Is Twitter All It's Cracked Up To Be?

[SMP]

I read alot of posts about growing numbers of followers but I'm only interested in making sales so I'd be really interested to hear from anyone who can quantify the sales they have made as a direct result of growing their Twitter following.

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the power of Twitter, even if I don't use it at the moment, but I am reluctant to spend time and effort on this subject to the detriment of my other marketing activities.

What are your thoughts? Is it worth having a go?

Steve.

[Andyhenry]

No - don't waste your time.

It generally takes a lot more focus that the rewards.

You could give it a go by using some automation tools to do a bunch of stuff on a big scale (lots of accounts, lots of monetised tweets) and it would bring something for very little effort, but that's much like spamming and I don't imagine you could rely on keeping the accounts for long.

Unless you have the time to focus on using it regularly I wouldn't bother.
I know that's not the IM thing to say and I do make money on Twitter but I put time and attention in and like talking with interesting people, so I'd use it even if there was no money.


Andy

[johnjimat]

it takes a lot more effort using twitter. you have to be connect to your follower, treat them as your friend. provide good value tweet or your follower. it is hard to connect to all your follower. But i would advice you not to follow person that spam tweet (person that always tweet the same tweet so many time in a day).it's no use if you have 100k follower if you not making any sale. the best follower are your customer that follow you in twitter. Just my opinion

[Pace07]

Hey!

I've heard that social networking sites can be very beneficial to use for promotion of your website, however, just like the other responders you have to be a very active twitter member to make it work for you. Good luck if you try!

Cheers,
Emma

[SMP]

Originally Posted by Andyhenry

No - don't waste your time.

It generally takes a lot more focus that the rewards.

You could give it a go by using some automation tools to do a bunch of stuff on a big scale (lots of accounts, lots of monetised tweets) and it would bring something for very little effort, but that's much like spamming and I don't imagine you could rely on keeping the accounts for long.

Unless you have the time to focus on using it regularly I wouldn't bother.
I know that's not the IM thing to say and I do make money on Twitter but I put time and attention in and like talking with interesting people, so I'd use it even if there was no money.


Andy

Sound advice Andy - thanks for that.

There are so many IM techniques that can be tried and, for me, it's a case of using my time wisely by prioritising certain techniques above others.

Cheers.

Steve.

[morry]

I'm sure it can be useful, but you have to consider the opportunity cost. If you didn't spend an hour on twitter per day, could you make more money doing some other activity like content writing, or PPC etc?

I've never used twitter myself and I don't think I will in the near future.

Sean

[Allison_W]

Steve,

Totally agree with you. There are only so many hours in a day and being new to all this IM I don't want to spread myself too thin and need to be focusing on generating traffic and finding quality products to sell before having the luxury of "socialising" for now.

Kate

[SMP]

Originally Posted by johnjimat

it takes a lot more effort using twitter. you have to be connect to your follower, treat them as your friend. provide good value tweet or your follower. it is hard to connect to all your follower. But i would advice you not to follow person that spam tweet (person that always tweet the same tweet so many time in a day).it's no use if you have 100k follower if you not making any sale. the best follower are your customer that follow you in twitter. Just my opinion

I think that sums it up John - the best followers are your customers.

I think I'll consider this only after I've perfected other techniques that will drive the traffic to me that I need.

Thanks for your input.

Steve.

[Mukul Verma]

If you can outsource it DO IT!!!! I learned Twitter and choose not too since it was too much time for too little results.

YES you will get results, but your efforts are better put elsewhere

[Paul Hancox]

Yes, I have found it quite effective BUT...

... but, I don't use it directly for the purpose of making sales.

I provide ONLY good quality content in my Twitter stream, such as hints and tips, and about 1 in every 3 tweets points back to a blog post of mine.

Then, I provide yet more good quality content on my blog, which GENTLY SELLS my products, on occasion.

Just the other day I followed someone, she returned the follow... then she went to a blog post I'd tweeted, where I gently sold the product... and she bought the product. All within the space of about 2 hours.

So Twitter works, but only if you don't use it as an affiliate link semi-spamming tool.

It is, first and foremost a SOCIAL NETWORK

So be social on it. Interact with others. Provide good, useful tweets. Connect it to a blog. Gently... and I mean gently sell. on the blog, while providing yet more useful content.

That works for me. Your mileage may vary.

[Aaron.Scott]

I would just use it as another method to gain traffic and exposure in your niche.

