But now I'm pretty certain that tweet frequency and follower numbers are related. This is because I recently stopped tweeting altogether for several days. While I have gained a few followers over this time, the rate of increase is far smaller than when I was tweeting regularly previously.
I recently wrote that tweeting often resulted in a greater number of Twitter followers. I couldn't be totally sure that this was the cause, because there could have been other factors, such as people finding my profile through other people's lists, etc.
But now I'm pretty certain that tweet frequency and follower numbers are related. This is because I recently stopped tweeting altogether for several days. While I have gained a few followers over this time, the rate of increase is far smaller than when I was tweeting regularly previously.
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Twitter is all about interaction. And it's a buzz when someone retweets (or just mentions) one of your tweets. So it's natural to want to say thanks for that. But some purists frown on this practice. They believe that doing so clutters up their streams, and lessens their enjoyment of the site. While I can see their point I don't think it's a strong one. And I suspect very few people subscribe to it. Frankly, I think saying thanks is very important. Firstly, you are showing appreciation. It's just good manners, which are very important online, just as they are in the real world. Also, you are helping the person who retweeted or mentioned you build his following to some degree. People will see his handle, and a certain percentage of your followers are sure to click on it. Some will follow in time. Of course, the more people who follow you, the greater this effect. And by saying thanks you're also establishing rapport and trust -- even just a little bit. You may not decide to build on this later, but it's still a sensible thing to do. You're also making yourself a bit more appealing to prospective followers who are searching the site. When people who are looking for others to follow see a few @replies showing gratitude to others they know that you may well thank them if they follow and retweet you. (Of course I can't prove this; it's just a hunch. But I suspect that it does increase the likelihood of someone following you just a little bit.) Twitter is great for promoting a blog post just after you've written it. If you have a decent following and use appropriate hashtags you can usually get a few clicks on it -- often many more. Share quality timeless content For this reason, it's often worth tweeting old blog posts as well. Of course you shouldn't do this merely for the sake of it. You should choose only good, timeless content to promote. If there are some old posts that don't quite make the grade in this regard, why not rewrite them? It will be good for the overall quality of your blog apart from anything else. Tweet them sparingly Needles to say, you wouldn't want to overdo this by tweeting the same posts time and time again. It could become annoying to your followers and you might end up losing some of them. That said, it's worth tweeting the really good ones at least a few times over several months to get the greatest benefit. As is so often the case with Twitter, timing is relevant here. If you tweet the old post at different times of the day, different followers will be logged in and see it in their streams. If you have a lot of followers this could add up to a good number of new visitors after a while. And as long as you keep growing your following, a few months down the track you'll have many more of them who are sure to have not seen these posts. So you can do the whole thing again. Manual or automatic? I know that you can have software to do this all for you. But frankly I think it's better if you just tweet your old blog posts manually. You can vary the wording of the tweets -- as well as the hashtags -- to get the best results. And if you are doing it by hand, it's very unlikely you'll do it enough to reach a point of overkill. This is certainly a worthwhile tactic if you have accumulated a lot of content over the years that is now buried deep in your archives, and therefore tends to get little or no search engine traffic. I have been tweeting quite a bit lately, and I've noticed a noticeable increase in the rate at which I'm accumulating new followers. And these aren't just people I've followed originally, who are now returning the favour. They've been finding me rather than the other way around. Tweet often That's to be expected, of course. If you tweet often, you're leaving lots of keywords out there to be found. Also, the more you tweet, the more often the followers you do already have will see you. Therefore it's more likely you'll get a retweet or mention. If the people who do this have a lot of followers, then many of them will see your profile as a result, and some of them will decide to follow you. Tweet well Needless to say, you shouldn't just get obsessed with the quantity. You've got to tweet things that are interesting and useful. As well as getting more followers, you've got to maintain a good reputation as someone who is worth following because you're a consistently good source of information. Several years ago, when I started blogging, I met a guy who had a very good description for a blog. He said it was like a "public notepad". That phrase has always remained with me because I thought it was a great way to look at it. You would just throw your thoughts down online even though you may well develop them later on to produce columns or articles for newspapers or magazines. You could even collate all your posts, rewrite and edit them into a book. Blogging a medium in its own right But even if you didn't end up doing either of those things your writing would still be read by others. Right from the start, blogging allowed you to get your message out to many. Much has changed since then. Traditional print media's popularity and reach has waned considerably. And much of that has to do with the fact that countless people now read blogs instead of papers and magazines. Blogging is (and has long been) a publishing medium in its own right. And just as blogs functioned as public notepads for columnists in the early days, social networks (Twitter in particular) can be used as public notepads for blogs! (Twitter is a microblogging site, after all.) Collate the tweets you've shared So, IMO, you should use your Twitter feed as an effective blog post generator if you're not already doing so. The way to speed up the process is to use the platform to record tips, tactics, insights and observations whenever they come to you -- much as you would have jotted them down on a notepad in "the old days". Always include relevant hashtags (eg #Twittertips). Doing this makes your tweets more findable by other tweeps and will surely draw in more followers. But it also makes it easier to look back through them for recurring themes when you decide to write a blog post. Say you've tweeted often using #Twittertips. After a week or two you could easily have twenty or more great little insights already succinctly written. You can just cut and paste them into your blog, do some editing and your post is pretty well complete! You've almost certainly tweeted some good articles by other bloggers using the same hashtag as well. You could include those links in your post and alert their creators on Twitter. Some retweets will likely ensure, and you may even get a link back from one or more of these blogs. (Of course these won't be gold for SEO, since they'd be reciprocal, not one way. Still, they would certainly help to increase your blog traffic.) |
AuthorMy name's Matt Hayden and I'm a blogger in Sydney, New South Wales. Get paid to write so you're free to live! Everything you need to write well, find jobs, and live the adventure.
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