Web Traffic Tips: the Dark Side of Twittering
Believe it or not, this is not a twitter bash type of article. In fact, I’m going to tell you upfront – I like TWITTER and recognize its overall potential, just that I feel there are two major rumours doing more harm than good.
Photo by by Matt McGee
#1. The so called twitter experts claim it’s so easy to get a ton of followers within days; it’s not, if you’re starting out from zero and have no clue know what you’re doing
#2. Twittering has a negative side effect and unless you know what you’re doing, you might get trapped into buying the latest twitter guide, trying the latest tool and spending your whole day on Twitter.
Let me explain further.
Bur first, let’s cover briefly twitter’s main objective:
“Twitter is a free service that lets you keep in touch with people through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” - [source Twitter.com]
Read that again. Twitter is for connecting with people and sharing ideas, information and links.
Twitter is not for advertising your business like the “smart guys” teach us.
What do you do once you meet someone, do you invite him to buy a product from you?
No, unless you want to look like a desperate car sales man. The sad thing is that 90% of twitter users in the IM field act like nerds
They sending nothing but pure advertising information, something that nobody is interested in.
Look on your twitter behaviour. You follow the leaders because you want to hear from them about the goodies they share, the information they spread or the news they heard.
You’re not following others hoping they’ll follow you back [and get a quick hit to your site], righ?
Those who’re doing such irresponsible practice are actually commiting business suicide.
No, twitter won’t ban your account, nor remove your post, but 99% of your twitter followers will probably consider you [faster than you'd blink] a spammer, or not trustee
And you know what happens if you lack trust in people’s eyes, right? Their perception is reality.
You’ve lost the relationship-building game. You’re doomed to fail way before starting.
That’s why I strongly suggest you forget the hype, don’t listen to the so-called “twitter experts” – there are no “get 1,000 followers in 72 hours” schemes.
What works is this: build a strong, long-term relationship with your followers and the traffic will stick to your site, blog, or whatever link you have in your twitter profile.
And each time you invite your real followers [friends] in town [to check out your link], they’ll give you feedback and even buy from your recommendations.
Yes, you want to create a network of friends on twitter [that's the BIG secret].
The dark side of twittering is that if you do what most people do, you’ll actually attract just followers, but not friends.
The question is: want to become my friend? Then follow me on twitter and share with us your comments about this post now…
I just started twittering about 3 weeks ago and got around 750 followers. I got the impression that most of these followers are just auto bots that just automatically post twitter updates. But then again i’m doing the same thing so who i’m i to complain? lol
I just finding it a bit confusing and hectic. The more followers you have the more difficult it is to keep up with all those messages. I have a hard time communicating with one person (my wife) let alone talking to over 30,000 like other big twitter accounts
@thomas: I can’t agree with you more; twitter has a positive effect if you know how to handle it though…
I have read what you have written and your blog contains a lot of sense, however it is still one of the best ways of meeting people as you say if it is treated right. Well done.
best wishes.
Graham K. Leeke
I so agree with you that Twitter is a place to develop friends and if a person wants to buy something from you they will approach you.
And also there is no quick fix to making money from a social site or on the internet for that matter and you have to be trained to accomplish a business on the web and then there are no guarantees that you will succeed.
Kenneth
@Kenneth Young: I still have to find a way to make quick bucks when you have zero experience, very little time to work on the computer and no skills… lol
This is a very good and informative website. I got suspended with Twitter a few weeks back for giving out my Twitter username and password in order to lure more folks to my account. Twitter doesn’t like that, so play by the rules and you will do okay.
I certainly appreciate the informative information from this website. Thank you:
Scott
I totally agree with Codrut. I build my followers by first building relationship and I focus only on my niche initially.
Just ask yourself this question. If someone keeps on sending you blatant promotion, will you want to still be friends or will you quickly turn around and run. What works and does not work for you applies the same to your Twitter followers. Give value.
It is a little slow at first but it is worth the effort.
Cheers
@norajeannehirsu: I’d rather run!
Actually, this is good to read. I refuse to use the s/w that automates getting followers, because it seems so impersonal. I just figured I was doomed to have few followers. And I don’t have that many yet, but I get 2-3 new followers every day. Slowly, but surely I think it will build up. And the good thing is they are in niches that I am interested in and post about.
Susan
I have 1000’s of followers but wonder how many really read my tweets.
The screen gets updated so fast I can’t imagine that all follows get to see it.
DM’s seem the way to go but you can get accused of spam.
Even with all those followers, I still need to learn more about the process.
Dan
@Dan – RateYourAdverts: you can know for sure how many click on your links if you’re sending a link and track it ; not sure if you can get stats on how many are reading your messages, although I’d like to see such an option in future TWITTER updates – what do you think?
Also, if you shorten your links with bit.ly it stays in their database and you can see how many have clicked on it. I typically only use bit.ly for Twitter, so I know that is where those links come from.
Susan
@Susan Ozmore: I use cli.gs a similar service which tracks referrals too
Hello,
Amazing! Not clear for me, how offen you updating your http://www.web-traffic-club.com.
@Pett: as often as I can
Hi there,
Super post, Need to mark it on Digg
Thank you
@Pett: and what are you waiting for? anyway, if that’s a spam post [I see you're actually advertising a non-english site in your comment site url], and I don’t hear from you within 24 hours, I’ll delete the post. no offence!
Of late, I have been getting messages from supposedly pretty young women enticing me to follow them.
Probably want me to sign up to a dating site, so I just blocked them.
Great discussion! LOVE IT A lot.
Well, I plead guilty to the charge. I have less than 1,000 followers on Twitter, and I don’t know who they are.
I don’t have the time to wade through the constant trivia or private messages to find that one person who really matters.
So, I use the shot gun approach of Tweetmybog and a few FriendFeed posts a day – inspirational or free offers.
Checking from the amount of re-tweets I get, I’d say one one really gives a damn if it is not humor, rumors, pretty pictures or celebrity gossip – most of which anyone can get by watching the
entertainment news.
But, for those who care, I now have a new urologist named Dr. Finkenstein.
Said he has the technology to bring me back from the dead, and make me a Twitter force to be reckoned with. Can’t wait!
Live Long and watch your Tweets.
James
@James: so what’s your web business?