Twitter Mostly a Waste of Time - Example:

I don't see your logic. They're completely different strategies.

You don't control who follows you so you always end up with extra low response people. When you build a list you control who gets on it.

Um, yeah, because it's a social network and not, um, eMail.

The thing is sir...with Twitter, when one effectively targets an audience and delivers effective tweets and not just another link, that is when the quality relationship building begins. A majority of online marketers make it bad for others by just spamming Twitter with a link, which is meaningless. Twitter can ultimately be your oyster to online business greatness, but one must add quality time and invest in building worthwhile relationships with their Twitter followers. Real talk.

twitter is not a marketing tool, which i wish people would just GET.

it's a passive communication tool, where respected figures with hundreds/thousands of followers CAN plug their stuff by name dropping their products or services to their peers/fans OCCASIONALLY.

it still astounds me that people sign up thinking it has the ability to make them rich by plugging affiliate links, not actually tweeting anything of value or attempting to converse with anyone. also, following 20,000 people won't help either.

like everything in life, you need to work hard at it and contribute value to see results.

I think twitter success is solely dependent on how you use it. I use my accounts to simply tell my followers (who are already interested in my content/niche) that I have made a new post and to come check it out. It drives traffic, which in turn drives sales.

I also have a content site that I charge CPM rates to run ads on. The more places I can draw targeted traffic from means a bigger paycheck. For this site I don't even care about my SERP placement since most of my traffic comes from social networks like twitter, facebook and myspace (yes myspace!).

With any platform I think you need to understand the pro's and con's.

Twitter is often one of our top referrers and we are just scratching the surface. A lot of it has to do with the quality of the strategy. Auto posting to twitter massively is another spam technique doomed to failure.

However, writing something that is interesting to followers works very well. I can tweet something right now and be assured of a sale as a result, but I make sure that I don't overload people with stuff they don't want to read.

How many of the followers click on a message and ultimately land on your site?

I'm still not sure why you're saying that's bad and comparing it to email.

With email ALL of your subscribers (barring deliverability issues) will see your message.

Twitter is a global - practically real-time system for most people. If they're not watching their screen when you tweet - they probably won't see it.

When you factor in time-zones and spurious followers - that usually means that 'most' of your followers probably miss most of your tweets.

I found that while in different parts of the world different elements of my followers came to life. While I was living in Singapore - all the asian followers were around while I tweeted and responded quickly but of course the europeans and americans were all in bed.
When I lived in the UK, depending on the time of day I tweeted - european followers were responsive and also US but I had to tweet early in the morning for asian tweeters to be responsive.

Also many people use twitter management tools and have several accounts so they may not see the tweet for days before they click on the link. Some people don't click on links and just like to read interesting tweets.

Twitter is not email - you really have no idea how many people actually see your tweet and a poor response doesn't mean they saw it and ignored it.

Also - some people stop using Twitter or change accounts and you'll never know.

You have to take it for what it is and not try to compare it with email - it's a different beast.

In my humble opinion.

Andy

Andy has a point. You're not building an email list with twitter. You're building a following.

You're not building a blog, you're building a micro-blog. All you're doing is getting readers to read your stuff. The whole idea of followers is simple, you have an idea of how many people MIGHT see your mini-blog.

Say you've got a 20,000 person following. Each of those people is following at least 100-200 people, give or take. You pump a link, and of that 20,000 only 305 clicks happen. What do you infer from this?

There were 305 people on twitter who saw your tweet and clicked your link.

Twitter is not email marketing. There isn't some inbox somewhere you're sending this tweet to sit and EVENTUALLY be read. If the person isn't on at that moment that you tweet, chances are your tweet will be pushed to the bottom of the stack.

You're fighting for someones time with twitter. Literally. It's between you and those 200 other guys trying to have someone see your link.

The link you posted five minutes ago might not even be in their front page anymore.

It's a gamble, but hell. I'd rather have an extra 305 clicks to my product/service than nothing. Best part is, its free. I like free. A lot of people like free.

You're trashing a medium that is nothing like anything else, really.

-Sean

I've freelanced for a couple companies who were able to track decent revenue gained through Twitter. Was it a big percentage, no, but if it brings in money and raises an overall awareness it's a win-win.

