I recently joined Twitter. I wasn’t exactly sure what I should be using it for and if it had any value to me. At one point I ‘followed’ a guy who was calling himself a social media consultant. He was ‘tweeting’ so much that his tweets filled the web page (I use Twitter on the web), making all other posts scroll off the screen. And most of his tweets were discussions between his friends. So I decided to ‘unfollow’ him. He must have had some sort of software to detect that, because I then got a message like ‘Why did you unfollow me?’, ‘Did I do anything wrong?’, and so on. His rule was that if someone follows you on Twitter, you must follow back. I wanted to run away fast!

Perry Belcher did a great series of videos to remind us how to use social media sites, and why you shouldn’t try to make money with social media. He equates social media sites to a party, and his blog to his home. The number one rule is ‘Don’t be an asshole’. Trying to sell things at a party or insisting that people you follow, follow you back is the equivalent of being an asshole.

Ryan Deiss has released a series of videos explaining his Continuity Blueprint. There are a series of videos for those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept and potential benefits of membership sites.

The three videos are:

• The Million Dollar Napkin – the business model. Ryan Deiss suggests you use a self-liquidating offer (a product you basically break even on) to get people into your funnel, and get them into your continuity program (membership site)
• The Continuity Snowball Effect – Ryan Deiss shows the financial benefits of a membership site (recurring revenues)
• The Continuity Publisher Model Ryan explains why partnering with other content experts to launch a membership site can work as well, especially if you hav no expertise in anything

Ryan says that membership sites can be a great way to produce recurring income. He also shows how the numbers work in the Snowball video. In addition to building a membership site, his basic idea is that you sell a low priced product and get people into your ‘funnel’, then get them into a continuity program via a membership site. If you’re not an expert, Ryan says you can find other experts (who are a dime a dozen) and partner with them.

The program has 5 modules, a training workbook, a swipe file (use his sales pages) and a training center where you can get access to Ryan Deiss. The modules are:

• Getting Started: Building Your Continuity Foundation
• Architecting Your Continuity Program
• Getting Content for Your Continuity Program
• Building Your Continuity Program
• Getting and Keeping Members

If you’re interested in setting up your own membership site you might want to check out those videos.