Interview with Graham Rowlands, Topic: Twitter - Dealer Dan's Affiliate Bible

Everyone knows about Twitter. Yet not too many people actually understand Twitter. Hands up if you fall under one of the following groups:

1) Have a Twitter account. Maybe tweeted a few times about a year ago. Came back once or twice to tweet something, and then forgotten about it.
2) Signed up for a Twitter account for your website. Have all your new articles auto-post about it. Also pretty much forgotten about it.

I’d expect many people have their hands up. Twitter is something that can be really hard to explain to a regular person to help them really “get” what Twitter is. It’s even more difficult to explain it to an internet marketer, because internet marketers don’t ask “How do I use Twitter?”. They look at it and say “How do I make money off Twitter?” without realizing that you need to REALLY understand Twitter, what it is and what works – to really get it.

I sat down with my good friend and affiliate Graham Rowlands. Many of you know Graham but for those who don’t, he has been a highly successful affiliate for years. Graham is someone who fell into the above categories but now uses Twitter on a daily basis. I wanted to get into his mind and have him help explain Twitter to everyone. Graham is the “average user” of Twitter and also has an internet marketer, has a wealth of experience and knowledge he can share.

You can also follow Graham on his blog at iPokerAffiliate.com and of course follow his twitter: @beachrockinc.

I also want to note that Graham is participating in Movember. Donate here!.

Thanks alot for doing this interview Graham. The main purpose of it is to “understand” Twitter more, as I know most affiliates reading this have no clue how to use Twitter. Not just as a marketing method, but just the general usage of Twitter as a whole.

You followed the path of most people by registering, doing a few tweets, then ignoring Twitter completely. However earlier this year you started using Twitter a lot more frequently, especially on a personal basis. Why did you decide to start using it more?

There are actually several reasons why I started using Twitter a lot more at the beginning of the year but by far the biggest was curiosity. Essentially, I didn’t “GET IT”. Around the time I started to become more active I was starting to see mentions of Twitter being much more common in main stream media.

TV shows would post their hashtags (those words with the # symbol in front of them for the less Twitter savvy) so after initially writing it off as a great place to get updates on my favourite sports teams I started to think there must be a lot more to this thing than I originally thought.

I really didn’t understand what the appeal of using a restricted amount of characters was compared to facebook which allowed you to basically type as much as you wanted. I also didn’t get why people would want to share what I was thinking to be personal info with a bunch of strangers. All this led me to wonder if there was a way that I could utilize Twitter to help grow my business, or if nothing else get some enjoyment out of it on a personal level.

Once you started(earlier this year), did you find it tough to keep going with Twitter, or were you hooked right away?

At first it was still a little tough, as I was still in the learning phase and yet to understand what the point was. Fortunately as time went on some of my friends started using it as well, which made it much easier to get more involved.

It probably took at least 3 months or so before I was really hooked in. Since then I have gotten several free things (such as VIP tickets to a soccer match with free food and beer), met many people, and am even playing on a softball team now that was formed entirely via Twitter. Nowadays its actually really hard to keep off of it!

For anyone looking to start using Twitter on a personal level, what would you suggest they do, and what mistakes should beginners look out for?

It really comes down to what the intentions are of the person wanting to use Twitter on a personal level are to be honest. If you are looking to just communicate with your current group of friends then you can do just that, but Facebook is really much better for that.

If you are looking to connect with people of similar interests and expand your social circle then you can do so easily by simply joining the ongoing conversation that is Twitter. Follow people with similar interests (you can find them by using Twitter search, Google, and finding sites/bloggers and looking for their twitter handles), reply @ them if they have a question and as you build your following ask some questions of your own and talk about your common interests.

For example, if you love food then follow restaurants in your area and tell them what you like, tweet pics of meals, and recommend dishes on your feed. As you follow people you will see that there are lots of “Tweetups” (meetups for Twitter people) going on all the time. Don’t be afraid to get out to some of these and meet the people you communicate with in real life.

You have a couple of Twitter accounts used primarily for marketing purposes. Do you have any tips on how to use those sort of Twitter accounts when it comes to pure 100% marketing?

Frankly I haven’t even begun to even push any of these accounts yet because they are for sites that are more still just ongoing projects and aren’t really in launch mode. I have thought about doing one for some of my gambling stuff, but given a lot of the recent industry news I am starting to focus a lot more on non-gambling projects.