People should stop trying to sell on Twitter. Instead, they should focus on building their brand, building trust, getting list subscribers, etc. Throwing out a random link just isn't going to get it done.

This is like.. PRECISE! I'm totally aligned with that. You're absolutely right, I call it the "look at me" challenge. People are so "look at my product," that no one really does anymore.

It's definitely for networking, building rapport agents and expanding as a result. I think Chris Brogan says it best when he says "no one wants to buy your dumb product!"

I am only posting my articles’ links on Twitter. I don’t have time to do more, and it’s not my style to look for people I could possibly help with my knowledge. I lost my interest on Twitter after having a few technical problems and discovering that its system is chaotic. Nobody ever helped me solve anything.

I think that if you don’t know how to use Twitter it really is a waste of time.

It's not like people have to choose between Twitter and Email. They can do both.

And besides, if all you do is let people know that you've made a new post, I don't see how it's THAT much of a time waster.

People that delete their twitter accounts are drama queens, in my view. Just leave it there and don't update it. You don't need to delete the account and then send an email to tell us about it.

Twitter is no different than email marketing. If you have an untargeted list, you aren't going to make any money.

However if you build your list to only include laser targeted followers, it's a goldmine. I use it every single day.

twitter is not a marketing tool, but its a way to provide content to targeted prospects, and content can be monetized. so ya...

I like to use Twitter as a way to connect with others in my niche. Although it certainly doesn't replace email marketing, there are always those who won't hand over their email address to sign up for your list, but they may push a quick "follow" button on Twitter to keep up-to-date with what you're doing.

I believe having a good balance is required with Twitter. If it's all pushing sales, then you're going to get no where. It becomes a useless tool that you've abused.

Good point that it is not an effective marketing strategy, just keeiping the people informed that you exists and then that it. What follows after is justa bunch of talks and tweets that most people doesnt care at all.

as i experience twitter is not bad as you said, but now lot of people come to twitter just for to spam !! so if u have lot of spammers in your twitter followers, probably u won't get anything.

Many people doesn't use Twitter right. To succeed on Twitter your Tweets must be %80 percent conversation and %20 percent subjects with links you share, not just a commercial with a spon.

I don't believe in any traffic and earnings from Twitter. It is a brilliant tool for indexation though! So, I use twitter as a passive income tool: it helps me earn money from the real marketing tools ))

I'm surprised that Brian Clark (copyblogger) didn't talk about the difference between 67,000 Twitter followers and 67,000 email subscribers when it comes to eyeballs.

Twitter followers are not all watching and reading the Tweets at the time you send your message.

Therefore, the conversion rate can not be known. At least when it comes to how many are reading it when you Tweet and of those, who are responding.

Brian's 1/2 % clickthrough rate could have been a 60% conversion of the people reading the Tweet at the time it was sent.

I'd disagree that it's a waste of time. In fact using Twitter is one of the only backlinking strategies I've got for a lot of my autoblogs. What's my CTR? No freaking idea and I don't care.

Get thousands of accounts and auto-tweet whenever a new blog post is created. Google laps it up! For SEO, Twitter is low hanging fruit with a sweet taste.

actually, not true to say to say that direct sales cannot be done through twitter, right to call it a relationship building tool - and also as a focus. A good balance between selling and building relationships is needed. I often see tools off obvious sales speak tweets, but if its sounding like a benefit, i will check it out.

Often i scree right down the squeeze page to the price before checking quickly through the page (unless its a mile long, in which case , i wont bother reading all that repetitive salesy nonsence).

Content is still king here. Give the followers useful information that can help/benefit them in some way. If you are trying to shift ipad cases, send out articles on reviews (not just your own), what cases are unusually different in design, any ipad cases for free or can be won in a competition (retweet any followers doing these things), pros and cons of leather cases versus gel cases (i am just making this up as i go, i dont sell these products), you get my point.

Just don't sell ALL THE TIME! I always unfollow those who think thats ok and offer nothing, usually they are bots anyway, or people just not engaged on twitter and not likely to see your tweets ever. And dont follow everyone back, use something like Tweet karma to check you have followers that matter, those in your niche.

I'm personally not a fan of twitter for IM. I focus solely on email. But there are people pillaging with twitter so it depends on what you're focus is. Frickin 50 cent made a couple million the other night tweeting that people should buy stock in a company he owns.