Just a quick post to show some really cool stats and to introduce a technique I’m using to actually promote one of my hobby sites primarily through Twitter!
As you know, Twitter is widely recognized as a powerful networking tool. It isn’t a direct traffic or sale generator in most cases, but as I explained the other day, Twitter could have direct sale/lead/traffic generation potential!
In that post I didn’t mention a current “case study” (I guess you could say) I’ve been doing with a Geocaching hobby blog of mine. A little while back I thought of a way in which I saw (in my head) Twitter as being a powerful traffic generator.
So I spent about an hour implementing it and so far I’ve accomplished the following directly from Twitter:
1. 69 unique visitors directly from Twitter (See screenshot below.)
2. An upcoming interview with the IndyStar (a very large Newspaper publication in Indianapolis.)
3. $20.75 in sales through the phpBayPro shop I have on the blog.
4. Found and got acquainted with a Geocaching shop owner who is going to set up a custom affiliate program just for me!
5. Received at least one blogroll link from another Twitter user, who geocaches and owns a geocaching blog!
None of that is extremely impressive until you consider the amount of time and effort I’ve put into that twitter account, which you can see at http://twitter.com/MadCacher.
Here’s what I did
I created about 10 random Tweets about Geocaching then I went to Twitter Search, did a search for “Geocaching” (without quotes) and for about 1 hour I added every person who mentioned Geocaching.
After that I just updated with questions every now and then… updated when I went out and found some geocaches etc. The traffic came mostly through the link in my bio… in other words I probably could have plugged my blog a bit more and drove more traffic! But I’m trying to build authority and trust in this niche, so I don’t plug my site too often.
As you can see, I only have 92 updates at the time of writing and each update takes about 20 seconds, so the time investment is very minimal, especially when it’s in a niche I love talking about.
I invested a total of about 90 minutes in that Twitter account. So, is 90 minutes worth 69 unique visitors, an interview with a big newspaper, which WILL indirectly drive much more traffic and exposure, $20 in sales (so far,) at least one sitewide link pointing to my blog and a custom affiliate program set up just for you? I know my answer!
Will this work in ANY niche? I seriously doubt it! Twitter users tend to be more technically inclined (Geocaching is a GPS game,) so if you go searching for people talking about vacuum cleaners you probably won’t get very good results.
BUT if you’re open minded about Twitter in general, I think you’ll find that it has far more benefits than just networking!
Source: Ez-OnlineMoney.com/blog