So I wouldn't rely on it as the only way to make money....its just part of the building blocks.

[Paul Ho]

I think Twitter's pretty saturated.. it used to be a good earner if you were one of the early birds.. now it's getting more and more difficult.. So yeah.. as a secondary support or a way to drive traffic would be better..

[havplenty]

Originally Posted by SMP

I read alot of posts about growing numbers of followers but I'm only interested in making sales so I'd be really interested to hear from anyone who can quantify the sales they have made as a direct result of growing their Twitter following.

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the power of Twitter, even if I don't use it at the moment, but I am reluctant to spend time and effort on this subject to the detriment of my other marketing activities.

What are your thoughts? Is it worth having a go?

Steve.

People like Mike Filsaime claim it makes them lots of money, but I am dubious about it's usefulness. People like Filsaime have a huge following already, so twitter to them just becomes another enabler. I doubt very much that people are going to want to get these 'tweets' from me if all i do is ask them to buy stuff.

My two cents

Hav

[mikeyman120]

I'm think there is gold in twitter if you know where to find it and I think I have found it. I could be totally wrong. Anyway I'm keeping what I call my Twitter Experiment on my blog below. If I am right I can see myself making a few bucks or more. I keep running into obstactles which is making this take longer than expected but I see cash at the end of the twitter rainbow. But I am putting in some serious time with twitter to do this.

Mike

[Mr Money Maker]

Twitter is mainly is really 98% hype and 2 % good for something. Be better off creating your own social network, thats where the money is at. Having control...is how to make money online. Not being under control of companies like twitter.........but That's my opinion

[emofree123]

The answer is no. There is a study which says that twitter is composed mainly of pointless babbles. It entails a lot of work but the outcome is little. Use twitter to promote your profucts and to share the latest updates.

[genietoast]

Twitter's been working for what I want to do. So far I'm building up a decent following because I'm employing a pretty large strategy that will have a long term effect, and Twitter has a big play in it. You just gotta know which people to talk to and what you want to do with them.

But go with whatever efforts you feel work best for you. I can't sit and twiddle my thumbs all week while Ezine Articles decides if I put a comma in the right place. I need to do something while they're editting. So I'll Twitter, write articles elsewhere, help a few noobs, tweak something on my blog. Re-interlink from one article to another. Gives me time to look at where I can pull traffic here and push traffic there.

I mean traffic's coming slowly for now, but Twitter's helped me reign in some people that I never expected to get. I got a phone call from someone in Twitter who's been scammed one too many times. She just needed someone to talk to. Someone she could trust. We talked and I allayed her fears about affiliate marketing and taking the sensible approach to it. Yeah, people don't trust the opportunities out there. I wonder why.

Twitter taught me something about personalities. I learned that certain types of followers are more hesitant to follow you and more likely to protect their Tweets, like poets and writers, or block you. Had a lady block me. I mean, what do you do? She went about her day. Other followers wanted to make money for "free" so they'll join GPT sites. You can moan, groan, piss and frown on this, but hey, folks, that's how people think. They've lost a job. They don't want to spend any more money on a sales page with 1200 bright colors on it because they lost $67 which they could have paid their phone bill on the last lame product.

We can laugh at them for not knowing better, but you know what, they really don't know any better, and I think as IMers we sometimes forget that. One girl in a GPT site was asking about how you start a blog. Every one talked about getting web hosting, domain names, SEO, backlinks. Her reaction: ?????? So I try to guide them in the right direction and then they join my friend network. Yay. I enjoy it. I like going in the trenches.

But I've had such an insight into about how people think, where they congregate and what they're looking for. Joe might ask Jack, "Hey, has anybody used Neobux?" "Naw, man, they suck. Use Pixbux". "Okay."
So at this point my mind is reeling. Okay, if they're into GPT, they're not yet ready for affiliate marketing. They might, however, be interested in...

It's been enlightening to me. That whole thing about building trust in people isn't just whistling dixies.

As for the IMers in Twitter, they're no surprise. Those are the people who swarm around Mike Filsaime, Willie Crawford and whatever other Money prophet out there. These folks are hot to trot. You decide to follow them, they are at your doorstep. Ding! Obviously, every Tom, Dick and Godin is going to DM with you with their opportunity, but there's a simple way to deal with it: DELETE. Compare that to the folks who follow Tony Robbins who has over 1 million followers. Some of those people, interestingly enough, have Turrets. "Twitter is Gay!" "You're retarded." I'm thinking: Okay. Moving right along.

