Is Twitter All It's Cracked Up To Be?

[Steve_40]

Tweet

I read alot of posts about growing numbers of followers but I'm only interested in making sales so I'd be really interested to hear from anyone who can quantify the sales they have made as a direct result of growing their Twitter following.

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the power of Twitter, even if I don't use it at the moment, but I am reluctant to spend time and effort on this subject to the detriment of my other marketing activities.

What are your thoughts? Is it worth having a go?

Steve.

[Barry]

I have never made any money off 'social network' sites nor do I understand them in the very slightest.

I work online - the last thing I want to do in my spare time (do I have any?) is socialise with cyber mates.

I spend too long online to meet my real mates let alone spend time on forums and stuff

OK so spend alot of time online but I am not sure I have enough time to research advertising on twitter - infact the whole concept seems a little like hard work. I would much rather spend my time seo'ing than trying to create a 'craze' that would be distributed among twitter users.

Ta

Baz

[renegade]

You're not going to make a fortune from Twitter and if you're not a social media kinda person then don't bother - it'll come across as a lame attempt to make money and the place is already cluttered with uselessness.

I personally use Twitter use it to keep in touch with other friends and affiliates I've known for years and don't get to see very often and it automatically broadcasts my one-liners to Facebook so it's a 2for1 deal so it feels like a bargain.

[Supercod]

Yes I have made a pitiful amount of money that I know about (so far), and I know of a couple of Affiliates who are doing ok stuff with it but probably won’t come on here and tell you ;-)

I am not a cheerleader for Twitter, it has a place but you need to remember to balance where you put it in your marketing mix, if I had 1 million followers who are interested in a certain product/service then it would be given top priority but truth is a couple of hundred per account is a start but not going to make me rich unless I can tap in to more people that are interested in the sectors I am.

Love the guys that are like "hey I have 30,000 followers, I am a guru" and you look and full of porn or bot contacts :-) every account has some of these but, funny when some accounts have thousands and they think this is good news.

However as a tool to meet new contacts in your area (both physical and industry wise) it can’t be beat, seriously very handy and I come in contact with at least a dozen people that have either given me ideas to develop or are interested in doing business with me, one already has. You still need to talk via other means but as an opener its pretty dam good way to meet people and when something new happens if your following the right people you know before everyone else.

I can however see things that need to be improved to make it a better tool for business and soon as my company (UK Internet Sites Ltd) has the time we will develop a few of these tools, unless of course someone else brings them out. You can’t ignore the constant growth in Twitter even if you hate it, it’s going to have a place.

If you are starting out or not taken part in Twitter yet, have a look at a couple of blog posts I have done here:

Some Twitter Advice & Tips | Affiliate Marketing Blog

Twitter Affiliate Marketing in the UK | Affiliate Marketing Blog

[Steve_40]

You're not going to make a fortune from Twitter and if you're not a social media kinda person then don't bother - it'll come across as a lame attempt to make money and the place is already cluttered with uselessness.

This is exactly what I'm afraid of. I'm definately not a fan of social media and haven't really dabbled in it at all yet.

I think, for me anyway, I'll use the likes of Twitter to keep in touch with my exisiting lists/customers rather that try to recruit new customers on it.

Always interesting to get others' points of view, though.

Steve.

[aero_mansoor]

hi i posted earlier on about twitter, as well i do use social media and belive make a good income from twitter on a regular basis. My sites do well organically and twitter is an addition not the only method.

If i tweet right now i am gauranteed to get atleast 2 people within the next 10 mins.. and though i outsource this tweeting work, the power to get targetted traffic is quiet good (especially for multinational products)

Sites that have a repeatable use rather then buy now tend to do lot better then normal. I now have 3 seperate twiiter accounts each with 10,000 unique followers yes there are bots BUT they are say about 5%

for one of my sites I aim to have 50,000 unique visitors, and then outsourcing the tweets...this way i wil be getting a stream of people without much work from my end..

Sectors that do quiet well in this areas are

Dating...
music
clothing
get rich quick people...
etc...

I hope this is off help

Mansoor

[cath11]

Write unique tweet and wrote more about your product, i get lots of traffic from twitter but i never go for any product..

[Dazza30]

I cant say if ive made any money via twitter but i have noticed an improvement in my sites performance in the Google serps ( probably a coincidence ) and the more i tweet the more visitors i get via twitter and all its related sites.

[Dynamoo]

I use Twitter to as a supplement to RSS feeds and newletters. If you do either of those, then Twitter can be useful.

Otherwise.. well, I'm not Stephen Fry. Nobody wants to know what I had for lunch!

[annabellea]

When I first joined twitter - I thought it was FANTASTIC. But within a month's time, I found it exhausting to keep up with the tweets that I had signed up to follow, let alone tweet something myself.

