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View Full Version : 3,000 followers in less then a month



orion_joel
03-24-2009, 01:35 AM
Well as we have discussed before building a following on twitter, can have some benefits. I started a new persona on twitter on the 18th of February. As of the 18th of march i had over 3,000 followers, and at present 3,800 as of writing. @no_fixed_office (http://twitter.com/no_fixed_office)

These numbers are quite big but they do give some benefit for promoting your sites. This is the primary reason why i am pushing to gain followers. Twitter is my largest referrer at this point and has helped push my no fixed office site from new just 6 months ago to the site that gets the most traffic, in my group of sites. In fact it helped to almost double the visitor count last month alone, and while not going to double again this month should add 100-200 extra over last month.

This is why i love twitter, just really good to promote your site.

vangogh
03-24-2009, 11:50 AM
Congrats on getting so many followers so quickly. Mind sharing how you achieved that?

Just one thing to keep in mind. Not everyone following you is automatically listening to you. I know when people follow me I typically follow them back as long as they seem legit. It doesn't mean I pay attention to any of their tweets. Also traffic is not the end goal. You're trying to make sales or add subscribers.

Still congrats on all the followers. That's no easy feat and it's still better to have more people following you than not following you. Now turn those followers and traffic into sales.

orion_joel
03-25-2009, 02:58 AM
That is the main thing i am sure is the case, no where near all of them pay much attention to my tweets. However, If even just 5% were to read them that is still 150 (now closer to 200 as i am now over 4,000 followers)

Either way having this many followers does have a reasonable impact on visits. Twitter is now my largest referrer, however that is one thing i would like to change, not the number of people that it refers but would like to make it maybe 2nd.

Probably the biggest consideration i have taken in the followers stakes, is that while no matter how many followers you have they are not all going to pay attention. So the more followers you have the more chance some will pay attention. If this is only down around 2 or 3 % so be it, but what more can you expect from most forms of social networking.

There is one key i have found to getting a lot of followers, and that is to follow a lot of people yourself. While twitter does now impose limits on how many people you can follow, which i believe is 2,000 initially, it does adjust as you move your followers over 2,000 and then the limit is no more then 10% more people you are following then your followers. if that makes sense. The key is to be smart follow people but then depending on your motive you need to decide if it is worth following them if they do not follow back. If you just want to read their tweets, then you are probably not going to be pushing for thousands of followers, and limits and numbers will not mean a lot. However if you are trying to build a following to gain traffic for your site or publicity for whatever, then follow people and unfollow if they don't follow back in a few days. It can be harsh however you often cannot afford the time to evaluate everyone over a long period if you are trying to gain followers to build traffic.

vangogh
03-25-2009, 03:17 AM
That's true. Some will pay attention. I've noticed a lot of people following me lately who have made half a dozen tweets yet are following more than a thousand people. I tend not to follow them. To me it just makes it harder to follow anything that's going on and I think all the followers just pushes Twitter as a one way marketing channel. I think it works better as a two way conversational and networking channel.

I'll ask again what has the traffic led to? Have you made any sales or picked up new subscribers? Traffic on it's own isn't an end goal. Make sure you're finding a way to convert that traffic.

Harold Mansfield
03-25-2009, 04:38 AM
Twitter is one of my top referrers also, I have no where near that many, I have just over 1000, but I also narrowed down who I was following within the first 10 days.

While I still follow everyone that follows me back, I am very much trying to keep who I follow, and who follows me to either Dance Music Dj's and artists, record labels, management, other dance music sites, house and trance music radio stations, and fans of the music. (I do the same with My Space..All DJ's, Promoters and Events.)


It limits who I interact with, but it makes no bones about what I will be twittering at any given time..so they know exactly what to expect from me...and I have gained some good content from it...I guess I am actually social networking (damn..didn't mean to do that)

I think targeting this way has helped traffic in a positive way,since it's not just people bouncing out, they actually stick around, and I also notice that I get referral traffic over night from my profile.

I don't think that there's anyone in the business on Twitter that are not mutual followers, now it's all about just getting all the fans in.

Has it increased revenue ? I do see more clicks on the "money links" and I probably made a little more this month (maybe 10%) over last month..still a long way to go.

orion_joel
03-25-2009, 05:12 AM
The one thing that i have tried not to do is to create one of those i am following thousands tweet once a year accounts. My aim is to attempt to tweet between 20 and 30 times a day. Looking to maybe share a link or two of my own 2 or 3 times at different times of day when different people are likely to be in front of twitter, also i try to retweet others if i like the link. finally i also look to join into a few conversations each day. It does not always turn out this way, however as long as i am doing most of this most of the time, i think it is more valuable to my presence then just turning up to tweet my site all day long.

