Using twitter and facebook lists leads versus contacts

I hope you are all well, just a personal update to this blog.

What I have been up to.

Okay so you may have noticed the http://coffee42.posterous.com/ posts these are "generic" posts named "Kafe Im Limon" meaning coffee with lemon, they contain mixture of things I'm doing on other blogs - usually I am looking at web tools, so note that all of the web tools I feature I have used and seen results with - not massive success - but results from doing very little - the theory being that if you focused on that tool in more depth you could very likely get much bigger returns.

Now with the Coffee business you need leads for two purposes (as I've mentioned before) leads are different to contacts on social networked in that they have doubled opted into a mailing list you run, a group you run or they have joined your downline in an affiliate program/network marketing program/traffic exchange - and they are in your downline (you are their upline in charge of training them) to introduce either your product or the opportunity (or both) the point is they have agreed to get e-mail communication from you that maybe commercial or personal.

With Facebook and twitter friends I recommend making use of the list functions so you don't get leads and contacts muddled up.

Contacts for example might be family, long time cyber buddies or other people that you don't want to send commerical mailings to without some kind of personal interaction you might invite them to other networks or connect with them on a range of social networks.

Then you have 'commercial contacts' - these people are closer to potential leads as they always send you commercial e-mails, as maybe they haven't settled on a niche yet, these people may come across as spam, but in my opinion they aren't, they are people looking for a solution as a marketer and seller - do you have a solution for them ? - I think you do. Rather than spamming them back or telling them to F-off - the best solution is to invite them to a group where they can share their business opportunity without getting yelled at.

I have seen some of the Top Internet Marketers do this to good effect as they realize there is a flesh and blood person on the end of most commercial mailings, that person is connected to the Internet, and they are doing there best to alert the world to a product they have possibly invested a lot of time and money in, that person probably has a family and life going on just like you, no matter what country they come from.

So firstly introduce people to somewhere it is okay to mail to each other via an optin system. safelists and traffic exchanges are places to get web visitors without "spamming" they also usually have some free ebooks and training guides to teach people some of the rules of the Internet Jungle.

Also note that anyone sending you regular messages (with or without your expressed permission) is open to two way communication - for example - if someone "spams" me and they are obviously a real person rather than a robot, I will look through my rolodex of groups or places I'm affiliated with that promote similar items to each other - and say try this place - you are then channeling a person towards a place with rules that allow commercial contact, and earning a dollar or two from a connection that may have gone in the junk bin. Most e-mail providers filter out the 'real' junk - and that is viruses/illegal stuff - that is the real spam.