I had been hearing a lot about Twitter for the past few months but I was simply not interested in it. What good is a service that lets you post updates about your status? My Facebook account lets me do that, so why should I join Twitter? Well it turns out that Twitter is more than just about updating status. You can easily use it to drive traffic to your websites and blogs. You will probably not get too much traffic but it is definitely worth a try.So How Does It Work?
Twitter does not have a lot of features. In fact, it has very minimum features. At Twitter, users are only allowed to update their status and send each other messages. That's it! Now you can choose to follow other members and get notified about their status changes. But before you start getting their updates, you need to start following them. Following a user basically means that you want to know about that users updates. It's like adding that user as your buddy on a networking site. Similarly, your followers will receive notifications about your updates.
How Do You Start?
- Get an account at Twitter - Signing up for an account is a very easy process and will not take more than few minutes.
- Start following - You need to start following as many people as possible on Twitter. It would be probably better to follow the people that have websites on the same topic as yours. However, there is no limit to how many people you can follow so just go ahead and start adding people. One good way to do this would be to find the profile of a famous blogger like Darren from ProBlogger and then just start following all of his followers.
- People will follow you - Now that you have started following people, they will start following you as well. However, not all the people you are following will do that. I am following 850 people and only 129 of them are following me. Nonetheless, it's worth it and as time passes, you will eventually start getting more followers.
- Update your status - Once you have a good number of followers, it is time for you to start posting your updates. Let other people know about your blog, latest blog posts and projects. The best thing about Twitter is that you can post URLs. Thus, when your followers see your updates, they will click on the URL.
I have an account at Twitter as well. If you would like to follow me and stay up to date with my blogs then check out my profile.
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8 comments:
Spending time on Twitter to try to drive traffic to your site is simply not worth it. Digg and delicious are the best at it, and you can get lucky on stumbleupon as well. Twitter is cool, because you get to know people.
@RC - While Twitter may not be able to provide your site with a lot of traffic, i think it is still worth a try.
Sorry, Dan, but I simply don't agree with your view on this.
Using Twitter to drive traffic to your site, is mostly frowned upon by other users. I know quite a view people who have actually unfollowed people for doing it. Honestly, I don't imagine that you really have that many click-throughs and what you do have, I can't imagine growing.
Case in point: If you're following 850 people with only a fraction of them following back, it's usually a tell-tale sign that you're using Twitter only for your personal means instead of a legitimate communication tool.
Perhaps you would have better luck following people you actually know, know of, or truly want to get to know. It will grow and it does take time, but following such an inconsistent ratio unfortunately makes you look like a spammer.
@Melanie - I understand what you are saying but there are several webmasters who use Twitter to keep their viewers updated. A lot of famous bloggers post an update whenever they post a new article.
I am not saying that we should always use Twitter like this but I was just explaining the extreme case where you would only post URLs in your updates. If you wish, you can always use it for your personal use and post some URLs in the updates every once in a while.
I use Twitter as a communication tool. I keep in touch with colleagues, and a few clients even. I use it to communicate with other, local, bloggers, and we exchange meeting details, and other events that are going on locally. It's MUCH quicker to use than Facebook, just a simply SMS message if on a phone, and no need for the folks at the other end to be a Facebook user either, and have to log in to read what you send.
So it's a little bit like Technorati but with a more personal feel. i was looking at John Chows videos on there. I think that's quite cute to do funny things on it. I wish I had the time to follow 800 odd people..I think yu are very brave.
I was wondering about tweetering as well. Thank you for the information I think I will check it out.
Twitter is a lot of things to a lot of people. For some, it’s a virtual water cooler. For others, it’s a great way to get answers to questions. Since I started using Twitter, I have more than doubled my blog traffic over the last several months, and I can tell you how.
Some people just dump their blog posts into Twitter automatically, with a simple “New Blog Post: Money is Better Than Dirt” and away you go. I’ve found a way of using Twitter to encourage participation on my website, and it’s better than easy; it’s tasteful.
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