Is Twitter All It's Cracked Up To Be?

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Very true.

The most successful Twitterers probably had a massive list already.

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

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.