Twitter is a huge social media force now, that is no secret to anyone. In fact, according to Alexa, more than 3% of all internet users visit Twitter daily.
Many people have been on board for years while others (like me) have only been using twitter for a few months now.
People use Twitter for a variety of reasons including socializing, gossip, marketing, researching, and making money.
When I started on Twitter, I was in a big hurry to get as many followers as quickly as possible and didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. I made several mistakes that I wouldn’t make if I had to do it all over again.
1. Joining In The Twitter Follow Back Frenzy
One of the fastest ways to build a following on Twitter is to follow massive amounts of people and hope they follow you back. After a couple of days, just use a 3rd party program to unfollow the people who didn’t follow you back. Profit!
The fundamental flaw of this is that I don’t give as rat’s ass about 99.7% of the people whom I followed or follow back. I think it’s safe to assume those people feel the same way about me.
Translation: out of 1000+ followers, only 3 (at most) of them care.
Generating massive followers by just tweeting is almost impossible unless you are already famous, so the follow back frenzy has some merit for getting your account known. After all, who wants to follow someone with 3 followers?
If I could do it over again, I would mass follow selectively although I would only follow about 100 over the number of people following me (to avoid being lumped into the full on follow back group). Twitips recommends Tweepi for this process since it gives you more stats about the people you are following rather than mass following like an idiot.
2. Trying To Get Followers By Participating In Trending Topics
When I first started, I thought getting involved in trending topics would let my tweets be seen by tons of users who would follow me for me great wit and charm.
The problem… Have you actually ever read any of the trending topics and what people say? #ChrisBrownsBowTie? #Itsnotcheatingwhen? Seriously, did I really think the people who were tweeting about this stuff really cared about what I had to say?
If I could do it over again, I would pay careful attention to trending topics and wait for ones that are relevant to what I write about. Then, I would write a post about the trending topic, so it would get maximum exposure when tweeted.
For example right now, Twitter Lists is trending. Each time someone retweets my post, I get 15-20 new pageviews instantly regardless of how few followers they have. It turns out Google Wave is trending again too. It’s amazing how much traffic 2-3 retweets of each brings to me.
3. Waiting To Make A Twitter Background
I waited just over 2 months to make a background for Twitter. I probably lost 500 potential followers in that amount of time.
Since putting my background up (nothing fancy, just a pretty gradient and Props Blog Dot Com styled all sexy), I have increased my followers by 33% in 10 days.
Suck on that boring Twitter default background!
4. Not Using A Third Party Twitter Client To Schedule My Tweets
I’ve come to realize that unless you’re Chris Brogan, you can’t get away with tweeting 22 times in a hour.
Since I’ve started scheduling my tweets 30 min – 1 hour apart (and Tweeting random cool things I run across in between), I’ve increased my followers by 33% in 10 days. Err… I actually think my CTR just got better.
5. Not Writing My Article Titles For Twitter
I’m all about magnetic titles. I was dumb and tried to write titles for search engines. It’s a waste of time for a blog like mine. I get less than 3% of my traffic from search engines, and Twitter is by far my highest traffic source.
When started writing stronger titles like Problogger, Copyblogger, and Chris Brogan Hang Out In Their Underwear, I get an amazing response, tons of retweets, tons of traffic, and life is good. If I had called it “Marketing For Smart People Video” I might have gotten a few clicks, but not many.
If someone’s post title doesn’t do the content justice or simply doesn’t bait a click like a scandal, I do them a favor and write something that people will click. I hope it helps.
Summary
Twitter is a growing network that is really confusing when you first start using it. When I started, I wish I hadn’t followed back, got sucked into stupid trending topics, waited so long to make a background, waited to start scheduling tweets, and written stupid article titles.
If you’re new to Twitter, don’t make the same mistakes I made. Oh yeah, retweet this and follow me! ;-)
Related posts:
Getting traffic from Twitter is something that I really don’t think about even when I started blogging, in fact, even today I’m thankful that my articles don’t fail me to generate consistent traffic from search engines. On the other hand, Twitter can serve the purpose of expanding your reach and building a community on Tweeter to back up your blog traffic which is good aside from the online relationships that you can get out of it (if that’s what you’re really after).
