When Twittering, What's More Important: TONS of traffic or TARGETED Traffic?

[MikeGriffith]

The ideal situation on Twitter would be TONS of TARGETED traffic. But if you had to choose between the two, which would you prefer?

Here's my position.

I understand the philosophy that "the more followers you have, the more you will sell." But I'm leaning toward TARGETED traffic...for this reason. If I'm using Twitter to help promote my business, I want to talk to people who share the same niche and interests that I do.

That's because these are the people who are more likely to click through to my website and purchase my product. And they are also people with whom I can identify and share interests with.

And then there's the other side of the coin....

Which one would you choose? Also, would you refuse to follow or block someone who's following you and settle for fewer followers just because they don't share the same interests?

[nicholasb]

targeted traffic is way better than any other traffic, you don't really want to waste a ton of effort getting random traffic, targeted is the way to go it converts at a way higher rate

[ltdraper]

Any traffic you get is going to be targeted. They clicked on your link, didn't they?

Now I think the question you were really asking is do you want to target your following efforts on a small segment or go for broader numbers of followers. There are a few problems with that question in that it makes a few incorrect assumptions.

1) You can spend less time getting more followers using automation than you will targeting your followers manually. There are plenty of "Set it and forget it" automation solutions out there right now. They all cost a very small fraction of what your time would cost to accomplish the same thing by hand.

2) Getting followers also requires social validation. If someone follows you and they're only being followed by a small group you are probably less likely to follow them back, aren't you? But getting followed by someone with a huge number of followers represents social validation for most people -- especially since most people on Twitter have no clue about automation.

3) Having a large number of followers puts you on more people's followed list (by definition). How do most people build up their list of people they're following? They go to someone they're interested in and follow all the people they are following/followed by. So the bigger your reach, the more likely your reach is to expand.

So the answer really is both. First, you need to build up a large follower list. Then you can go to work on targeting who you really want to follow you.

And it goes further. You really shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. Don't spend all your time on a single account. You should have a stable of twitter accounts in each of the niches you're targeting. If something goes wrong with one you can just walk away from it.

[dsmpublishing]

This is a very interesting point - with me for example i have a lot of untargeted followers i.e. film fans from when i have mentioned which film i am watching, but i also have an awful amount of targeted followers with a following close to the 50k mark i would freak out rather a lot if they were all targeted as i probably wouldnt be able to cope with the constant replies to my updates.

However my husbands account which focuses on the food niche is very targeted and he will get a great response back from people.

[CashTactics]

Targeted traffic all the way! If you don't have targeted traffic you just get people coming in and wasting your time. The more targeted you are the less you have to sell them to get the product. Just my opinion.

Targeted FTW!

[Troy_Phillips]

I only have 6700 followers (most are not niche specific ) gained 167 opt in in the last 4 hour alone .

Targeted or untargeted followers on twitter take the same amount of time to get . I don't cull any followers .

[JasonFinch]

I have over 20,000 and about half of them are targeted -- Target for sure dude!

[DrewG]

Originally Posted by CashTactics

Targeted traffic all the way! If you don't have targeted traffic you just get people coming in and wasting your time. The more targeted you are the less you have to sell them to get the product. Just my opinion.

Targeted FTW!

I agree with this post. 10 targeted visitors are way better than 100 untargeted.

[Fabian Tan]

There are many ways to get targeted traffic away from Twitter.

Craigslist and Ebay are just two - and the traffic is made of buyers, not people going there mainly to mingle around, but they are looking for information, solutions and products.

For example, I'm playing around with Steve Iser's Lead Portal right now (got it straight from him) and it looks like a solution that will tons of drive targeted traffic.

Fabian

[Troy_Phillips]

Originally Posted by Drew Castle

I agree with this post. 10 targeted visitors are way better than 100 untargeted.

Twitter is a different animal .

If you get 100 clicks to a link in your tweet . 60 may be so called targeted and 40 not . If they click on your link they are interested .

It would be crazy not to follow back anyone following you . I use twitter to build a list . It is my job as a list builder and a copywriter to take that list member and turn them into a targeted customer

[jbode]

Targeted traffic is always better, unless you are posting on twitter about twitter your links will get much less traffic and you will not be able to build up good relationships with non targeted traffic.

When following people why not go for people that are following others in your niche, they may not all be targeted, but it takes much less time to get followers

[JeffMitchell]

My stance on Twitter Targeting is this "if they found you, or you found them...you found them using a term that was targeting your industry and they found you using a term that was targeting their industry." So. more often than not..your followers are going to be targeted with exception to.

1. They are random people following people who have a ton of followers just to follow. (like a tonque twister)

2. Or a word that you used was similar to their target market.

You will see the same keyword problems in your PPC Campaigns. Sometime odd words target you specific searches.


Jeff Mitchell