It was extremely interesting and I must say that I have learned a lot. In this article I want to share the things I have learned from twittering actively for 31 days.

Things to Do

At the beginning of the experiment I jotted down what I wanted to do to get more traffic from Twitter and to also get to know more people. So here is what I did:

• follow more people
• retweet other people’s tweets
• ask question and engage other people
• post quotes

So these were the things I planned on doing. One last thing I did was to comment on articles that were retweeted on Twitter.

Twitter stats before the experiment:
Following: around 400
Followers: around 250

From the first day on not only did I start to become more active in Twitter but also on other websites such as Blog Engage or MMO. It was awesome because I did end up reading new articles from blogs I have never visited but it consumed a lot of time.

Nine days after starting my Twitter challenge I had to change my Twitter mail settings because my email inbox was getting flooded with follower mails and direct messages.

Unfollowing Tweeps

What is interesting is that I have gained around 50 followers within one single day. The reason is probably because I started to follow more people these days. But the reason for this many followers is that I hadn’t unfollowed people up to that point.

On the next day I started unfollowing people and almost didn’t get any new followers. Few days later I unfollowed more people and the number of my followers fell again rapidly.

So once you start to unfollow some people that aren’t tweeting interesting things or that are simply spamming you tend to get a lot less followers. That in turn might mean that most people on Twitter are using automated software to follow new people. These new people are the ones who simply don’t unfollow other people.

This kept me from unfollowing too many people. The day after that experience I decided to simply follow the people that are tweeting interesting stuff and to unfollow lots of people once I have finished the experiment.

Twitter Analytics Stats

To be honest I haven’t gotten that much traffic through Twitter while doing the experiment. My theory is simple. The more active you are in any community (or social media site) the more traffic you are going to get from it.

Even though I was active on Twitter I didn’t spend too much time on it. I think that if I had spent more time on it then I would have gotten a lot more traffic.

Anyway below are the stats from the Twitter referral traffic. As you can see there is an increase in traffic but it’s not that high. This can also be of course because some analytics software has trouble measuring traffic from Twitter.

The green line is the traffic from the month before and the blue line is indicating the time frame of my experiment.

As you can see below the traffic increased at 150% according to Google Analytics though the number of visits are still quite low. The interesting thing is that you can see that everything that measures reader interest has increased too.

All stats increasing

The average time on site has increased by 2689% along with the pages/visit. And especially the bounce rate was reduced by 60%. That means that the visitors I gained through Twitter were a lot more interested in my content. I also believe that the people who visited were also more likely to know me because of the 23% decrease in new visits.
Twitter stats at the end of the experiment:
Following: around 620
Followers: 400

The number below show that I have gotten around 5 followers each day which I believe is not too bad. Of course you can take this experiment to a new extreme and get even more followers by simply mass-following people. But I wanted to keep this experiment as natural as possible.

What do you think? Was this helpful to you?

31 Days to a Better Tweep is a post from And Break

Twitter is very popular these days. But there are lot of people that certainly don’t use it right. I got to admit that I haven’t been the most active person on Twitter, yet there are a few things that always annoy me.

I just want to briefly cover 5 points in this article.

Validation Services

Why would anyone use validation services? Just to see whether the person that just followed you is truly a valid person? I always think that when someone sends me a direct message saying I am using this Validation service please click .. that I have just validated that I am human by following you.

And why would you even care if it’s just an automated service that follows you? It’s not like that service is going to send you anything. You only profit from having more followers don’t you?

Two Twitter Accounts to Retweet Each Other

I can understand why people would have multiple Twitter accounts. But there are always these people that use one account to write about their new articles. Then they switch to the other and retweet what they have just send out of the other account.

It’s a lot easier if you just spend the time instead on trying to build up a relationship with other bloggers. It’s a little bit pathetic. I mean of course are you trying to get more exposure but that’s definitely not the best way to get it.

Using Twitter to Make Money

I don’t think that Twitter is designed as a place where people should be making money. I believe that Twitter is about being social and making money just doesn’t fit into that category. I think it’s approriate to tweet about a website of yours where you have put some affiliate links. In the end this will make you money.

But I believe it’s wrong to use all these advertising services such as Ad.ly or others as long as they don’t add any value to your followers.

Only Promoting Your Content

Twitter is not about promoting your content. And yes that is partly what everyone, who is new to blogging, has been taught. But social media is about connecting with other people and especially Twitter is a great place to meet new bloggers.

