The internet is all a-twitter about Twitter. Okay, sorry about that, I’m sure it’s overused, however it’s also true.

Twitter is more than simple social networking.

Companies are using it quite successfully to communicate with their customers on an entirely new level. If you aren’t familiar with Twitter it’s a social media tool that gives people the ability to post messages online via instant message by asking the simple question - “What are you doing?”

So now you’re probably scratching your head and thinking, “How do I answer that question and promote my public domain products?”

Brand New and Hot off The Presses!!! Rick Butts teaches the Twitter Squeeze!!! > Click Here To Learn the  Twitter Squeeze

Here are some options to use Twitter to market public domain products:

Promote a blog

Does your business website have a blog? If you do, you can use Twitter to drive traffic to it. Post on Twitter and include a link to your blog. For example – “What are you doing?”

• “I just posted a free report on my website about….” Include a link to your blog and then track how many people visit.
• “I just found some amazing travel photos which I’m making into _______ come take a look.” Include a link to your site and track the traffic.

I mention tracking the traffic because you need to know if your Twitter efforts are paying off and what Twitter posts drive more traffic than others.

Make Announcements

Running a contest is a great way to get people involved. You could host a trivia contest using a quote from a public domain works and give away a product or coupon to the winner.

So when they ask “What are you doing?” You could say, “Trying to figure out who said _________. Know who said it? Visit…”

Get personal

Share personal adventures which relate to your life as it relates to your business.

Kind of a unique situation however if you’re working on a project say for example you’re pulling together images from a public domain children’s book to make an interesting picture book then perhaps you’re learning a new graphic design software.

What are you doing? “Struggling to learn Adobe Illustrator – Any tips?”

Follow

When you sign up for an account and build a profile page you’re able to follow other Twitter users. Often when you follow someone, they return the favor. This way you build a following and subsequently a list of potential customers for your public domain product.

There are a wide variety of ways to make Twitter more than just a fun social tool, use it to build your public domain products business today.

Did you know that if you sign up for the Public Domain Magazine you also get a ton of Public Domain Product Ideas in your email inbox??? Yep… just click on that magazine to the right of this article and you can quickly get access to some great Public Domain How To ideas. Got get it right now —>

I’ve just run across one of those cases of “Is this copyright protected or not”? That little tiny bit of wording at the bottom of a website that says everything on this website is copyright protected will stop most Public Domain content researchers dead in their tracks. But… is everything “really” protected under the copyright laws???

First… let’s review the website I found last night. Christian Digital Images - Historical Illustrations & Religious Stock Imagery & Clipart - www.christiandigitalimages.com

BTW - this site uses a piece of software called Lightbox Photo Gallery to manage all these great images. Not cheap, but if you are going to sell public domain images at the level these guys are… something to think about.

Logan and I agree that this site is making money under the radar. They have mastered the art of finding a niche and filling it. The images are gorgeous and religious art is used in many different industries. I am purchasing some of this artwork to use for one of my businesses.

Because all of the images posted on the website are watermarked, I must purchase the down-loadable image to get a high resolution non-watermarked image.

But… It says right in the footer that the content has all rights reserved and if you read the EULA statement it says that all content remain the property of Christian Digital Images. Plus… They are a Canadian company… so their laws are different than those of U.S. companies. Pretty pictures on this site… but can they be used by us Public Domain Treasure Hunters???

You bet… the EULA agreement covers everything that they have written and their own branding graphics within copyright. Also… you can’t just purchase 100 images, throw them up on a website and sell them as a package. (This could be disputed, but it’s in their terms of service, so why bother rocking the boat)?

What you can do with images from this website…

• Print them as posters
• Use the images for a store front through CafePress.com
• Use the images for websites
• The images can be used in books, digital or hard copy.

Make your own products using the images (I wont even go into the hundreds of ideas you could use these gorgeous images for)!!

One of their terms of website use is pretty funny. They don’t want anyone linking to them or using some of their information to “advertise” their website. Yes… I was surprised as well. Who doesn’t want free advertising? Well, they are out of luck, I linked to them anyway.

I just can’t tell you how excited I am with this website filled with hidden “treasure”. You really do need to spend a bit of time flipping through the pictures. I’ll bet you come up with several ideas where you can use these images that don’t have a thing to do with religion in a direct manner. And… don’t worry, after you pay for an image, it’s yours. The “is this copyright protected” question has been answered!

Just a few days ago… I finally learned about the difference between good and bad trackbacks.

I was over at http://netprofitstoday.com on Rosalind Gardners Blog where she posted a short article about just this subject. It’s amazing how clear something will become in your mind if someone will just use a few visual aids!

I started building blogs in 2006 after I participated in Rosalind Gardner and Anik Singal’s Blog Classroom… which if you haven’t started your first blog yet, I highly recommend. I now have too many blogs to keep up with… really! But, I couldn’t get my head around trackbacks… what are good trackbacks and which are the bad or “spammy” trackbacks.

Now… if you don’t have a blog yet, this won’t make a bit of sense. But it you do… you will know that when you are moderating your comments you will often see comments that don’t make any sense.

These “comments” are filled with links and things with … in where normally you would see a few paragraphs of comments.

These are trackbacks! When someone makes mention of something on their website about your website and “links” to that article… that link creates a TrackBack.

So… wouldn’t that be good? Don’t we want all then link “juice” we can get?

Whoa… hang on partner. All links are not “good links. If the link is coming in from a site that has nothing to do with the subject of your website… well why would we want that link. Google (nor any other search engine) is going to think it’s a hot ticket.

So how can you tell if a trackback is good or bad? Check out Ros’s post over at NetProfitsToday.com

You’ll be so much smarter!