Warning: I was asked to write this article in response to the desperate pleas of Heyo customers and clients to figure out how to turn their Facebook fans into profit for growing (or struggling) Internet Startups. They needed results fast. So the techniques I pulled out of my hat for them may not be elegant. They may not be complicated. But they WORK. They all have to do with a big ugly secret…

Facebook is big.

It’s freakin’ Huge. I’m not going to even bother throwing numbers around – but lets just say it makes the mega-malls of the eighties look bashful and tiny. And Facebook, contrary to what you may’ve heard, is still growing. Just a few weeks ago they had their biggest login day ever. Now, for some cold hard truth: it can take a whole lot of moneybuy sumo wrestler suits , or even more time and effort, to build a huge following on Facebook. Don’t listen to anyone who says it’s “easy.” And the worst part is, even if you do manage to build up a big tribe, what’s to say you will make more money because of it? Nothing. It’s an easy trap to fall into. Unfortunately, more often than not, I find entrepreneurs falling into the Facebook trap: putting themselves through the ringer (personally and financially) to build up a 100,000+ fan base…and end up having next to nothing to show for it in their business (or their bank account). Sadly, of the many online businesses who started up during The Facebook Boom – well, let’s just say that a ton of those folks have lost their shirt (or are about to). Now for the big ugly secret I promised you jumping castle sales. This is kind of like the crazy aunt in the attic that everyone kind of knows about but doesn’t want to admit she’s there. Are you ready? Those of us who have been using the internet to grow our business since before Facebook were largely unaffected by the Facebook trap.WHY? I like to call it the L.C.D. The Least Common Denominator. You’ve probably used it ten or eleven times today and still don’t know what I’m talking about.

The L.C.D. is the one thing that is necessary online for everything else online to work. It’s the one communication tool that EVERYONE still uses to make purchases online.

It’s…Email. Ok, at this point, either you’re a believer, or you’re skeptical. You’ve either come to San Francisco wearin’ some flowers in your hair, or you’re still in your boy scout uniform. If you’re skpetical, go somewhere else. If you’re already hip to the power of using email (in a cool way) and how profitable it can be, then you’ve probably been watching the sites of your competitors…very, very enviously. It’s true. The most well known (and highest paid) bloggers in the world…the best S.A.S. solutions…the greatest “info marketers” in the world…even the really good barbers and restaurant owners who consistently fill their chairs with paying customers, day in and day out, all use the same L.C.D. when the want to actually make money. Each and every one of them have one big thing in common when it comes to communicating with their Tribe (leads and prospects if you’re old-school). They use really great Email Marketing – that is highly personal and not stuffy and commercial to build their tribe and bond with it. Heck, even the Oval Office is doing it. So why aren’t you? Well, you’re probably a little wary, and I don’t blame you. I mean, no one wants to be called a spammer, right? And what about those shady CPA deals you’ve heard about? Let me let you in on another little secret. Email marketing used to be about Prospects, Leads and Conversions. It used to be about buying lists, spamming them with CPA offers, upsell sequences and Trojan Continuity programs, all to get leads to funnel down the pipeline to Boiler Room style sales floors in Utah. Not anymore. The online world has changed faster than a chamelon in the past year. And with it, so has the way we communicate with friends, followers, customers and clients. Today, you want to build a Tribe (thank you Seth Godin). It’s kind of like a big, extended family…and you wouldn’t send your family sleazy CPA offers, would you? Of course not.

So, you have a choice. Do what works, and has been working for years…or keep following the newest Shiny-New-2.0-Tech object of the day while your business tanks.

What’s it gonna be? Here are the top 7 ways that savvy Social Media marketers are transforming their Social Media (or Facebook) following into an incredibly responsive email list (Tribe) that drives profit for their business day in and day out…

Facebook Connect

You’ve seen it. You’ve installed the plugin. Heck – you may even have it set up and working on your blog. Using Facebook Connect on a Squeeze Page, where the traffic you’re getting is driven from either a paid ad on Facebook, or from a post you do to your community is worth an A/B test against a traditional Squeeze Page. Either way, it’ll either tell you that F.C. is a faster and cheaper way to build your list than a straight name & email optin. But if the goal is to build your email list so you can follow up with your tribe for virtually nothing, in a way that is easy to measure and improve – then setting up a test will be a profitable activity for you. You’ll get more people to give you their info – which means you get more people you can deliver more value to via email in the form of articles, videos, blog posts, podcasts, teleseminars and webinars! And yes, it also means more sales opportunities.

The Blurred Bonus

This is a great feature that Lujure already has, that most people never take the time to put into practice. This is quick and easy, but I’ll break it down into steps for you: Step A. Come up with kick-ass video or special report that you want to give to your fans as a special bonus for joining your Facebook Community. Step B. Make a Fan-Page about it. Step C. Use Lujure to Blur Out the video you are giving people unless they enter their name and email address to access it. Step D. Put a great Direct-Response style headline above your optin form. Step E. Put Like/Share buttons under your video Now you have a 3-step mini-process:

1. Press the Like button to reveal how to get access to the video (blurred out video and optin form)
2. You have a picture of the video and the name and email address optin below the picture.
3. After folks optin, drive them to the video.

