I finally bit the bullet and got my own domain.  Come see me at www.keithohudson.com.

I’m two days into my Million Follower Challenge, and I thought I’d share quickly some things I’m learning.  My initial plan was to get people excited about being one of my million followers, to be part of something big.  Of course, I’m still hoping that will happen, but I realized that I was making one of the cardinal mistakes of new marketers. I was looking at what I want, not what  my prospect wants.

To gain a large following, whether on twitter or otherwise, you have to look at what your audience (prospect, customer, client) wants, and serve their needs before your own.  So, what did I have to offer to my target audience?  Who IS my target audience?

I decided that what I can offer is how to gain a large twitter following quickly.  No, I don’t have a million followers yet.  But 13,000 in three weeks is not too shabby, so I can share how I did that.  I remember how confusing I found twitter at first. I had no clue what I was doing, and made lots of newbie mistakes.  (For instance, did you know that the “Help” link on your twitter home page and profile page takes you to a great explanation of how twitter works?  I didn’t know that — I always thought of “Help” as a link to go to if I got stuck.  I highly recommend that newbies go there and read what’s there.)

Having changed my focus, I’ve created a blog called Twitter Newbie and one called Twitter Marketer.  Twitter Newbie already has four or five pages of basics, hints, and tips for those new to twitter.  Twitter Marketer will focus on teaching people how to use twitter for marketing. It already has some great info for someone just starting out (Hint: read the comments). And all the info there is free — there is no advertising, and I’m not pushing a product.  Before I worry about MY needs (making money to feed my family, etc.) I need to create value for those who come to my site, and give them a reason to tell their friends about it.

I hope you’ll find the information here and on Twitter Newbie and Twitter Marketer helpful and maybe even entertaining.  If you do, please come back often, and please tell your friends (both online and off).  If you have something you’d like me to address, please leave me a comment and I’ll see what I can do.

To Your Prosperity,

Keith O. Hudson

Until I got an iPhone in July, I wasn’t very enthusiastic about text messaging.  It was hard to send messages and hard to read messages on my old phone, and I couldn’t get excited about it.   But on the iPhone, it was much easier to send text messages, and extremely easy to read them.  I started to see why my kids liked texting so much – it was quick and convenient – send the text, then forget it.  I could send a quick text to one of the kids reminding them of an appointment or a chore they had promised to do.  It took 15 seconds, rather than the 2 or 3 minutes it would take to call them, wait for them to answer, or for their phone to go to voice mail, then give them the message, and if they had answered in person, chat with them for a minute, since it would be rude to just say “Don’t forget you have a dentist appointment at 3:30” then hang up.

Once I started texting, I started to “get” twitter.  And then on August 11, I listened to a teleconference on online marketing that described how twitter could be used to find thousands of people interested in your product or service in a very short time, all for free.

My twitter adventure was born.  I began following other people on twitter, and some of them followed me back.  Within 14 days, I had gone from 40 twitter followers to over 10,000 twitter followers in total.

During this time, I read the story of how Aston Kutcher, in April 2009, challenged CNN (then the twitter user with one of the largest twitter followings) that he would be the first person on twitter to have more than a million followers.  That may not sound like a huge accomplishment for someone as well known as Ashton, until you realize that he did it in 3 months!  Ashton started his twitter account on January 16, 2009, and by April 16 had a million followers.

As I thought about Ashton’s experience and my own with Twitter, I realized how powerful we can be, just doing little things each day.  A few people followed me at first, then a few more.  Ashton kept that up for three months (whereas I’ve only been at it a couple of weeks) and he is much better known than I am, but the same principle holds true for both Ashton and I, and for you.

If each of us just does a little each day to make the world a better place, to love life, to love ourselves, and be kind to each other, it begins to add up. And as it spreads, it will grow until it is a force to be reckoned with.

So, during this coming month, I encourage you to do just a little every day, to love life, to love yourself, and to be good to those around you.  As you do, you will be happier, less stressed, and will find fulfillment and peace in looking for ways to bless the lives of those around you.

To Your Prosperity,

Keith O. Hudson

There is no other choice. Either I choose to love life, love myself, and be good to those around me, or I seek only my own selfish ends, which inevitably lead to regret and sorrow and self-loathing.

Sometimes, I oscillate between those two choices so quickly that it might appear I am standing still, not making things better in the world, but also not making them worse. However, such a state is always temporary, for there is no such equilibrium to be had.

The Old Testament put it this way: “How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal [an idol worshipped in ancient times], then follow him.” (1 Kings 18:21).

