Using Twitter to Increase Readers and Make Friends
Last week, I started reading more on how you can drive traffic to your website using Twitter. Several bloggers that I read use Twitter daily to help find new readers and meet new people. I really didn’t grasp it at first, but I definitely got sucked in to Twitter quickly.
For those who don’t know the Twitter factor, I will drop a few stats on you.
Last week, I started actively using Twitter. Not really to drive traffic to my site, but to find new blogs that I could personally read and start following. Immediately, I noticed a huge traffic spike to the blog. So I decided to look into it a little further.
- Since I started actively using Twitter (last week), I have increased my RSS subscribers by 32. This isn’t an unheard of increase, but I know that most of those new readers should stay around awhile.
- My website views have increased by almost 300 hits a day. Once again, if you are a large blog, that might not seem like much. But for an upstart, that is quite a bit of traffic inflow.
Those are just the raw traffic numbers from the website. What I wasn’t expecting were the tons of compliments via Twitter, users going to my band websites from my About page and complimenting my music, and meeting several people who I have since had nice and meaningful conversations with. I have also found many, many new blogs which I have subscribed to and read daily.
So, how did I do it?
These are the steps I went through in order to build the traffic and increase my followers. There are a few people who look at these types of methods as spamming, but they key to it is to NOT spam, and use your newfound connections properly. I have yet to post a link in a tweet (which is a message) attempting to drive traffic to the website. I may from time to time, but this method works to build a grassroots following similar to how I used to promote my band on MySpace. When I promoted my music on MySpace, I would find a similar artist to my music. I would go through and then attempt to add their friends and message them. The mindset was ‘If they like this artist, there is a better chance they would like my music than if I picked a random person off the street.’ Instead of spamming them, I would message them personally and ask them to check out my music. It worked well, until people took advantage of it and start spamming relentlessly. So far, I have found that not to be the case on Twitter. Here are the steps.
- Make sure you profile has up to date links. I made sure that the blog I wanted people to go to was the first link on the profile. In the biography section of the Twitter profile, I added a link to the websites About page. This way if people wanted to find out about me, it would take them to my blog. (Keep in mind, I do not have advertisements on my site, I am more interested in sending them to the website so they can see what I write about, and if they like the content, will add my site to their RSS reader. However, if you are displaying ads, this is a good way to increase hits and traffic)
- Find someone with a similar business or blog and attempt to add their followers. It seems pretty simple and it works fast. In my example, I immediately cruised over to the profile of Maki from DoshDosh. He has a wonderful social media blog, his writing is top notch, and I like his overall style. I went one by one and added every single follower. You can do it faster than you ever could add a MySpace friend. After I had added all his followers, I went to a few more profiles and added similar followers. My thinking is if someone is following another blog, they quite possibly could be interested in following my blog.
- Download and install an application to help manage Twitter. I personally use Twhirl. It helps me manage replies and messages in a chat like setup. It is great for responding to messages.
- Respond to every single message and tweet. You will get a fair amount of backlash from adding people so fast. The reason is because many assume that you will just be spamming them. Take interest and respond the messages. You will ease their mind and if they like your content and tweets, they may become a reader.
- Don’t spam incessantly. One thing I have noticed, is the people who spam get removed very fast. So if you intend on building long lasting relationships and not just quick traffic spikes, make sure not to spam.
- Give back as well as take. You will have an opportunity to meet a wonderful community and find many new friends and blogs. Make sure you give traffic and subscriptions back. I assure you that you will find something you’ll love.
I hope this continues and I am able to grow more relationships with bloggers!
April 24th, 2008 at 1:56 am
I’ve been a twitter user for over a year now, and I’ve seen it grow and evolve and develop into many many different things. I’m going to say that I think that following the masses to increase your own traffic is quite possibly the absolute _worst_ thing to happen. I’ve had probably 20 new “friends” follow me in the last two weeks alone. Sure I’ll click on your friend link to see if I personally know you. If your followers/following ratio is hugely skewed as yours is, Scott, I immediately ignore you. You got lucky because I have insomnia (it’s 2am on the west coast) and wanted to see who does this sort of thing.
You write a blog about blogging. Way to go. Welcome to 2001.
Oh, and please do keep track of your subscribers to see how many stick around. I’d imagine that it’s like the digg effect; you’ll get heaps of single page views as you keep adding people, but _maybe_ 2-3% of them will stick around. Protip: if you write a good blog that people are interested, your readership will _find you_.