***Tweeter should be (Twitter).
After reading this article, I remember about my initial months in Twitter. In fact in the beginning, I tried to follow a lot of people, in hope of getting more followers. But because of the huge following list, my account used to get flooded with a lot of updates. Currently I am following only some people
Now that lists are available to me, I’m a little more open to who I’m willing to follow.
Regardless, I don’t think following back every person that follows me or mass following random people is a good use of my time.
I have had really good success finding good Tweeters using Tweepi. Hopefully you can have as much success as I have had!
These are really the sensible mistakes. I try to avoid such mistakes
Thanks for this article. I am a blogger who still confuse to use twitter. Now, i more understand.
All of them are so true. I’ve been realizing and experiencing a couple of them myself. I’m still guilty of one, still have to make a background…
Great article!
I’d be happy to help you with a background… Although based on your site the bigger problem is you taking time to make a background, not the ability to actually make it ;-)
I need a background. I need lots of things!
If you want help making a background let me know. I charge $0.00 for my friends.
It probably won’t be the hottest background of all time, but it will be better than nothing.
Nice Twitter tips. I’ve had my Twitter account for about a year now but haven’t monetized it until about a month ago.
In the beginning, one option is to just mass follow anyone and clean up later. Get that follower number to the magic 1k and then decide to clean up or not.
I still like the idea of selectively mass following. It’s amazing how much higher the quality of the tweets I read are now that I’ve deleted most of my initial trade follows list.
what Third Party Twitter Client do you use to To Schedule your Tweets ?
I like hootsuite.com. If you use their URL Shrink tool (ow.ly) you can keep track of your CTR and start to figure out what good titles are.
I’ve also heard great stuff about TweetDeck and Tweetie too.
Do you have one that you like?
Hated Twitter, now love it. It’s great to get blog traffic. I’m not sure about scheduling tweets – have not done it yet. I’ve noticed recently that Twitter does not allow you to post duplicate tweets. Have you found that as well.
You are right that twitter does not allow you to post duplicate tweets, but all you have to do is change 1 character. (That does put you at risk of annoying your followers if you do it too much).
Scheduling Tweets is awesome. It is 100% worth the extra 5 seconds it takes to do. I use HootSuite, but there are other great programs too.
I find it ironic that this article is being retweeted by people who are breaking some of these rules. There should be another, READ BEFORE YOU RETWEET. LOL
No kidding. Occasionally, I’m guilty of retweeting something that I think looks good only to read it later and see that it was dumb.
That’s definitely a bonus rule worth following.
Thanks for sharing twitter lists tips!
I’ve seen tweeters who monetize their twitter accounts. Funny, they only have a couple of hundred followers. Talk about alienating the few people you have. If you’re interested in promoting your own brand and getting a community of readers, why alienate them?
I hate people who use scripts to follow and unfollow people on the assumption that they’d bulk their Twitter stats this way. Some of those who unfollowed me? Trust me, they’d be back following me again after a couple of days. WTH – and these people say they care about their brand. Well, they’re shooting themselves in the foot with their inane stunts.
I think monetizing your Twitter revolves around doing it tastefully. If you post a sponsored tweet once every 50-100 tweets, I don’t think it is a big deal. Multiple sponsored tweets a day seems a little unreasonable.
I’m also not particularly fond of using scripts for following/following back (I do not auto follow back, I look at the tweets and decide if I think they tweet about things I care about).
I really like Tweepi because I can see how active people are before I follow them.
Every once in a while I do run a script to unfollow everyone who isn’t following me because I don’t really want to be following people who aren’t interested in me.
It will be interesting to see how Twitter Lists shakes everything up with this follow back frenzy.
Blake some interesting and useful point here. One most common mistake any newbie make including me (I did ;) ).. is promoting only self written article..and cluttering the meaning of social from media… This should be avoided from the first place…
Man, I’m dumb to have not even mentioned that, but it is a huge deal.
Only self promoting is about the most toxic thing you can do for your twitter account. No one wants to follow someone who is always self promoting, and not giving back to the community. I try my best to give love in as many places as possible!
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