Know-How Exchange : Social Media

Dear Ashlee,

To use Twitter to drive traffic you have to use it as a lever: use Twitter to engage people and get them thinking "Wow, great content here on Twitter from Ashlee!", then direct them to some point of interest on your site: a blog post, a video, a podcast, an offer for which they are compelled to sign up for a newsletter, or for premium content.

And using Facebook and Youtube to triangulate with Twitter also helps drive traffic, create fans, and encourage followers.

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Hi Ashlee! First, if the only way you are promoting your site is via a link in your profile, you probably won't get much traffic from just that. I have almost 10,000 followers, and I get 10 referrals directly from my Twitter profile to my site on a GOOD day. Usually it's 2-3 referrals.

Here's how I drive traffic to my site from Twitter. Every morning I go through my RSS feeds and read them to find something interesting to blog about, but at the same time, I am (using Google Reader), sharing interesting articles AND linking to them on Twitter.

So I will share about 10-20 interesting links every morning. These are news items, blog posts, or studies that I think my followers will be interested in. These are RTed a lot, and this alone gets me a lot of followers.

But as I am sharing these links, I will also link to my newest blog post. This ALSO gets a lot of RTs, alongside the other links I am sharing. THAT is what drives traffic from Twitter to my site. For example, an hour ago while I was sharing links on Twitter, I linked to my newest blog post. It's already been RTed 11 times, and my traffic is 500% above where it would normally be for this time of the day.

Now granted, it helps to have 10,000 followers, but I got there by sharing content that others find value in. So it's kinda like giving in order to get.

BTW, what's your Twitter name?

Hi Ashlee,

Gary and Mack are offering some great advice. Twitter (or any other social media tools) can't be looked at as just traffic generators. Many SEOs would have marketers think that, but it's simply not the case (in most examples of Twitter success).

When you engage with other people or organizations, they will reciprocate and that's where you'll find your traffic. But that said, it takes time, committment and a willingness to not "push" marketing messages.

Do you have a strategy for using tools like Twitter? Do you have your measurement metrics sorted out so that you will know if you're meeting objectives?

Beth Harte
Community Manager, MarketingProfs
@bethharte

Hi Ashlee,

For me, the key to realizing the benefits of Twitter was in seeing it's not a quick-fix solution for promoting yourself. Really, it's not a quick-fix way to do anything because you have to spend *time* building your community.

Mack has some great suggestions about how he contributes on Twitter and that's really what's important -- you have to contribute in a way that's bigger than yourself. You have to demonstrate to your followers you're interested in them, their interests, and their goals.

Some of the ways I find to be the most effective in driving traffic to a site are:

1. Creating a conversation on Twitter with my followers centered around a topic pertaining to my site. If you can create conversation around a passion point, people will follow where you lead them, because they're interested and passionate.

2. Commenting on others' blogs and leaving my blog address and Twitter handle in my comment signature. Again, it's about contribution.

3. Demonstrating through tweets my knowledge and intuition about certain subjects. If you create a reputation for yourself as a source of help and quality information, people will be inclined to check out your site, regardless of when you've posted a link to it.

4. Sharing links to the sites and blog posts of my followers. Your community will appreciate your willingness to spread the love, so to speak, and will likely return the favor by heading over to your site and passing on your links, too.

To benefit from Twitter you have to build trust and show a dedication to your community, not just yourself. Keep working at it and people will come on board with you. Honestly, it took me a few months to establish myself and even now, 8 months later, I'm still learning what works and what doesn't! Hope these tips help. :)

Ashlee,

The nature of your question (about Twitter) tells me that you're focusing too much on the tool and not enough on the strategy. Everyone's comments are correct - you need to build online relationships and generate interest via great content, but Twitter is just one part of the spectrum of available social networks that should be a part of your arsenal. We use LinkedIn a lot, because it is a professional network, and the groups you join fit your target audience - so right there you are much more likely to get interest and leads from your content. We post our blogs on a number of these groups and get tons of inbound links that way. We use Facebook and Twitter the same way. And don't forget all the social bookmarking sites as well, like Digg and Stumbleupon. These can also send you quality links. The key is to publish good stuff often and leverage all of the available social tools to get the best SEO results on your website.

your question asks if it is a waste of time to spend time on twitter.

I think there are some fantastic answers above, but they all seem to deal with driving business to your site.

In my opinion, twitter can be tremendously valuable in keeping up with business trends, and this can be strategically important in the long run. The better informed you are, the more likely you are to close business (of course this is very hard to quantify).

Thank you to those who have posted information above, this is some of the best advice I have seen about the effective use of twitter to increase traffic and business.