If you’re like me, the first time you installed your chat to text button on your blog or website you discovered that the thing was much too big.

I tinker with websites every now and then so I was able to fix mine up quick. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case for everyone and when I got a call from one of the people in my downline asking how I fixed the button on my own site I realized that a lot of people that have signed up for Chat to Text must be running into this same problem right now.

So the video above I think gives a good overview of the process of resizing your Chat to Text button and integrating it into your website. Leave a comment below if you need anything explained in greater detail.

For the most part I’m seeing post after post of people slapping up a quick overview of the service and (sometimes) a call to click through to watch the main video and sign up. A quick search of the Twitter public stream shows similar activity.

This pattern is likely to continue as signups grow exponentially over the next two to three weeks. Unfortunately, this type of hard core self-promotion doesn’t tend to produce the desired results, so if you are planning on promoting Chat To Text this way in the future it will most likely get you shunned as a spammer and here’s why…

Consider how you react when greeting people that show up at your front door. Initially you’ll peer through the window sash to see who’s there. If it’s someone you don’t know, like a local salesman offering to update your home’s windows or siding perhaps, then your reaction will probably be to dismiss the visitor outright or take some information and excuse yourself after only opening the door a crack.

Moving up the familiarity scale you might notice that the visitor at your door is an “acquaintance”. Someone you know, but not very well. Maybe your kids go to the same school or something. You don’t have a solid relationship but you feel you know the person well enough that you are not worried that you’re going to be robbed.

This second-tier type of person will get an open door and maybe even invited into the foyer to find out if they need to borrow a power drill or some sugar. Certainly a warmer reception.

But compare that to your reaction if the visitor at the door was an old friend who you’ve not seen in months. Such a meeting would be completely different. The door is thrown open and the friend is embraced. Your friend is not just invited in, but escorted directly to the kitchen and told to choose a tasty beverage for themselves from your refrigerator which you recently stocked full from a recent grocery shopping run.

Consider how drastically different your response is to the unknown sales person vs. your close friend. Yet while your close friend was welcomed with open arms, they are probably not going to be asked to come up to your bedroom and sit on the bed where you and your spouse sleep every night to catch up on things.

Now I’m willing to bet that in the very near future there is going to be a wave of people launching major self-promo campaigns on the most popular social media sites in an effort to get Chat To Text signups.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of these idealistic types who feel that all things in the world of Web 2.0 should be “free” and “nofollow” in an effort to keep the next generation of web sites chaste and adherent to some unwritten code of non-commercial purity. Sure, social media sites are for building relationships with friends and family, but they are also a valuable tool for getting a marketing message out to the world.

If you do it right.

Blatant self-promotion is akin to being a salesperson showing up on a stranger’s front step, pounding until someone opens up, and then barging in while telling the homeowner that you need them to follow you into the bedroom so you can sit down with them on their bed and explain why they need what you’ve got to sell.

You can see why this type of thing doesn’t get very far. So what is the right way to share what you have to offer without getting yourself blackballed?

There is a lot of information on this floating around, but you can pretty much boil it down to two main principles to follow:

1) More About YOU, Less About Your Stuff – on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the glue that ties everyone together is relationship. Spend a lot of time sharing what is going on in your life as well as links to interesting, helpful, or humorous content and you’ll earn a lot of good karma from your base. From there you can tastefully plug your product or service without causing offense. Just be sure to sprinkle these in sparingly like spices in a recipe. Don’t overdo it.

There are exceptions to this like @Woot which is 100% self-promotional, but these are the exceptions to the rule, not the norm…and probably not where you want to be.

2) Give Something of Value for Free – I am on the email list of this guy Dave Guindon who teaches internet marketing, mostly through video. Dave will send me a promo of some affiliate product about once a week…but he does it in a creative way by giving me a video that demonstrates the value of the item. He also is usually offering me some type of free bonus should I buy the item offered through him. I buy what he’s sharing with me about once a month almost always because of the video.

A similar approach can be employed when promoting Chat To Text. Ask yourself what type of widget you can come up with that brings value to those you are communicating with. I’m working on a free ebook, video series, and blog theme that I’m going to give away for free to Live Chat To Text readers which is going to be called the “Chat To Text Blueprint’. (make sure you sign up for email updates if you want to be notified when the freebies are made available) These types of incentive breed good will and make it easy for people to take a closer look at what you have to offer.

3) Sell a Cheap Niche Product – here is a sure-fire way to get results where others won’t. Consider marketing outside of social media sites. I can think of ten different ways you could get the word out, but let’s throw down one right now that will be included in greater detail in the Chat To Text Blueprint.

Start by getting someone to interview you about Chat To Text so you can answer questions about how it works and why it’s such a great service and income opportunity. Record the interview directly into your computer using two basic microphones and the free Audacity software. Burn it to CD. Then sell the CD on Ebay.

Load the title up with “make money” keywords and a well laid-out description then start the bidding at a penny. Keep the shipping low. Maybe even free. Try to do whatever you can to remove the barriers from the path those who might be interested in order to help induce them to place a bid. That’s it, just get them to bid. And no matter who wins, make sure you send out a second-chance offer to everyone DID end up placing a bid…even the guy that only bid a penny.

Sure, you’ll initially break even, or even lose a buck or two on every CD you send out, but your enthusiasm for the program will be carried through in a way not possible through Twitter Tweets. And because you mailed an actual CD, there will be greater perceived value on the part of your potential customer which will put you out ahead of others who are focused on spamming up every social site instead of taking this type of forward action.

In conclusion, Chat To Text is destined to be one of the greatest network marketing opportunities of the year. Its cross application adaptability makes it a valuable service for millions of people so it would be a shame to destroy your ability to share it with others because you were branded a spammer.