Twitter - everybody is speaking

[MemberWing]

I have a strong impression that on Twitter everybody is speaking (well, twitting) but no one really reads anything, leave alone cares about your petty twits.

Auto-followers, auto-posters, auto-RT-ers. Everybody is a speak-only listen-not unreachable authority.
90% of Twitter content is automated and carrying zero-to-negative value.

I might be missing something here?

Gleb

[Dan C. Rinnert]

People must be reading. Every time I post a link, my page views jump. And people reply to my tweets too. Not always, but often.

[MemberWing]

That good to know - there must be life out there then beyond "I am having dinner with @guru1 and @guru2 and @guru3 and we're eating ___this___" - type of stuff

[signupmakemoney]

Like most things on the internet, people are glancing, not really reading. This is why your tweets have to be catchy to some extent.

I do see traffic coming from Twitter in my Analytics account so I can vouch for them.

[JMPruitt]

I think if you are in IM you see more of the crap than in others. I have tw twitter accounts. one for friends and family and one for my biz. my biz one I see more spam and crap. I try to strike up a conversation and am ignored.

However the one with close friends and family, we talk, share ideas, and we actually hold a regular conversation. That is how it should be, but like anywhere online they have not figured out how to get rid of the worthless idiots using for "marketing"

[gross100]

I feel it depends on who follows you...there are still many, many wide eyed new tweeters out there who are itching to get into it, and really play along nicely and will indeed follow links, DM you with meaningful insight etc...

My experience with Twitter has been a positive one...lots of traffic. I only create and maintain twitter accounts for sites that I plan for the long term of course...throwaway sites aren't worth the trouble

[Kylerudy]

every persons visit twitter to make a traffic rank Increase not a visit to enjoy

[silvervixen]

I get some traffic from Twitter. Not a lot, but then, I don't expect a lot from it since it is just one source out of the many that I use and I don't spend too much time on it. I think it also has to do with the quality of your followers. I've never done the autofollow thing because I want people to follow me because they're interested in what I have to say, not because I'm on some autofollow list. At that point, it loses its value and becomes akin to safelists and traffic exchanges...a lot of people, as you say, chattering but not reading.

[saraabrams]

Law of averages - you've got 30,000 followers (plus 1, I just followed you), so of course you'll get some response. I only respond to someone if they say something really witty. Otherwise, I try to sell them something!

[clsimpson88]

I'm not sure but it is something I'm wondering- have recently started using twitter to get traffic to my blogs, but given I only have 9 followers I'm not sure how!

[Troy_Phillips]

Should we expect sales from a 140 character phrase ?

Yes it is possible .. happened before .

Random at best .

If 140 worked consistently , long sales letters would be a thing of the past .

Now someone in 140 mode is not prepared to scroll through a long sales page either .

Capture their info quick.

I track every tweet . with over 8500 followers I get a constant 60 to 75 hits ( most unique) from each one with a link.

Still not something I bank on.

Now work on the sales .

[smaxor]

I think there is definately some niche communities. I hae a bunch of friends and we use twitter a lot. Just to talk about whatever. I like it cause I can micro blog and don't have to sit down and write a whole post. But my followers appreciate updates.

[redicelander]

Twitter never interested me, in a personal surfing way. Then, I saw that it can be a bit fun to read people's stupid little tweets, no joke.

And how to make money from twitter? Well, that's a whole new question and a whole other thread. But at the very basic level, you get a lot of followers, and you post links in your tweets = website traffic.

[michaelko]

If you were going to do Twitter marketing, is there actually a good product that anyone would recommend?

[KellyK]

Too many people in IM don't get the point of Twitter.

Instead of having conversations, they talk at people. If you're truly branding yourself online, you need to be talking TO your customers - as well as listening - instead of just posting link after link.

I actually use Twitter for its intended purpose and sneak in a link every once in awhile. I actually get clicks, too. Sally Who is more likely to click my link if she sees me as a fellow conversationalist than if she just sees me as someone who is trying to get her to click my link.

[Shana_Adam]

I just recently joined up to twitter, still can't figure out how it works, I don't know if I'm actually using it right because I seem to see the same tweets from the same people.

I'm not really that keen on people who keep posting links constantly, it just looks to Spammy.

Also stumbled across a few users whose accounts have been disabled due to strange activity.

[BrianE]

I agree with Gross100, it depends on who follows you. There are some who nothing but Tweet links and never bother to read anything.

[Steven Wagenheim]

I find it fascinating that people make assumptions based on absolutely no
facts whatsoever.

I don't live on Twitter by any stretch of the imagination. I spend maybe 10
minutes a week on it, if that.