I’m quite sure you will delete this comment, but at least now you know. Now please get off of my Twitter and out of my life.
April 24th, 2008 at 3:47 am
I don’t get a lot of communication going on Twitter but I do like to see what people have to say. I can always ignore them or even stop following but I do enjoy it.
Usually when I have someone follow me on Twitter I take a look at their links to see if this is someone I wish to follow.
I use Twhirl as well. It just makes Twitter easier in my opinion.
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April 24th, 2008 at 5:58 am
@annoymousdave
No, frankly, I won’t delete your comment because you bring up two points that are worth discussing, which I also I tried to bring up in the article.
By having such a high percentage of f to f ration, I instantly will become a lightning rod to critical comments. That is to be expected and understandable.
You said the following:
“You write a blog about blogging. Way to go. Welcome to 2001.”
I didn’t know anything about blogging in 2001. In 2001, I was sleeping in a van on tour. So whether or now its 2001, it apparently is something people are talking about. Just because you were on the cutting edge doesn’t mean everyone is. The point of this blog in general is to try to relate the experiences I have had as a touring musician and using those skills while applying them to blogging.
“Oh, and please do keep track of your subscribers to see how many stick around. I’d imagine that it’s like the digg effect; you’ll get heaps of single page views as you keep adding people, but _maybe_ 2-3% of them will stick around. Protip: if you write a good blog that people are interested, your readership will _find you_.”
That is the whole point of it anyway, if a viewer feels the website is worth coming back to, they will. I don’t think people would add you as an RSS subscriber if they just wanted to view once. The only real stat that matters to me is readership. I don’t have advertisements and I don’t make any money pay per click. I went that route and it bored me.
“I’ll click on your friend link to see if I personally know you. If your followers/following ratio is hugely skewed as yours is, Scott, I immediately ignore you. You got lucky because I have insomnia (it’s 2am on the west coast) and wanted to see who does this sort of thing.”
I am quite aware that there are people that would ignore me, or comment harshly, or feel it is nothing more than spam.
When I was in a band, we handed out thousands of CD. Most ended up in the trash, some became coasters, some frisbees. But occasionally, we’d convert a fan who WAS interested in the content. Just because YOU aren’t doesn’t mean other people won’t be.
I would take 200 people coming to my site and trashing me if I converted 1 reader in the process.
Thank you for you comment.
scott
April 24th, 2008 at 8:01 am
@ Sweeney
I woke up this morning and realized what a sleepless stupor I wrote that comment in.
The more I think about it, you are indeed correct. The band CD example is perfect. Twitter is indeed evolving, as it has been since its inception, and just because I don’t like what’s happening to it doesn’t mean its necessarily a bad thing.
For me, I’ve used twitter to track my personal friends all over the country and world, as well as follow a few “celebs” like gruber and the like. Alluvasudden about 2 months ago, I started getting scores of followers out of nowhere, most all of them spammers looking for a quick boost in traffic. It’s just one more layer of fuzz to cut through when I check my email.
Anyway, I was harsh, perhaps overly so, but I do feel strongly about Twitter. I guess you’ll keep adding and I’ll keep deleting, and that’s just the way of it.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:09 am
@dave
I know how that goes too. I am a musician and I would still get annoyed by the 30 band requests I would get daily on myspace. So in some ways, trying to build traffic via these means is hypocrtical.
Twitter’s brilliance is also it’s flaw. It simplistic and easy to connect with people. It will enable spam to occur.
I am not looking to spam as much as try to establish relationships and gain readers. But, just as with music, people will choose to take it or leave it.
Thanks for the comment though, you have brought great points to the table and I may rething the technique.
scott
April 26th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I need to try out twitter in a few days! Everyone seems to be using it. It sounds like it is better than mybloglog!
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April 27th, 2008 at 3:54 am
[…] Scott goes through some tips on how to use Twitter to increase your readers. […]
April 27th, 2008 at 4:21 am
Excellent post!
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:52 am
Scott, Thanks for these tips — what about RSS vs. email sub? A couple of clients and partners have no interest in RSS and would read what I post if I could subscribe them to an occasional email. Thoughts? - ahg3
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:01 am
@Arthur
I prefer emails to RSS personally. You can user Feedblitz or Feedburner to set that up.
RSS is nice and handy when you set up your reader the way you want it. But a lot of people still don’t know what RSS is anyway.. So that is why I personally offer both..
scott
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I am another user who just discovered you through Twitter.
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May 3rd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
@Rita
If not, I at least meet some interesting people and find plenty of new blogs to pass my time at work!