So I'd use Twitter to study your audience. Find where they swarm. If they swarm around Borders Books (yes, they do have a Twitter account), you know those are avid book readers, book lovers and potential authors. Your eBook store may have a shot.

My Nickel's Worth.

[Success With Dany]

I try to engage in conversations with my followers but so rarely people talk to me back.

I never mass-spammed any business opportunities or aff links, I "bit.ly'd" interesting links re/unrelated to home business, trying my best to bring value sincerely but it doesn't give me nothing in return.

I cleaned my followers list, turns out 40% were useless spammers or people with whom I won't go very far with. I thought with them gone, it'll be nicer to get to talk to people, well even after clean up, same pattern: starting convos, asking questions to other people, psh, FUTILE!

Nobody answers back. NEVER have I asked a follower that I was replying to "to go check my link".

So Twitter as the Internet marketing social media savior? Get back to me on that!

Like said in earlier posts, you gotta be established to truly profit from Twitter. For newbies, ha! Good luck!

[dsmpublishing]

Hi

twitter can seriously improve your revenue and your subscribers if it is done right. Ifr you just spam the community with crap you are never going to make any sales. Just like you wouldnt make any if you did the same with your subscribers list. Treat them properly build up a relationship with your followers and you have it made.

I didnt get twitter straightaway but i have seen how good it can be. One of my followers funds his university education just by selling ebooks with MRR at discount prices. At first you need to put a little effort in but once youve been on there a couple of weeks through certain tools an hour a day will do the trick.

here is a free tutorial to get you setup:

Free twitter ebook become a twitter expert in 24 hours

kind regards


sam
X

[Fabian Tan]

The best way is to use Twitter is to build up relationships. The direct messaging feature is not so effective these days because many don't check that anymore due to the number of automated messages. But you can use Twitter to establish a deeper connection with your contacts than email or Facebook would.

For a celebrity like Oprah or a popular figure like Obama (last I heard his popularity is waning?), Twitter is definitely useful because the followers will be REAL followers. In other words, many will actually keep track of what you have to say because they actually WANT to follow you.

This is of course, different from the 'I follow you, you follow me' world of a pure numbers game.

The numbers game can apparently work for people too. If you use CPA offers, you can certainly make more than a few bucks from Twitter or so I heard.

Or you can use it as a viral marketing tool to get people to retweet your stuff. At the end of every Tweet, you can say something like 'please retweet' and people will be more apt to do so if they like your content.

Fabian

[Easy Cash]

I read somewhere today that 40% of comments or "Tweets" on Twitter were useless pieces of information.

Geeeez - I got it wrong. I thought it was 100%.

[barbling]

WARNING - RANT COMING

Twitter is EXCELLENT and truly wonderful for marketing in a NON-direct format.

Ie, you use Twitter to become a recognized subject matter expert in your niche.

You use Twitter to share relevant information, answer questions, make friends and the like .... ie, you use it to network.

You do NOT use it to "make money" via primary avenues - ie, BUY MY PRODUCT HERE! That just doesn't work at all.

But...if you consistently walk the walk you talk (ie, demonstrate you know what you're talking about, are empathetic to folks who connect with you, answer questions etc.), Twitter can be a wonderful marketing friend indeed.

I despise all of these "make money with Twitter" by bogus means. Some of them can be useful, ie, "Follow me and in return, you'll receive this free book", but others are just plain useless.

Incentives are great....stupidity....is not.

[Kevin Regier]

I think it is a wonderful tool for generating traffic. I am about to launch a Traffic Based blog and will be writing a lot about this. One of the things I think that need to happen is we need to get more serious marketers on Twitter and less spammers. It seems to me that is an untapped (almost) goldmine just waiting. It is a way to get very targeted traffic and that is worth the "trouble" of half an hour day to me. But is not the end all be all way to make money. I think it should be part of everyone's Marketing plan.

[acedalright]

I don't think you can make broad sweeping statements as it depends very much on the business you are in and whether you can convert.

I think general internet marketing, there's an opportunity cost too high, but in social niches there's some real benefits

[CDawson]

Consider twitter a backlink, that is about it from what I have done.

[James Schramko]

Twitter is very powerful for indirect sales through
relationships.

Spamming and automation are the wrong way to use
twitter IMHO..

If you really cultivate an audience of passionate
followers you will reap big dividends.

People who say it is not worth it are doing it
wrong.

