I’m a huge fan of Twitter, and I’ve been using it for around a year now. It’s an excellent tool for anyone involved in the SEO Industry Like other social networking sites, it takes getting used to.
When I started with Twitter, I would think about increasing my following in any way possible. I didn’t care who followed me as long as I had lots of followers. I know now how irrelevant followers don’t mean anything as they’re extremely unlikely to click on anything you have to say.
I’ve had a lot of time to work with different accounts, so I’ve learnt from my mistake. Fortunately, it didn’t cost me anything other than time. There are, however, people out there who sell you followers for a price. These followers are likely to be irrelevant and not worth the money you’ll pay for them.
As an example, I’ve started a Manchester United Twitter account in the past two weeks. The plan was to build as many targeted followers as possible and start speaking to them and linking to Amazon products. As an affiliate, I make a percentage of anything that gets bought at Amazon from the people I refer.
With Bit.Ly, you’re able to analyse how many people click on your links buy entering + at the end of the shortened link. Here’s a list of tweets that have been sent from my account.
Notice that those three links have all produced at least 15 clicks in the two weeks that they’ve been posted. This might not seem like much but considering I have 273 followers, that’s not a bad return. Let’s say within a year I have 3000 followers, the numbers will soon add up.
Now I’m going to show you a Twitter account with any old account following. I chose an account called The Manic Marketer, as he is following 62959 people as well as being followed by 71913. As his name suggests, his Twitter marketing is definitely manic, so I’ve taken a look at his tweets.
If, on average, a link from mufcfanatics has been clicked 17 times, that means 5.9% of my followers have clicked a link. 5.9% of 71913 is 4242. Unfortunately I can’t go as far back as two weeks due to Twitter search, so I’ve used week old tweets.
As you can see, these links have much less clicks even though The Manic Marketer has over 250 as many followers as mufcfanatics.
I think this proves that if you want traffic from Twitter, it’s infinitely better to be followed by relevant people in the industry, and not just anyone.
How to get targeted followers
Getting targeted followers isn’t easy and it takes time. The best way to start is by searching your interest group and adding as many people in your industry as you can. If the person you’ve followed is a frequent Twitter user, you’ve got a good chance of being followed back. If not, you’ve always got the chance to speak to them and join in their conversation.
It’s also important to have something to offer your industry. If you’re just tweeting your links all day every day then people will get bored and stop following you. Make sure you contribute well. Offer help if needed and always be polite when you’re talking to people.
Happy tweeting!