And yet, whenever I make a tweet about a new blog entry, people go there
to read it. In fact, when the FTC circus first started and I tweeted an
article I wrote about the subject, my views were off the charts.

The key is to actually tell people something that they're going to be
interested in. And THAT is not going to happen unless you have people
following you who REALLY want to follow you. That is why I don't go out
trolling for followers and why I only have a little over 5,500.

But Twitter can work very well IF you know how to use it.

[BrianE]

Also, your Tweet will only stay on the home page for a couple of seconds for those followers with lists of a couple of thousand or more so try to develop a loyal following so they will read your Tweets

[drwhogoesthere]

I think sometimes it depends on what you market. I have seen one of my sites jump up as much as 60 hits in less than a minute, and that was from a list of less than 1000 people.

Then I have seen other sites jump less than ten hits in the same time frame on a list of over 4000.

But like any social networking site there will always be people on there to chat and people on there to sell. Thats just the nature of the game.

[Mr. Enthusiastic]

I like your concerns and the question, of course, is whether beyond what gurus you had dinner with, in 130 characters is it possib

[The Dotcom Hippie]

It wasn't that bad, say, 18 months ago. It was actually fairly useful for forming relationships then. Last spring I decided to take a break from Twitter and pretty much all social media (a smart move as it really helped my online business grow), and only logged in to my accounts again after seven months. I did so because I decided I wanted to start a blog again, and Twitter isn't totally useless for that kind of stuff. What I discovered, however, was that it - for the most part - had gone down the drain. Now it IS full of people shouting at each other, with very few listening. It's almost hopeless for meeting new people and forming relationships, because everyone is following too many people and so nobody is really noticing anyone. You ask a question now, or tweet a link, and get the same response with something like 5,000 followers that you got with 1,000 last year. It's sad. When my accounts had 50 followers there were more conversation going on than there is now. And conversation is what it could have been quite useful for - while you can obviously broadcast your stuff and get 'traffic' (heh) that's not really using a service like that to it's full potential.

I'm back to using Twitter now, but I'm not spending much time on it. I'm going to throw a few links out there to my blog again and whatever, but Twitter - like reading blogs and participating in other social media - is something I do in my spare time for the most part. It's not what I call work, because of the low ROI in terms of time spent.

[Jobe4212]

Be real on Twitter.
Market minimally.
Market elsewhere.

Let Twitter be the least salesy part of your online presence,
where you attract followers to you because you actually add to the community.

It's best when you're real.
That's how you naturally gain followers who trust you

[MarkAse]

Depends on the niche. I'd imagine in IM, yes there is a lot of automated content. For me, in wine it isn't nearly the same....Twitter has given me access to a bunch of winemakers and decision makers that I could have never gotten in standard formats.

[SeanSupplee]

Twitter does work and while some of you may not use it other then looking for a means to promote there are people out there that do read the stuff and will follow or unfollow you based on what you have to say. Come up with popular things and youll gain traffic and sales. It works Ive used it and I mass follow people every day. I have also even read tweets and bought stuff from them when glancing over the most recent tweets when I login. Like everything on the net its a big numbers game. I spend about 10 min a day working on my twitter account but its time well spent. As for warrior forum i think i spend 3 hours LOL

[Jagged]

I first posted this in OT but think it's more suited here with this thread...
This is a video spoof from hubspot....spoofing the TV show "the office"

[ShaneRQR]

It does seem like instead of "x is now following you" they might as well call it "x is now ignoring you along with 30'000 other twitterers".

But people must also be paying attention, since I get visitors from my twitter account even though I only have a dozen followers. ^^ (nope, I'm not much of a twitterer...)

[Social Espionage]

Use twitter as if it were a freindly Bar-B-Q. If you were invited to someone's pace for the first time, you wouldn't try to sell them something would you? You ask for peoples names, what they do and then tell them your name and what you do.
Get to know them.
You can offer some free advice about your niche, come across as someone who knows what they are talking about.
As for the idea that everyone is talking and no-one is listening simply isn't true.
Yes the more followers you have the quicker the feed goes, but you will find in twitter as you would in the physical world that people do prefer to talk than listen. The idea would be to watch tweets, reply when one is directed to you, and when you see an opportunity to help someone with advice.
Mix it up too, show your personality. tweet your favouriet quotes, jokes, and niche updates.
Twitter people are just like the peeps at your Bar-B-Q if you try to sell to them too soon, you will loose them.
Don't forget the one thing Twitter is best for is it's viral capability.
You may only have one Thousand followers, but a good tweet can be retweeted to hundreds of thousands.