Though, from my experience if you really want to succeed with Twitter I can tell you that you need to become an expert in your field. There are definitely ways that you can make a ton of money, but auto-tweeting is definitely not one of them. To really succeed you need to interact or have someone handle the Twitter account (but be open about it). Just posting links to your articles everyday is one way to make people unfollow you very quickly. The only way that could possibly work is if all the articles were such high quality that people couldn’t wait for the next one, and you added some kind of comment about them (not just the link to the article).

“Black Friday” set off a very bad avalanche in the gambling industry, with poker rooms, casinos, bingo halls and sportsbooks either closing down or closing their doors to US players. At this time do you think prospective new gambling affiliates should look at different markets, or is there still enough space & money here for new affiliates to succeed?

I have always been a firm believer in diversifying and I think any prospective new affiliate should not put all their eggs in one basket when it comes to gambling nowadays. There is still definitely a ton of money to be made (though extremely risky in the US market right now) and I am curious to how everything will play out. This isn’t the first time the gambling industry has had a “major correction”, though I think this one is definitely hurting a lot of affiliates much more.

I still think there will be demand for affiliates in the US, but to what extent I am unsure. But remember, if it does get handed over to the Vegas casinos, those casinos will all be competing with one another so they will need to advertise somewhere 😉 New affiliates nowadays just need to be a lot more creative and maybe looking at something like Twitter or video marketing is the way to go.

Have you participated in any of those “Tweetups”? And do you see them purely as expanding your social circle, or as opportunities to market too?

I have participated in several tweetups. Most of the ones I go to are food related and since some of my friends aren’t always as interested in trying new restaurants as I am I thought it would be a great way to do so, while meeting some people with similar interests.

I have met many people from Tweetups and really haven’t had any bad experiences. As for the second part of the question, the main reason was to expand my social circle and get myself out of the house and interacting with people. As an affiliate I was spending a lot of time sitting at home all the time in front of a computer screen.

The tweetups were a way to get out of the house and interact with actual people as most of my close friends only really go out on the weekends and rarely midweek when most of the tweetups take place. As an entrepreneur though I am always looking to network with people that might have skills where we can work together so I am also on the lookout for these kinds of things when at the Tweetups.

If there was one website you could build around a topic where you got paid millions of dollars a year no matter what – what topic would that be?

I think my biggest passion is food so I would probably have a site where I was constantly out and about reviewing restaurants. Unfortunately most food bloggers I know don’t really get paid that much.

Have you did much or any video marketing at all? (And if so, what?)

I created a couple youtube videos around the “Pokerstars Marketing Code” term years ago though I am not sure whether or not they were actually effective as I used the same codes that I had on my site. I did notice they did get quite a few views though. I have a friend that has a creative studio doing video commercials for many well known brands and we have discussed doing something a few times but nothing has panned out as of yet.

I noticed you’ve started using foursquare a fair bit recently on Twitter. Foursquare itself seems to be basically going to locations then tweeting that you’re there. What’s the main purpose behind it?

The way I look at Foursquare is it is mainly a tool to let people know where you are so that your followers can engage with you about the place and provide any advice or ask questions.

I originally signed up because everyone on my softball team was using it at the bar where we went after our games because they had a Foursquare special where you get FREE chili poutine on every 3rd check in. I have since started using it a lot more though to let my followers know where I am going as well as to read tips shared by other Foursquare users about the place I am at. For example, it is a great way to find out what the most popular food items are when checking in to restaurants.

For new affiliates who are still looking to get in on gambling, would you recommend they look at promoting sportbooks, poker, casino or bingo at this point of time?

That is a difficult question as I think that really depends on the person. Personally I would suggest they promote either the one that they are most passionate about or the one that they have the most innovative idea for. Competition is fierce and it takes a lot to compete with the big players in the industry nowadays.

I want to thank Graham so much for such a fantastic interview. He’s really helped me understand Twitter a lot more too on a personal level, and it’s fast become part of my daily routine.

Remember – Donate to Grahams Movember if only because the dudes gonna look hideous with a moustache, and follow him on Twitter @beachrockinc. Thanks Graham.

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This article, as are all articles on AffiliateBible.com, was written by Graeme aka "Dealer Dan". Graeme currently resides in Kingston, Ontario and has been running his own internet marketing business since 1996.

This article was written on November 3, 2011 however all articles are looked at on a monthly basis and updated to keep them relevant.

If you need to contact Graeme, please see his Contact Page. If you are an affiliate manager wanting promoted please see this page.

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