Nonetheless, as an affiliate manager, the concept of where social media fits in to the grander scheme of affiliate marketing is of constant interest to me. There are definitely some peeps out there thinking outside of the box and re-considering how it can be used i.e. Sponsered tweets or pay-per-tweet (I find Mashable is a good resource in gaining a well-rounded grasp on social media trends: Sponsored Tweets )

On the Operator side - specifically with Ladbrokes (the program I manage) - they're running promotions that incorporate the use of twitter, which is an excellent way of re-integrating and refreshing your brand in search engine results.

I do know that with my own little personal blog, that just by having the twitter & facebook accounts I have received far more traffic, than I would if I were to rely simply on search engine results. Mind you, I don't spend any time optimizing it or what-have-you (save for tagging), it's simply used for my own personal enjoyment.

I think the capabilities of twitter as a search engine are its strongest feature (see: It’s Time To Start Thinking Of Twitter As A Search Engine) and I know that facebook has recently jumped on the search engine bandwagon (just run a search, you'll see that they have revamped it) to compete with Google and the latest Bing... as affiliates, how much do you find these other search engine portals help?

[amisuggests]

No I really think a lot of it is hype
Having said that though, Twitter is a really useful tool for getting traffic to your site. There really is no doubt about that. But with regards to sales from a link in a tweet, I am sure that the twitter users are too savvy to be taken in so easily

[thebusiness]

What are your thoughts? Is it worth having a go?

I have a celebrity site that makes diddly squat because people are looking for pictures and gossip, not to buy stuff. I could increase the traffic 10 fold by using twitter and get 10 times the amount of people not interested in buying anything.

[Steve_40]

When I first joined twitter - I thought it was FANTASTIC. But within a month's time, I found it exhausting to keep up with the tweets that I had signed up to follow, let alone tweet something myself.

Nonetheless, as an affiliate manager, the concept of where social media fits in to the grander scheme of affiliate marketing is of constant interest to me. There are definitely some peeps out there thinking outside of the box and re-considering how it can be used i.e. Sponsered tweets or pay-per-tweet (I find Mashable is a good resource in gaining a well-rounded grasp on social media trends: Sponsored Tweets )

On the Operator side - specifically with Ladbrokes (the program I manage) - they're running promotions that incorporate the use of twitter, which is an excellent way of re-integrating and refreshing your brand in search engine results.

I do know that with my own little personal blog, that just by having the twitter & facebook accounts I have received far more traffic, than I would if I were to rely simply on search engine results. Mind you, I don't spend any time optimizing it or what-have-you (save for tagging), it's simply used for my own personal enjoyment.

I think the capabilities of twitter as a search engine are its strongest feature (see: It’s Time To Start Thinking Of Twitter As A Search Engine) and I know that facebook has recently jumped on the search engine bandwagon (just run a search, you'll see that they have revamped it) to compete with Google and the latest Bing... as affiliates, how much do you find these other search engine portals help?

Some really interesting points here and a couple of good resources too. Thanks.

A big part of me knows I should be doing something with social media but the question I keep coming back to is "can I use my time and resources better", especially as I measure my efforts in sales, not necessarily traffic volume.

I appreciate you taking the time to post, though. Mashable look interesting and will no doubt help me decide which is the best way to move on with this now.

Steve.

[shytobuy]

Have to say we have an account called 'shytobuy' and although we have built up some followers, I am yet to see the benefits really. I have offered a few discount voucher codes as one off twitter specials, which haven't resulted in sales. As someone mentioned earlier, I'm still quite at a loss as to just 'how' Twitter can help. Especially the problem being, with all of these things, the amount of 'junk' users or fake users they have is very high, which makes both finding and utilising relevent information hard, and also when attempting to offer information.

[annabellea]

Have to say we have an account called 'shytobuy' and although we have built up some followers, I am yet to see the benefits really. I have offered a few discount voucher codes as one off twitter specials, which haven't resulted in sales. As someone mentioned earlier, I'm still quite at a loss as to just 'how' Twitter can help. Especially the problem being, with all of these things, the amount of 'junk' users or fake users they have is very high, which makes both finding and utilising relevent information hard, and also when attempting to offer information.

This article cropped up this morning in my alerts: The Associated Press: Tweet for hire: More big businesses hire tweeters

I think it's relevant to point out that for big box stores and companies, their use of twitter is to round out their branding and create a personality, which does not directly market to their followers. I think 140 words or less marketing-oriented tweets would get boring real fast - it's the personality that creates the affinity for the brand.

So my question is how does an affiliate re-phrase this specific use of twitter? What I mean is - to tweet and bring your personality to the forefront and not necessarily about any specific brand. Indirectly, if your followers enjoy what you share, you inversely gain more traffic to your site(s) - and increase trust in the brands you recommend.

I could see this working, but it could also be very tricky and not for everyone? What do you think?