I have been thinking long and hard about whether to write this here or over at my personal blog. Did I want to bring controversy here, or battle it over where it won’t affect the SWBN business and reputation? In the end I have decided to do it here as there are good business lessons to be learned for those contemplating using this, or similar techniques, to promote their business online.

Strap yourself in; this is going to be a long and bumpy ride.

Social Media Marketing

What? Weren’t we going to talk about Twitter Rocket and whether it was a scam? Yes we will get to that, but I need to put some concrete foundations in for where I am coming from. There will inevitably be people who want to argue discuss points that I want to establish from the get-go. So the first foundation point is what social media marketing is…and what it shouldn’t be.

In theory, the social networking movement is a step towards the one world village type of utopia the hippies dreamed of in the 60′s. A place where everyone can be friends if they want to be, happy interactions with people who aren’t friends yet. A place to get to know your neighbour and keep in touch with people that interest you.

Psychologically, social networking helps us humans with any thoughts of not existing in the greater world. Yes I exist; look there is my Twitter account to prove it. Tweet Ergo Sum.(wow this is getting really deep!).

Social media is the term to describe the tools to accomplish the friend-ing, discussing, and proof of existence.

Social media marketing (a term so badly abused it really should be in a refuge under strict supervision) is business recognising the human need for this social network contact and interacting with their potential market on that human level, not as walking wallets. Yes, I am laughing too, we still are a long way from that for some large companies, but for small business this is critical and crucial to ongoing success.

Simply stated, social media marketing should be giving your business a human face, a real voice, and a large listening ear.

So What About Twitter Rocket

Here’s Twitter Rocket laid out.

1. Set up a Twitter account – well yes that is pretty straight forward

2. Go to SocialToo and set up auto-refollow (I am not going to sugar coat it by calling it reciprocal follow)

Twitter has cut out auto-follow from its bag of tricks as it became a spammer’s playground. That should be a warning to everyone contemplating this route. Twitter does not want you auto-refollowing because they want to keep their platform social, not a mindless traffic jam of dumb accounts following dumb accounts (dumb as in unable to speak, but the other way works too).

I have never used auto-refollow and my gag reflex was triggered several times when I set up accounts using the Twitter Rocket method. I knew that I was going after accounts that auto-refollow and I knew that these accounts were mostly not real people and worthless as customers.

Warning This is the excerpt from the Twitter TOS that people who are contemplating this should be aware of, this is NOT mentioned in the Twitter Rocket eBook, though how to game it is certainly alluded to

• If you have followed a large amount of users in a short amount of time;
• If you have a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following;

3. Go to Twitterfeed and set up an auto-content posting from Google Alerts

Or in layman terms, populate your tweets with links with no input from yourself about the link content. Mindless parroting in other words.

Warning This is the excerpt from the Twitter TOS that people who are contemplating this should be aware of

• If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates;
• If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one accountNow starts the weekly routine

4. Get rid of people not following you using Twitter Karma if you have an existing account.

This one really stuck in my craw. You are clearing out people that you have been interested in, so you can populate your list with people that are potential “marks”. Nice work.

You will be doing this on a weekly basis. Not being followed back? Dump ‘em. Ever wondered why that single account keeps following and unfollowing you? Twitter Rocket devotees could very well be the cause.

Warning This is the excerpt from the Twitter TOS that people who are contemplating this should be aware of

• If you have followed and unfollowed people in a short time period, particularly by automated means (aggressive follower churn);
• If you repeatedly follow and unfollow people, whether to build followers or to garner more attention for your profile;

5. Follow a guru’s followers using Twitterholic

This one is not a bad suggestion if you weren’t performing this auto-refollow crap. If you are looking for people who are interested in the same things you are then find the leader of that tribe and check out some of their followers.

My real Twitter account follows mainly Australian tech people who I found by looking at the followers of a local tech celebrity or two. I am following those people because they interest me and I learn a hell of a lot from them, I do not expect them to follow back.

6. Retweet something a guru said to get their attention

Sadly the instructions here are laughable as it does not specify what kind of thing to retweet. Good luck with that.

7. Join in trending conversations that interest you

OK so you add your voice to a current conversation. Let’s check out one of the Twitter Rocket champions to see how they do it.  Erm… couldn’t find one.

Joining trending conversations is kind of like joining a Mexican wave; it is rare that someone on the other side of the stadium reaches out to you specifically. More likely that your close contacts will respond to what you are talking about.

This move is supposed to bring more attention to your account…the word “dramatically” is used in the description. I think it is busywork and hence why you won’t find the champions doing it.

