I hope you had a great start to the New Year!
I’m back from my blogging break and all geared up for achieving the goals for this year.
I’m sure you also have your goals to achieve, don’t you? One of them might be to grow your blog or business.
People use different ways to accomplish success, which of course is subjective to every individual.
One of the ways to be successful is to leverage the social media such that your blog or business benefits from it.
It’s true that social media has not only become an important part of our lifestyle but even an integral component of how we do business.
We use social media to spread our word like fire, attract visitors to our sites, develop relationships with people, whether colleagues or customers, and to increase sales.
Talking of social media, one of the most potential yet untapped networks is Twitter.
Yes, there’s much ado about politicians using Twitter trying to connect to larger audience with immediate reactions on events.
For someone like Tom Hanks, “Tweeting is like sending out cool telegrams to your friends once a week.”
Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter says that “Twitter is the future of communications”.
Well, it is indeed. And there’s more to it.
That’s where John Paul Aguiar comes into picture.
In 2001, he was told he would need a Kidney Transplant. and would be put on Disability. His struggle and rise to online success started since then.
John has been using Twitter for the last nine years and mastered all its depths and expanse.
He has successfully leveraged Twitter to be listed as one of the top social influencers by Forbes and BuzzSumo.
John uses his knowledge and experience to help other bloggers and entrepreneurs achieve similar success.
Therefore, I take this opportunity to introduce you to John and to ask him the questions that you might want to know to help grow your blog or business.
If you’ve been following Aha!NOW for a long time, you know that I had monthly interviews some time back. Well, the interviews are back and they are going to be just as helpful.
Use Twitter to its full potential. Join the Free Twitter Training by John Paul Aguiar.
Here’s my chat with John Paul Augiar, blogging entrepreneur and Twitter expert.
Q1. John, first tell us something about yourself – where do you live and what do you do? How can you help other bloggers, entrepreneurs, and marketers?
John: I live in South Eastern Massachusetts. Basically I am A Blogging Entrepreneur. I have used my blog to build an online business that covers consulting for Blogging, Social Media and Twitter.
I help bloggers, marketers, entrepreneurs and small business owners by showing them how to use Blogging, Social Media and Twitter to get more leads, more subscribers and more customers.
Q2. Let’s start from the very beginning – what did you used to do before your online ventures, and what all did you do offline?
John: Right before I came online to look for ways to make money, I was a wheel chair van driver, I had 3 kids I would pick up each day and drive them to a Special Needs school and to doctor appointments.
I did that for 2 years then I decided to drive a school bus, full size school bus that fits 60 kids. 🙂 I had an elementary school run and a high school run.
I drove a school bus year round for a total of 6 years.
Q3. You transformed your disability into super ability – do you think others can also follow in your footsteps? What is your one golden advice for people wanting to make a mark and earn online?
John: TY for that Harleena, It didn’t feel like “super” in the beginning, but in time it worked out pretty well. 🙂
I think my best advice would be two things:
- Stay focused on ONE thing, one way to make money and then learn all you can about that ONE thing.
- Stay consistent, success won’t come fast but it WILL come if you stay focused, work hard and keep at it.
Q4. When did you start blogging? Did it make a difference to your online income? What did you do to leverage blogging?
John: I started blogging about 8 years ago; it was a way to show people what I was doing online to make money.
At first blogging didn’t work, it took a lot of my time away from the things I was doing online to make money at the time. But in time, about 11 months my blog was starting to grow nicely and get more and more attention.
My main way to leverage that attention was to do affiliate marketing, I would write a blog post about a service or product that I was an affiliate for and when people read, clicked and bought the product I would make a nice commission.
I also sold banner advertising, since my blog was getting more attention and traffic, people wanted to pay me to add their banner on my blogs sidebar.
Finally I started to offer consulting on how to grow a blog, use email marketing, how to use Twitter marketing, and Social Media in general.
Q5. You’re all upbeat about Twitter. Why do you prefer Twitter? How is it better? What is the best way to create a big following on Twitter?
John: Twitter is the only platform that I can put you on today and you will see traffic going to your blog in 1 – 2 days.
Add to that, you can ACTIVELY get new people to come to you see your profile and hopefully follow you each and every day for FREE.
Q6. You acquired a following of 110,000 on Twitter in less than 2 years. Could you share your best secret tip with us?
John: There is no secret, it took hard work each day, sharing helpful, targeted content with my followers, I was available and helpful to anyone that asked a question or made a comment.
I think to have success on Twitter and see your followers grow you have to do all that CONSISTENTLY combined with actively finding new people to follow each day.
My stream became a resource that people would come to for help or to find great content they could read, learn from and re-share.
Q7. I was intrigued to know why you said that we use Twitter all wrong. So, I attended your free webinar on January 4th and I found it really helpful. Tell us something about your “Chunky Sharing System” and how can the readers know more details about it?
John: Haha when I say “you’re using Twitter wrong” what I mean is from a marketing standpoint. If you are trying to promote a blog, a product or service or a business, then yes MANY people use Twitter all wrong.
They waste so much time being “BUSY” but with no real results.
If you’re going to use Twitter for marketing then you need to stop just being busy and get focused, have a plan in place, learn how to spend less time on Twitter yet see BETTER results.
My Chunky Sharing System basically helps you tweet in chunks, so you are more efficient and targeted with your time on Twitter.
That way you have say 3 hours on content (Tweets) going out but you PHYSICALLY only went on Twitter for say 20 – 30 minutes total.
Q8. John, tell us something about you family. How do you balance life and work? Bloggers, entrepreneurs and marketers have a hard time doing that.
John: In the beginning there was no balance, it was all work. Probably why I saw success pretty quickly.
But I wouldn’t recommend that for new bloggers or online entrepreneurs.
You have to find balance, you have to be able to stop work and focus on LIFE.
For me, the past 5 years I walk away from using Social Media more… I take off Sundays and most nights and Saturday is a half day for me.
Also when I leave work, I focus on what I’m doing to have fun or relax. Lol, it’s hard because as a blogger, things in life will inspire new blog posts ideas… so I send a reminder and get refocused on fun or relaxing quickly.
Best thing to do in the beginning is treat your blog or online business like a job. Set the hours of the day you want to do work, and stick to those hours. Once you leave, leave work 100% so you can focus on LIFE.
Thanks John for answering those questions and sharing your thoughts with us. To know more about John, visit his blog.
Winding it up
John and I have been Twitter acquaintances, Triberr mates, and blogging friends for many years. Of what I know of him, he’s a Twitter pro, incredibly helpful, real honest, and delivers what he promises.
He’s giving free training to anyone who is interested in learning about how to leverage Twitter and to get more attention, retweets, traffic and influence.
Click here to join John’s free Twitter training
I highly recommend registering for this three video Twitter training series and check out how it could help you grow your blog or business.
That’s all in this interview. Do let me know your thoughts in the comments.