F. Post something to your fans about the new video they can go and get access to for being a fan…G. Create a FB Ad that drives to that page Now, you have a super-optimized mechanism for gathering the names and email addresses of your fans. AND you can drive new people into this system to immediately get more names and emails from people who find you through your social media or paid media campaigns on Facebook. *Note: Most of the time, driving non-FB traffic to this type of system will be a huge waste of money.

A Like Button In Your Ad

This is a super fancy trick to add onto the previous method. Make sure to put a Like button in your FB ads, and have the call to action be for people to click the Like button. That way, by the time they click on the picture or headline in your FB ad, you’ll already have the Like, and they will have jumped through that hoop before they even hit your Fan Page.

The One Time Offer

Folks who hate selling are going to hate this one. But folks that actually spend money on FB advertising are going to love this one. It’s an oldie but goodie, that is working now better than ever. The way it works is really simple. (It’s not all that different from the system I outlined in Method 2. But there’s one easy tweak)… Instead of driving people to a video on your FB page after folks opt-in to your email list, drive them to a page on your website (preferably a long-copy sales video) that gives people a one-time offer to purchase something amazing from you at an incredible price. The reason for doing this is… You already have the Like. You already have the name and email address. This is what’s going to pay you back for the time or money you spent driving folks to your fan page. You should be giving away a special report or daily newsletter with this method, or you could say that there is an entire video series you want to give away – so after they optin, you clearly explain to your new fan that they’ll be receiving a email in the next 20 minutes or so (depending on how fast your autoresponder is) – and they then get emails on a regular basis with links to the video series, or the special report. Then on the thankyou page you have a video where you go into your story about your product, why you’re doing the one time offer and then you make a pitch at the end. Boom. Instant sales, and it recoups some or all of your advertising expense.

Facebook Ads To Your Followers

Ok, this article is getting long. I’ll speed it up. Doing FB ads for your Fans on FB is insanely cheap. Do it, do it often. Always drive to a squeeze page (see method #2 above). You’ll get very inexpensive optins that way.

Amazing Autoresponder Sequences

Ok, this is where the rubber meets the road. If you don’t have a built in auto-responder sequence that lasts at least 30 days, then you’re simply flushing money down the toilet. I advise that you build absolutely amazing content into your sequence. Videos, great super-shareable blog posts, other FB groups you’ve created… Find your medium of choice – so that you love creating content for your tribe, and it’s the type of stuff that they continually respond well to. Write up 30 emails in 30 days and drop them into your sequence. Write P.S.’s in your emails that drive to your product and service offers and watch a residual income stream begin. This yet again puts more money in your pocket so you can take the time (or money) to build your Facebook following faster.

D.R.B. (Direct Response Blogging)

This is something brand new. Everything you’ve read about so far are pieces to a much bigger puzzle. It’s the overlap between savvy social-media marketing/blogging and Direct Response Marketing that has been working for decades. It’s the point where the cool meets the wealthy. It’s the sweet spot where smart bloggers are starting to use Email Marketing to generate revenue, so they can quit their barista job at Starbucks to do what they love full time. D.R.B. is the answer to what so many of us have yearned for. A cool type of marketing, that makes money – and doesn’t make you look like an a_ _ on the internet for centuries to come. What I’m talking about here is a Social-Email-Feedback-Loop where your social media activity grows your email list, your email list drives revenue and your Social Media Activity in turn bonds you to your tribe in a

way that your competitors simply can’t touch… Because it’s all about you. It’s not about your company. It’s not about your software. It’s not even about your Tribe (shocking but true). The folks in your tribe will come and go over time. But if you’re the leader they are looking for… they’ll happily bring more people into the mix because you’re doing something good for them. You’re doing something good for the world. To wrap this up, I want to give a big shout out to Seth Godin for talking about Tribes so much. I want to give props to Brian Clark of Copyblogger – because without the great work he’s done, we wouldn’t have such a shining example of someone who puts many of these ideas into practice day in and day out. And most importantly, I want to say thanks to Joe Sugarman – who taught us all that you can write, be incredibly entertaining, sell a ton of stuff – and still have people talking all day along about the amazing advertisement they read in a magazine on their commute into work. If you’re starting to develop a D.R.B. itch that needs scratching, don’t worry. You’re not alone. I’ve developed a Personal Email Correspondence Course you can get your hands on (it’s free for the moment) and it will teach you how to get started doing exactly what I’ve been talking about here. I’m releasing the course in a few days to my tribe of 250,00 ListBuilders and there’s only one way you can become a member (It’s also free). Go to http://www.ListBuilding.com and keep your eyes and ears peeled for the subject line D.R.B. in the next week or so. It’ll change the way you think about marketing forever, and hopefully line your pockets in the process and you learn how to put the power of ListBuilding behind everything you do. May your list grow swiftly young Padawan. SHABAMBO! -Tellman

P.S.

Check Tellman’s stuff out at Overcome Everything Inc which acts as a “lab” for his bizarre entrepreneurial experiments the he’s always looking for test subjects for. If this sounds like you, then you may be able to join him – IF you’re weird enough for his next project: http://www.ListBuilding.com

Meet Tellman

Tellman Knudson is a Hypnotist turned millionaire marketer. He likes Barefoot Running, Hot Sauce, has a severe case of ADHD and decided to get really good at Email Marketing so he could spend his time working on strange and unusual stuff, like starting a Paranormal Investigation Agency.