Nobody is going to follow you for a long time if all you do is to promote your own content. You need to create a conversation, something that is valuable to both sides. You just can’t have a one way conversation. Both parties need to be involved.

Not Engaging Other People

Twitter is one of the best social media web sites to get to know new people. If you don’t engage other people you are missing out on a great opportunity. Support other people and help them spread the word and they will do the same thing for you.

You only need to make the first step. And that’s the crucial part most people don’t understand. Take the first step, engage other people and help them. And ultimately everything will come back to you.

What do you think? What is bad practice on Twitter? Do you agree with my points?

5 Things to Avoid on Twitter is a post from And Break

Social media has become a big part of every Internet marketer’s life. Lots of people claim that they are getting huge amounts of traffic through social web sites. And people believe them. And so do I.

That’s why I’ve tried to use social media thinking that I could easily generate massive amounts of traffic to my blog. The sad part is that I haven’t been able to do so.

And do you want to hear something even more pathetic? Until now, I haven’t realized that social media isn’t about promoting your content, it’s about relationships. Why did it take me so long to realize this?

When you are new to blogging you visit highly popular web sites searching for information. There you find all this information about blogging, SEO and also social media.

Some of the articles on social media tell you that you need to promote your web site. So logically you arrive at the conclusion that social media is all about promoting your content. And that simply promoting your content will drive traffic to your web site. Then you try it and it doesn’t work.

The reality is different. Social media isn’t about generating traffic. It’s about building relationships. And it is sad that it took me almost a year to figure that out but I am glad I have realized it at least.

If you focus on building relationships first then traffic will follow.

Building Relationships

Making friends is not as hard as people think it is. Building a relationship with someone you don’t know can be quite strange but it can also be easy.

In order to build a relationship we need to first know what it is all about. A relationship is about a mutual exchange. This exchange can take any form whether it is love or simply helping someone out.

You need to give in order to receive. But how do you give through social media?

Give in Order to Receive

Well the idea is quite easy. Let’s say you use Twitter as a social media web site to drive traffic to your blog. A way you could give, is for example by retweeting someone’s tweets. That shows that you find the information useful and that you are willing to invest in the relationship.

Instead of retweeting you could also follow a link via Twitter. On the web site you could leave a comment or simply tell the person via Twitter that you enjoyed his content. If you didn’t quite enjoy it then you criticize the article but in a way that is not disrespectful.

Promote Value

When you have enough followers don’t feel the need to promote every of their posts. They won’t do it either. But simply state what you like and what’s worth looking at. Ask questions, create conversations and write about interesting topics.

It should be a very simple form of communication. A conversation on Twitter might go like this.

You: I like this post
You: I am writing a post
Other Person: RT I like this post too
You: @Other Person thank you for retweeting it. I hope it helped
Other Person: My new blog post
You: RT My new blog post .. Great article

That’s a fictive conversation via Twitter but it shows the mutual exchange that needs to take place. The way I used to tweet was like this.

Me: New blog post, take a look at it
Other Person: my own new post
Another Person: Read this …
Me: Latest blog post ..

It’s easy to realize that this is not a conversation. Now it seems so obvious that such things don’t work but when you start out using social media it doesn’t.

My goal now is to use social media to promote my web site. I want to build relationships with lots of Internet marketers, present my ideas and promote theirs.

What do you think about it? Do you use Twitter or other social media web sites? Do you use them actively?

My Pathetic Belief about Social Media is a post from And Break

A few weeks ago Monty Python created its own new Youtube Channel. Lots of high quality videos have been uploaded since its launch and the response has been astonishing with over 1.6 Billion page views. The guys from Monty Python not only uploaded videos but they also provided links to buy their DVDs.

The billion page views speak for itself but there is still something more staggering to it. Not only did their visitors increase but their sales rose by 23,000 percent- the true power of social media.

As Rohit Bhargava put it in the 5 rules of social media optimization, what Monty Python did was to “increase their linkability.” They did so by aggregating and further publishing high quality videos.

Further the guys from Monty Python leveraged the law of reciprocity. Simply put the law states that when someone does you a favor, you are inclined to do that person a favor in return.

Through the YouTube channel Monty Python’s team created high quality and free content, so you received a benefit. The only favor they asked for is to buy their products, and you probably did.

The Power of Social Media Optimization is a post from And Break