[dbarnum]

Twitter is a good tool for people in service businesses. We can hook up with fellow service providers, connect briefly with clients about projects, tasks, etc. It can be somewhat similar to email, but a bit more fun, more efficient and more manageable using your search and other Twitter tools.

[bizaddy]

It's the difference between push and pull. Most IMers are push marketers. You have to use pull in social media marketing.

So Twitter is a social network, isn't it? If you think you can just go in and push your followers with offers you will fail. That's like being the life insurance salesman at a party and trying to sell your new party acquaintances right after the handshake.

People buy from other people that they know, like, and trust. So use Twitter to build those three elements and learn how to subtly pull people to your offers, blogs, list signups, etc. I don't have a fixed ratio, but I'd estimate only about 10 to 15% of my Tweets do that. I seldom (almost never) post a direct link to an offer page. The rest is useful information and some personal things. I use a sidebar widget on selected blogs to show Twitter posts. That's a great way to let others see your personal side without it getting in the way of your main content.

If you are worried about wasting time at Twitter, use a service like Tweetlater (free) and schedule useful Tweets throughout the day.

[Andyhenry]

Hi James,

I think you're misreading the responses - the question wasn't whether Twitter can make money, but whether the OP should spend his precious time on it.

Just because you and I make money with it doesn't mean we should automatically tell others they should use it.

I have a lot of spare time to sit and Twitter (and post here), but many people don't and for someone just starting out in their online business, there are far more product activities which relate to building a new business, so while I like Twitter and make some nice cash from it - I truly believe that not everyone (especially those who haven't built their business or income yet) should be using it just because it's there and other people like it.

I use PPC a lot and I often tell people just starting out not to use it at this time - because they don't have anything to sell and no business to focus the traffic on, but PPC definitely works and makes a lot of people a lot of money.

It's easy for us to forget the position of others and give advice based on our own position or even let our ego get in the way and tell people to do it because it works for us, but sometimes the best advice is not to do what we're doing - even if it works.

Andy

Originally Posted by James Schramko

Twitter is very powerful for indirect sales through
relationships.

Spamming and automation are the wrong way to use
twitter IMHO..

If you really cultivate an audience of passionate
followers you will reap big dividends.

People who say it is not worth it are doing it
wrong.

[Kenneth Fox]

Originally Posted by James Schramko

Twitter is very powerful for indirect sales through
relationships.

Spamming and automation are the wrong way to use
twitter IMHO..

If you really cultivate an audience of passionate
followers you will reap big dividends.

People who say it is not worth it are doing it
wrong.

Good points and this goes for any social networking format..Facebook, Myspace etc.

[Leanne King]

I think Ron Davies said it... not sure ... but Twitter is about building relationships and rather than have followers it's best to have listeners. So, unless the OP is prepared to put some time into building relationships his time might be better spent doing some other IM activity.

[Adam Michael]

Twitter traffic is not "buyer" traffic... plain and simple. They are information seekers.

If you think of twitter traffic as article traffic, you are going to be highly disappointed.

If you have a blog, Twitter traffic is absolutely amazing. Not only will these people stay longer on your site to read the "tweeted" article, but they are more prone to leave a comment.

Use your blog to get them on your mailing list. Think outside the box and you will quickly find Twitter is well worth your time. I only have around 4,000 followers and for any given tweet I can automatically get 100+ people to any link I post.

[markshields]

I agree with all that has been said as too many people on twitter gather followers rapidly and they just turn out to be non responsive people on a list, you want responsive individuals who listen and act

[John Boyd]

I agree that Twitter should be used as part of an overall longer term marketing strategy, and that tweets should focus on gently building a relationship with your followers. i.e. Try and avoid tweeting about which colour of shirt you're wearing, or about your mood swings etc.

[SMP]

Thanks for all of your responses - it's given me a really good idea of how and when I should consider using this tool.

Time is an issue at the moment so I guess I'll park the idea for now but I've got some good ideas of what other tools I need to get in place before dabbling with Twitter.

All the best.

Steve.

[Adeel_Chowdhry]

I don't use Twitter much.

What happens when you are following 1000+ people.. the tweets must get overwhelming and messy. I'm sure you'd end up spending a whole day just trying to keep up with people.

.. same thing on Facebook... i've heard of many people cancelling their FB accounts because random people keep on adding you and it gets to the point where you can't keep up and that you don't even know who the people on your lists are.

I've heard many success stories so what I can say though, is that if you are going to use Twitter, use it properly and regulary.


