Don’t Litter Your Twitter

December 28, 2009 by Collin LaHay
Filed under: Guest Post 

Twitter is the ‘big thing’  of 2009. Although it will celebrate its 4th birthday in March 2010, it is really only in the latter part of 08 and throughout this year that the site has exploded into popularity. Call it the digital success story of the year, if you will, but businesses and recreational users alike are Tweeting like crazy!

It’s true that the revolutionary micro-blogging platform can generate masses of traffic for your site. But it’s not as easy as posting and cashing in! Building up followers and encouraging a high click through rate from the links you post is a time consuming process. Here are a few things that might help.

  1. Don’t litter your Twitter
    While no official click through rate statistics exist, a number of surveys carried out by users do exist. It seems that click through rates vary wildly, as you would expect. But two things remain consistent across the board. Firstly, as you would expect, the more followers you have, the lower your CTR is. Secondly, and again something that probably will not come as a surprise, the higher the proportion of your Tweets that include a link, the lower your CTR. What this means is that you shouldn’t include a link in every single Tweet. Don’t litter your Twitter with links. It gives the distinct impression than your only reason for Tweeting is traffic to another site.
  1. The human touch
    While the temptation is there for businesses to simply set up a business Twitter account and let all the staff access it to post, this is rather impersonal. The most popular Twitter users are people with something interesting to say. An overly corporate feel to your Twitter profile and posts, even if it is a business profile, can be off putting. Assign one (or even two at the most) people to take care of the account. This allows for a little consistency in the ‘personality’ of your posts and allows your followers to get to know you.
  1. Attracting followers
    Of course, point two assumes that you have followers. But you won’t get that many of them by posting drab company updates. When you set up your account and make your posts, ask yourself what your followers get from following you. Maybe it’s direct customer support via Twitter (as Virgin trains have very successfully done). Perhaps it’s Twitter exclusive discount codes. Maybe you also post entertaining and funny video links or breaking news that relates to the interests of the general demographic that makes up your target market. Either way, there has to be something in it for the followers!
  1. Update frequently, reply to messages and retweet!
    This comes down to being a part of the Twitter community. This is crucial in much the same way as it is crucial for bloggers to be a part of a network. Update frequently but not just with corporate babble. Update with relevant information, with thoughts or musings on a related topic. If someone sends you a message, reply to it where possible. If you see a particularly interesting Tweet, retweet it! Become a part of the community. Failing to do so could make it look as though you’re placing yourself on a pedestal and want traffic and traffic alone from Twitter.

Twitter can and does generate massive amounts of traffic to your website. But it should be thought of as an ongoing thing that requires constant maintenance, like many marketing techniques do. One of the biggest benefits of Twitter for users is that it permits them more ‘personal’ access to the companies whose services they use. It adds a personality to what can sometimes be a faceless business arrangement. This is what will fundamentally generate followers and likeability about you and your brand.

This is a guest post submitted by Stacey Cavanagh who works for a Manchester SEO company. A lot of my readers use twitter so I thought I would publish it, even if it isn’t related to link building.

Comments

4 Comments on Don’t Litter Your Twitter

  1. Davor Gasparevic @ Cheap internet marketing ebooks blog on Mon, 28th Dec 2009 3:39 pm

    2. Well, I feel lazy to reply to messages, but I really follow all of the above guidelines because it is pure logic.

    It’s maybe easier for me because I am just an average guy, therefore it’s easier for me to get in touch and feel the needs of my followers, but I think it’s really not that hard to simply be yourself. Simply to mix things up, a little bit of personal, a little bit of business, a little bit of trustworthiness and originality, and everything is fine.

  2. The Net Fool on Wed, 30th Dec 2009 7:54 pm

    3. Three “number one” reasons? Wow! :razz:

    I’m not sure if I’m 100% agreeing on not littering your twitter. If that is the intent, I say why not. If your conversion rates drop, you can simply promote more often to pick up for dropped leads. I’m sure the CTR doesn’t ail tremendously… and Twitter’ers that have a relative amount of consistency in their promotions may see their efforts pay off. Your thoughts?

  3. Nick Jones on Tue, 12th Jan 2010 8:54 am

    4. Good comments thank you as always Colin.
    Ironically there’s no button for me to forward this to Twitter…have done so manually anyway :)

  4. Canvas Prints on Thu, 25th Feb 2010 9:54 am

    5. Cheers for this, Twitter is important to our business I must rember not to neglect it.

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