Warning This is the excerpt from the Twitter TOS that people who are contemplating this should be aware of

• If you post multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #
• If you post multiple unrelated updates to a trending or popular topic

8. Use Geofollow to follow local people

For local small businesses this isn’t a bad idea at all. Reaching out and saying hello is great as long as you

a) Do it personally not via automated message

b) Do not in ANY WAY appear to be drumming up business. Don’t even mention your business. In fact don’t even say hi with your business account, do it with your personal one.

Back to Twitter Rocket – remember that the process says to dump anyone who doesn’t follow back…so this work would be for nothing if these are real people you approach, who pick and choose whether to follow people on the quality of their conversations.

9. Find People Like You and Start a Syndicate

Blog syndicates have been around for a while. If done well they can be of great help to both the audience and the authors. The object is to improve content quality of all blogs as well as increase readership for all.

Alas forming a Twitter syndicate as suggested by TR does not talk about quality, the audience or improving Twitter as a whole. Instead it is all about the occasional retweet amongst the syndicate. Risky business when it comes to REAL PEOPLE who can see and smell crap and will reward it with a quick unfollow. Social media is all about authenticity and this is about as real as ….  something that isn’t real.

10. Follow your Syndicate’s Followers

Because their auto-followers are pre-tested for their auto-following ability

11. Follow Your Niche’s Well-Followed-Members, Followers

Using Twitter directories search out people that have more than 2000 but less than 5000 users. Follow everyone on the first page of the top 20 of those people.

Massive leap of logic here in the process; supposedly if the niche well-followed-person is searching for new followers, then their followers will be the type to follow people who are looking for new followers. WTF? Yeah I don’t know either. Most people who are growing followers do so because they have something worthwhile to say and interest people around them.

Correlation does not mean causation … no matter what a $97 eBook tells you.

12. Follow Friday

Using the hashtag #FF search out who is being suggested and follow them, up to the 200 limit. Remember to dump them if they don’t follow back.

New Addon

The last bit is a script that will auto-post tweets and needs to be installed on your hosting platform with a cron job set up. I guess this was created for those people that do not know that there are services out there like TwitResponse or  Tweetlater that already do this without putting code in your hosting.

Phew, But What Do You Really Think?

Look for people that are trying to grow a huge e-penis by upping their follower list for no reason then go for it; I am sure you will have a hefty number after your name in no time.

For real people trying to make a real living from a business and was looking at how to improve marketing using social media I say avoid this like the plague. Just about everything that could be wrong with smash and grab type social media marketing is suggested here.

Look at what your account twitter account quality score will look like for a start

As compared to a normal person

I tried; I really tried to give this a go. I have the accounts set up and the followers, but I could not stand polluting Twitter with garbage and after a while I halted the auto everything. I was not finding and following people who were interested in my businesses. I was finding auto-followers like myself who had nothing but auto-generated links as conversation. Totally useless.

The lack of real information on how someone could apply this information to a product other than itself is what really sunk the boat. While this is not a “scam” or a pyramid scheme, it is a business model that cannot sustain itself.

I do not recommend this product to business owners as a method of promotion. I do not recommend it to anyone that is serious about creating an internet identity based on integrity. I will also point out that some of the largest marketers on the internet have recently dropped the people they follow because IT DOES NOT WORK to follow thousands of people if you want to network successfully.

Why have I posted a run-down of the Twitter Rocket process?

I have had many enquiries as to what TR is as you cannot see it before purchase, and the Paypal returns policy is based on caveat emptor (buyer beware, but if you can’t see what you are buying you are caught). Most information marketers on the internet offer a guarantee for their products after purchase; this product could stand to have the same guarantee.

The process itself is worthless; the offer of free lifetime assistance from the author is where the value is on this deal. A business model that will work for small business service providers until they become of a certain size, then the choice will need to be made between out-tasking that service, remaining small, or doing service really badly while struggling with the larger numbers.

I expect there will be some angry TR affiliates upset with what I am pointing out with their product. Hopefully they won’t be too short sighted as much of the world’s biggest selling products are unhealthy (Coca-cola, McDonalds, KFC) or aimed at the insecurity of others (breast enlargement, penis enlargement, weight loss). Everyone knows they are not all what they seem, but people will still buy them. Sell the effect, not the product.

You might also be interested in these related SWBN posts:

1. Twitter Rocket A Scam? Investigation: Does Twitter Rocket make as much money for the...
2. Twitter: Quality vs Quantity I feel like having a rant, but rather than “go...
3. Twitter Rocket Scientific Test Starting today I am going to be performing a test...