Whether you believe in the Bible or not, life itself teaches us that stasis is not sustainable. Take your house and yard as an example. If you do nothing, your house grows cluttered and dirty, weeks grow in your yard, and the general appearance and state of repair of your property deteriorates. It is inevitable, only a matter of time. If you prune and rake and trim outside, and clean and tidy and make improvements, then your home and yard are inviting and pleasant, and become more so over time.

Each of us must choose in each moment of our life whether to seek to serve ourselves, or to seek to serve mankind. It is not always a cut and dried choice. Gaining an education prepares us to serve others better. It also can prepare us to acquire wealth for our own selfish gain. Someone else looking at the choices you make may not know whether you are motivated by giving or by greed, but you know. Deep inside, you always know, and in the end, it will show in your life.

My hope for me is that each day I might choose just a little more to serve mankind, to make the world a better place. I know that as I do, I find greater peace, greater contentment, and greater joy than when I make the other choice. I hope you’ll want to join me in this choice.

So any.body@gmail.com is the same as anybody@gmail.com.  (If that’s your email address, please forgive me – you’ll probably get a flood of spam now!)

With a little experimenting, I found out that Microsoft Outlook will not accept an email address with a leading period, although I can send an email from gmail with a leading period and it gets delivered correctly.  Outlook also rejects an email with a trailing period (that is, a period right before the @ sign).  However, gmail will gladly accept either of those.  And twitter will accept either of those as a new email address when setting up a twitter account.

According to Google mail support, gmail ignores dots in your email name: “Because Gmail doesn’t recognize dots as characters within usernames, you can add or remove the dots from a Gmail address without changing the actual destination address; they’ll all go to your inbox, and only yours.” (http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=mail&answer=10313#)

So you can set up multiple twitter accounts using different combinations of dots, and the email relating to all those accounts will go into the same gmail box.

In fact, Google gives you two email addresses when you sign up for gmail.  The second address ends in @googlemail.com.  So, if I remember my math correctly, if your gmail username has 5 characters in it, using various combinations of dots in your email user name with both “gmail” and “googlemail” as endings, you can set up a total of 212 twitter accounts using the same email address. Sweet!

Does anyone want to venture a guess as to how many twitter accounts you could set up with a gmail address that has 12 letters in the username?

UPDATE: To learn how to use gmail aliases , a different approach to creating multiple gmail addresses that all point to the same primary gmail account, see the excellent article located here: http://su.pr/349kFc.

So I immediately programmed OneSuite into my iPhone.  OneSuite offers discount long distance calling, with local access numbers in many places in the US.  For instance, calling a long distance number in the US (using a OneSuite local access number) costs 2.5 cents per minute, much much better than the 19 cents AT&T wants to soak me for.

Calls from Canada to the US, using a toll free number, are 3.5 cents per minute.

I have an address book on their website giving me speed dial once I connect to their network.

What’s not to love?

I haven’t used the long distance service included with my home phone for a couple of years, since discovering OneSuite.  I recharge my OneSuite account with $20 about every 4 or 5 months.

For all of you who don’t have unlimited long distance included already in a phone plan, check out OneSuite.

To your Prosperity.

Keith O. Hudson

P.S. If you decide to try OneSuite, use my SuiteTreat number, A5AL07084, as your referrer when you sign up, and you’ll get an extra 5% on the initial amount you deposit to your account.

P.P.S. Note that calls from pay phones carry an initial charge of 55 cents, at least here in the States. So, if you’re calling from a payphone and you need to make multiple calls, don’t hang up after completing your first call. After the call is terminated by the other party, wait 5 to 10 seconds and you will hear a prompt asking you what destination number you wish to reach. Now dial your next call.

Steve Pavlina, in an article on his self-titled blog called How To Make Lots Of Money During A Recession talks about putting a greater focus on delivering value than simply trying to make money. If you deliver true value, then those to whom you deliver value will be willing to deliver value to you.

Neil Patel, in his blog Quick Sprout, writes that pigs get fat, but hogs get slaughtered. By that, he means that if you get too greedy, you’ll lose out.

So, after a year of doing niche brainstorming, key word searching, and trying to learn all sorts of things about blogging, SEO, social networking, and on and on ad infinitum, it has come down to this: I want to share things that have made a difference in my life so they might help others. I want to express myself, and contribute to a pool of shared meaning with a community of like-minded individuals. Whether it makes me rich or not is not the point. The point is, can I enrich others by sharing what I’m learning in my journey through life? Can some of the things that go through my brain be helpful to others?

I’ve decided to put those things out for the world to see, and trust that if what I have to say helps others, the universe will take care of me and I won’t starve to death. So, I hope here to share with you my interests, my thoughts, and things I’m learning or experiencing. I’m not targeting a “niche”, and I haven’t done any key word research. The only test is “will this possibly help someone?”

Come join me on my journey.

To your prosperity,
Keith O. Hudson