Twitter is my favorite social network on the web. When utilized properly, Twitter can become a powerful way for you to get more traffic. Most of the people who visit my blog come from Twitter. In a given day, more than 50% of the people who visit my blog came from Twitter. I am going to share with you how I was able to go from getting 0 visitors on my blog from Twitter to getting hundreds of daily visitors just from Twitter alone.
There are three main components that allowed me to see a big transformation in my blog’s traffic, my books’ sales, and my blog’s Alexa rank. The first component towards my blog’s success on Twitter was that I decided to follow targeted followers instead of just following anyone on Twitter. I am not “following random people.” I am following people who are already interested in what I tweet about before they click the follow button. This has led to me making strong connections with renowned entrepreneurs and social media experts.
The second component towards my blog’s success on Twitter is that I sent out tweets at a frequent and consistent pace. Every 30 minutes, I send out a tweet. I send out tweets in the middle of the day, but I also send them out on midnight. If it is midnight at one location, it is the middle of the day in another location. I was amazed when someone tweeted that he would be going to bed at around 6 pm. Then, I realized that person lived in another continent and that 6 pm was really 11 pm where that person lives.
The third component towards my blog’s success on Twitter is being persistent. Doing this for one day will not bring forth a dramatic change. You will most likely experience a big change on the first day you implement these tactics, but then it may take months of consistently following targeted people and scheduling tweets until you see the next dramatic rise in traffic. I am assure you that each dramatic rise in traffic that you experience is better than the last.
What are your thoughts about the components I have used? Do you have any other tips and suggestions to add? Share your thoughts and advice below.
Those are some practical ideas and well-known by many. I liked how you didn’t exaggerated every point and just kept it short. It makes understanding easier.
Btw, I noticed than in AMP version the subscription box below post gets converted to plain text abd looks kinda weird. You might want to find a fix for it.
I’m happy to hear you liked the post Shafi. I will give the AMP version a look. It was good on my desktop but it could look different on other devices. I plan on using ConvertKit’s subscription boxes instead very soon.
I see that you tweeted a link to this blogpost from 2014, 3 1/2 years ago. The advice still stands, but when you say you “automate” your tweets, even if you use Hootsuite or Buffer (I’ve been using Buffer, but no way do I send out tweets every 30 minutes), someone has to input those tweets in to the sharing platform. Have you hired someone to do that? You can’t possibly do all this yourself AND interact (like you did here). I find just checking social media (FB, Twitter, etc.) takes up a LOT of time during the day – and if I want to get anything else done (like write a blog post) it won’t be happening with all the tweeting. Also, I see that my profile photo below is the wrong one. Odd- because I’ve changed it on every platform.
For HootSuite, I put all of my tweets in a CSV file and used HootSuite Pro’s Bulk Uploader option which allowed me to schedule over 100 tweets in 6 clicks. Now I use ViralTag’s evergreen option which allows me to avoid the 6 clicks every other day.
A tweet every 30 minutes? Don’t you feel this is what is killing Twitter as a platform? It seems like this is why Twitter, an amazing social media platform, has transformed into “bot hell.” It’s like being in a room with thousands of people all yelling at the same time for attention. Please tell me there’s a better way then just adding to the “noise.” If not, I’m just going to tweet every 30 minutes like everyone else.
That’s a fair argument Jon.
Since this blog post, I now tweet once ever 10-15 minutes. It’s great for traffic, but more importantly, the automated tweets allow me to interact with more of my followers. Instead of thinking, “What should I be tweeting about today,” I can head straight to the notifications tab and start interacting with people who have interacted with my content. I can also join other conversations and use social media the way it’s supposed to be used–as a SOCIAL platform.
In summary, I advise automating a high tweeting frequency so you have more time to interact with your audience.
This is one of the reasons I hardly use Twitter anymore. When I’d open the app and just see the same person all down the feed. You have some valuable content Marc, but if all I see is your posts all over my feed then I’m just going to unfollow you so that I can reach others easier. It just feels spammy, like you’re trying to push everyone else out of the way. And I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Interesting viewpoint. I understand my approach is not for everyone, but the amount of my tweets someone sees depends on how many people they follow and who they follow. If you are following 500 people who tweet frequently enough, my tweets shouldn’t overpopulate. With that said, if you prefer to follow a small number of people and don’t want to see my tweets, I understand. I primarily tweet this often so I don’t have to worry about it. When I’m on Twitter, I’m solely there to interact with people.
Nice article Marc. I agree in that it’s important to obtain followers who are actually interested in your content, compared to random people. I also agree with being consistent in your tweeting, although I personally don’t have the fortitude to do it every half an hour like you do. Thanks for sharing this article!
Great takeaways Brandon! I use ViralTag to create a tweeting cycle which means I set it once and no longer schedule tweets on my own. That allows me to focus most of my Twitter time on interacting with others.
Practical ideas and I’ve been using them, but I still seem to be invisible.
It takes a while to get seen. Patience is a blogger’s greatest asset. You can accelerate your success by applying more effort and working smarter. This is not meant as an insult. Rather, it’s something we should all strive to do. For instance, some people may applaud my effort and work ethic, but I always believe I can apply more effort and work smarter than I currently do.
Hi Marc, great tips! Question: what kind of software/app do you recommend for scheduling my tweets (@citytripguru)? And do you recommend to post one blog more than one time?
HootSuite is the best tool for scheduling tweets. Posting the same blog post twice is a bad strategy because it hurts your blog’s SEO which hurts your blog’s chances of getting found through Google searches. Your most loyal fans would notice and won’t be pleased if it becomes a pattern.
Marc, I really enjoy your posts! Can you tell me why you recommend favoring no more than 3 tweets per day? Thanks!
For some people, favoriting a tweet is a way to get out of having a conversation. If you do not favorite a tweet but still want to show your gratitude, the only way to do so is by starting a conversation.
Marc, It’s really nice to see that you are using social media so strategically at such a young age, Keep up the good work.
Thank you. That means a lot to me.
Marc where do you find the information and what do you tweet about every half hour?
I tweet my blog posts that are the most popular and new blog posts as well.