We recently started following Shawn (@asmartlad) on Twitter. Instantly we were impressed with how he runs his Twitter account and how he makes money online.
I reached out to Shawn via Twitter to ask him a few questions. He was kind enough to reply. Check out what he has to say about growing an online network below.
You clearly have a love for hunting and climbing. What is your background? Where does your passion for the outdoors come from?
“Hunting and climbing really interest me, and although I’m by no means an expert, I enjoy doing both in my free time. On the weekends, I often go fishing and duck hunting with friends. My profession is an Inbound Marketer, which means that I help small businesses to increase their original investment.”
Why did you choose an Amazon Affiliate scheme?
“Amazon has millions of products and anyone can find almost anything they need on their website. I had already decided that I wanted to write a blog reviewing climbing and hunting equipment when a friend of mine told me about the Amazon Affiliate Scheme. So I joined the program, started promoting their products, and managed to combine ‘what I love’ with ‘what I do’ and in doing so created another stream of income for myself.”
How did you get started into Affiliate marketing?
“I didn’t know about Amazon Affiliate until a friend told me about the programme and explained that it was possible to sell almost anything via Amazon. As I already wrote a blog, I decided to join the scheme in 2014 and using the blog I started to promote their products. It’s been really successful!”
How do you promote your website?
“I promote my website using SEO. All my blog posts and reviews are optimised so that I rank highly in internet searches, plus all traffic is free. I also have other affiliate sites.”
You mentioned that you have over 30,000 followers. How have you gathered such a huge following?
“It took me 18 months to grow my Twitter following. I’m also a huge fan of Tweepi, which I used to help me get every one of those 32,000 followers. I follow and unfollow people based on their interests, how many followers they have, their location and much more. Using Tweepi, I follow 950 targeted people and in turn unfollow 500. This helps me to maintain a balance so that the number of people I’m following never surpasses the number that are following me. Tweepi also helps me to keep my account clean because it only allows you to follow active tweeters.
Twitter is a great tool to use to grow an online business. For example, 30 – 40% of my blog traffic comes via Twitter, which translates to 30 – 40% of sales. If you’re not utilising it, you’re losing money!”
Our audience is predominately people in the hospitality industry. What one bit of advice would you pass on to them to help them promote their business online?
“I think the key is to do something you love doing and you’ll start to make money right away. That’s exactly what I did and how I now maintain a successful business online that increases my monthly income by a significant 5 figures.”
Those are some really good suggestions! I hope you have taken at least one thing away from our interview with Shawn. To find out more about him and his website, make sure you check out http://thesmartlad.com.
Check out individually designed training videos for hospitality businesses here.
You mentioned that you have over 30,000 followers. How have you gathered such a huge following?