Yeah, I pretty much use twitter as much as possible. Hopefully I will find readers
Cheers
May 8th, 2008 at 7:05 am
[…] and my email list. But there is a lot of negativity around the approach I use. Without rehashing my last post, basically, what I do is add as many people as I can to my Twitter profile. They will possibly […]
May 11th, 2008 at 10:59 am
excellent post dude.
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May 11th, 2008 at 11:00 am
thanks alifann!
May 11th, 2008 at 11:32 am
So your experiment seems to be working, somewhat. I’m another twitter user that gave your traffic volume some love, and I think your blog seems insightful enough to RSS, so cheers to that
I had one observation based upon reading a few articles, however. I wish you’d link more/at all in your articles. Because I do RSS you’re not gonna lose my traffic forever if I want to check out the DoshDosh blog, for example. Perhaps this is just how my own blog compulsion works, but I tend to only put blogs that allow me to discover new places on the web easily in my “must-read” folder. I think people who RSS are heavy skimmers (which is great for ad impressions) and having to stop and type something of interest into a new tab and search for it interrupts the information flow. Additionally, it potentially detaches the reader from recalling where they’ve discovered something new because you’re adding a degree of separation. This could make your blog less memorable as a brand and prevent via posts from other bloggers.
Anyhow…good luck in your endeavor and thanks for being my twitter friend
May 11th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
@lena actually, I do link often, I just had the CSS style to make the link color the same as the text… I figured people got annoyed by seeing links all the time, but maybe I will rethink my plan haha
scott
May 11th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
@scott
oh wow…I’d never even bother to check if I didn’t have a visual cue that something is a link…hehe. Great theme overhaul btw.
May 12th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Hey Scott,
nice blog, I’ll prolly follow. Found it cuz you chose to follow me on Twitter, http://twitter.com/jokahn
perhaps a silly question. So if I want to display content from my blog to Twitter, is that possible? I know there are many twitter apps out there. It would be cool to automatically add my blog posts with comments to my twitter posts, even if only the links or shortened versions came through.
i’m working on new blog, new title. I’ve kind of let the old one die on the vine.
Cheers,
Josh
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June 3rd, 2008 at 6:22 am
[…] to promote this website and blog. I posted two articles on the subject last month, the first was my novice guide to promoting with Twitter and the second was more of a response to those who questioned how I used Twitter to drive traffic […]
June 22nd, 2008 at 3:17 am
[…] Part One - Using Twitter to Increase Readers and Make Friends […]
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:52 am
I’m not quite sure how we connected but it might have started with Twitter and you commenting at my blog but I enjoyed this post.
I was particularly impressed when you decided to keep the first comment, which was written somewhat negatively by someone in sleepy stupor. Your response was even keeled - you did not seem offended. The commentator wrote back, apologized and admitted he was off based.
Anyway, great post about how you use Twitter. I just started it not long ago and am slowly maturing with it. It’s not as addictive as I thought it would be - I can go all day without it. But whereas I had my doubts about its effectiveness on increasing traffic, I no longer do. According to my stats, I am getting some nice traffic from twitterers mentioning my posts. On occasion I’ll mention them myself but am careful not to promote myself recklessly. I try to sprinkle interesting articles, posts from elsewhere to give my tweets a balance.
Nice job!
P.S. Do you have Blackberry? If so, do you use a special Twitter program for it? I don’t know which application to use.
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June 22nd, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Like you, I’m a huge fan of Twitter. Found my way to your blog that way. I also really admire the way you handled that first negative comment and responded to the commenter really well, resulting in a good back and forth dialogue. To me, that’s what social media is all about.
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July 16th, 2008 at 1:12 am
I’m the founder of TwitterCounter.com and noticed your button in the sidebar here. You have a lot of followers, especially compared to your RSS count. How did that happen? Any tips for getting more followers?
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July 23rd, 2008 at 12:43 am
[…] are the links to my previous Twitter columns: Using Twitter to Increase Readers and Make Friends, Don’t Take Promotional Personal with Twitter, and The Twitter […]
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August 13th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
[…] are the links to my previous Twitter columns: Using Twitter to Increase Readers and Make Friends, Don’t Take Promotional Personal with Twitter, and The Twitter […]
October 24th, 2008 at 1:24 am
[…] are the links to my previous Twitter columns: Using Twitter to Increase Readers and Make Friends, Don’t Take Promotional Personal with Twitter, and The Twitter […]