Adeel

[bhackett]

Don't waste your time. It's like digital CB radio.

[SumikoW]

It's still evolving, like anything new you must learn the ropes, it takes time to build a following, if you want to take the time to build a list of followers it could be worth it, depends on your focus.

[Kevin-VirtualProfitCenter]

I work with a client on his Twitter product--he has 91,385 followers. I wrote his copy, came up with his sales process, etc.

He gets between a 5% to 10% click-thru on his Tweets with links.

To me it's not about Twitter being good or bad, it's about using it well.

[SMP]

Originally Posted by Kevin-VirtualProfitCenter

I work with a client on his Twitter product--he has 91,385 followers. I wrote his copy, came up with his sales process, etc.

He gets between a 5% to 10% click-thru on his Tweets with links.

To me it's not about Twitter being good or bad, it's about using it well.

That's a pretty impressive click through rate. Food for thought.

You're absolutely right about using Twitter well - I guess the same can be said about most IM disciplines. We all have our favourites that this would apply to.

Steve.

[FrankPinch]

unfortunately, Twitter is another platform getting full of people whoe just want to sell products, the future will confirm it, a little like CL and what happened because of so much spammers

[Success With Dany]

Originally Posted by FrankPinch

unfortunately, Twitter is another platform getting full of people whoe just want to sell products, the future will confirm it, a little like CL and what happened because of so much spammers

Very true.

The most successful Twitterers probably had a massive list already.

[djbill]

I have a Twitter account setup for each of my blogs. I use it for promotion of my blogs and to basically get traffic. I have been trying with some other things (auto tweets based on keywords, etc) but for the most part....Twitter is more about information than sales.

I am still going to use it because I have one account over 6000 who i visit with and talk about random stuff daily...they DO go to places I post....so yeah! It has been good for niche specific related traffic for sure!

Peace, DJ Bill

[MrDay]

Twitter is awesome, sales and traffic will be increased once you learn how to use it. It's not so much about how many followers and trying to spam with your messages on twitter either. Many people say those two things are key but they aren't.

I got a ton of traffic and sales weekly from one of my new blogs and using only twitter. I will say I've had some luck with sales from twitter messages but think "multi tier" programs not cb links.

Another thing, I'm not going into detail about how to use twitter etc..... but the way I learned how to use twitter other than experimenting I found a good blog or website from some of the Top Dogs in the industry like "twitip" for example is a good read.

good luck!

[spin_doc]

There's a talk about commercial accounts launch so thing will change again with Twitter soon, won't it?

[JWB]

I rarely use Twitter.....to me its gets boring after a short while...

But I would consider it just a traffic source...I suppose it could
be a huge traffic source by putting a lot of time into it and
really focusing on it.....

[dblgdee]

If you're only interested in making sales, perhaps you should study how companies such are Starbucks and Dell and a host of others are doing it.
Guaranteed, you may not have the clout of multicorps, but there may something we can learn.
A product recently launched by Perry Belcher and Ryan Deiss claimed that they generated over 2 million dollars from Social nets , primarily Twitter and FB.
However, most of the responses in the thread seem to imply that Twitter is ineffective.

Twitter is a social network, with emphasis on the word network.
The learning curve may be steeper and more complex than anticipated, but others are showing that it can be done.
Perhaps a better model is needed as we still in uncharted territory.

[katiec]

If you know how to use it, and have the time to use it, then I feel it's absolutely worth it. I've gained 250% more readership on my blog and more sales by simple word of mouth. Posting quality content and knowing "how to post a link" are essential. By "how to post a link" I of course mean the 'right way to do it, without sounding like a spam/robot.'

It's true, sales are key, but the social interaction with people will get you more potential leads.

I've gotten much success from Twitter. It doesn't matter so much 'how much' time you put into it, but what content you do. Work smart, not hard.

Also, outsourcing is a great idea. I do some Twitter outsourcing work myself, and its very convenient for many Marketing Minds.

[craig970]

I couldn't agree more. The time you have to invest in social marketing doesn't equal the payout, unless you do as I do and have an assistant who does it for you.

[aihamshujaa]

Most definately. Give it go my man. I suggest setting up an account with Twitter. And then setting up an account with onlywire. Use onlywire to post updates about your product. Then through onlywire, you can get posts updated directly to 25 social networking sites at once, and this includes twitter. Try it and see. Its so easy to use. They direct all the way. No stupid codes or anything. Just click buttons.