some signs of the financial crisis playing out at the time, although nothing like we saw in October/November.

The last question Edgar asked me was what I thought the effect the bad economy would have on Internet Marketing and copywriting. Reading my response today, I couldn’t agree more…

“I’ve been paying attention to the economic woes lately and I’m of the (very humble) opinion that it’s going to get a lot worse. But there are so many elements to consider that I’m not sure what will be affected and in what way.

…

“You might see beginning copywriters drop out. You might see the average copywriter lower their prices. And you might see the top copywriters raise them.“

From what I’ve seen, that seems to be the case. You can check out the full interview here:

“Why Hire A Talented Copywriter?”

Michel Fortin tipped me off to this awesome headline writing formula by Perry Belcher:

I recently gave an interview to Keith Goodrum where I mentioned the value of price testing. Jim Sansi just put together some videos to show you how to perform price tests with Muvar. Go here and check it out…

Magical Methods That Increase Sales by Jim Sansi of thekaizenbusiness.com

Also see…

9 Productivity Tools for Entrepreneurs to Smack Down Stupid, Time-Wasting Tasks… by Yanik Silver

Big Things For 2008 by Daniel Taylor

Is Competition Good or Bad? by Kevin Wilke

The Google Sneak Attack by Ryan Deiss