In regards to what this is achieving for me, increases in impressions absolutely. Also increases to clicks on ads. However at this point my sites are sitting in the poor to terrible utilization of ads category. They are pretty much just thrown in there. I really need to fix this up. But will be doing this on the site that i tweet the most when i fix up the theme, need something other then the word press default template slightly modified.

Harold Mansfield
03-25-2009, 12:59 PM
The one thing that i have tried not to do is to create one of those i am following thousands tweet once a year accounts. My aim is to attempt to tweet between 20 and 30 times a day. Looking to maybe share a link or two of my own 2 or 3 times at different times of day when different people are likely to be in front of twitter, also i try to retweet others if i like the link. finally i also look to join into a few conversations each day. It does not always turn out this way, however as long as i am doing most of this most of the time, i think it is more valuable to my presence then just turning up to tweet my site all day long.

I only Tweet my site once a day, when I post...right now festivals and Ibiza for the summer are gearing up, so everyday is a new event happening. The rest of the time I spend talking about music, checking other peoples stuff and making connections for content, articles and such. Some days I don't post on Twitter at all..I don't see how some of the people on there have the time.

I have been doing iTunes giveaways lately, 10 at a time, and I have 3 other giveaways going that end soon and the only way to win is to follow me on Twitter.

I only have 30 days in..so I am not ready to praise it as the best thing since sliced bread yet, but I will say, out of all the SN's out there, right now I like this one the best.

If I could put an image in my Twitts, and not just a link, that would be awesome.


In regards to what this is achieving for me, increases in impressions absolutely. Also increases to clicks on ads. However at this point my sites are sitting in the poor to terrible utilization of ads category. They are pretty much just thrown in there. I really need to fix this up. But will be doing this on the site that i tweet the most when i fix up the theme, need something other then the word press default template slightly modified.

There are so many templates out there (1000's), It's more about taking the time to browse the selections, that takes more time than setting it up.

vangogh
03-25-2009, 01:09 PM
If you are seeing clicks on ads then at least you're seeing something positive. I don't want to see you get caught in the trap of thinking the traffic is the end goal. I've seen plenty of people manage to pull traffic from social sites that does nothing, but bounce.

I'd adding followers similarly to how eborg is adding them. When someone follows me I check out their profile. As long as they seem legit I'll follow back. A few people here and there I chose not to even though I thought the account legit. I don't ever mass follow people. I will at times add a a dozen people who are tweeting about topics I find interesting. If they follow back great, if not that's ok too.

Where marketing is concerned my goal is to simply get to know other people. I'd rather build real connections with them than worry about how much traffic the site sends my way. Glad to have traffic, but it's a secondary goal.

I think the ways I use Twitter for business will help me long term. In 5 years I'll still be reaping rewards. I think if you're in it for the quick traffic there's a good chance your rewards will be short lived. Nothing wrong with short term gain, but I'd still want to prepare for the long term as well.

vangogh
03-25-2009, 01:39 PM
Here's a great post I just found on Social Media ROI (http://zygote.egg-co.com/social-media-roi/). Thought it might be relevant to the discussion.

orion_joel
03-26-2009, 04:07 AM
Probably the biggest issue that i find with using something like twitter is that the actual result of your efforts depends on your continued efforts. Maybe i have gained a few new readers, that will subscribe to my feed and such, however over the long term the impact of the traffic i am getting now will drop off considerably if i let up on the twitter effort i am making.

This is why i would be happy to bring twitter into number two so that i had one or more other good sources of traffic that will keep the site going even if i do ease up on twitter for a day or two or maybe a week.

vangogh
03-26-2009, 01:26 PM
That's part of what I mean. Essentially the traffic you're bringing in from Twitter is artificial. Your mass following to get mass followers back. People probably will click to your site and even click on ads, but it's not traffic that's really interested in what you have to say. Some no doubt is interested, but the majority of the traffic is artificial and requires your constant attention to keep up.

There's not really a business model there, because to maintain the traffic you have to keep massaging the system. As soon as you take a couple of days off your traffic disappears.

Better to use Twitter to build relationships with people. The relationships are real and don't require your constant attention. They ultimately pay off better than the quick mass traffic.