Questions about Twitter

1. 39

   Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years ago

   Hello. I've been researching Twitter recently but a lot of the information I've found seems to be dated several years ago already so I'd like to ask for some recent information. Is Twitter still a good site for backlinks and traffic? Is it really effective? Does it work?
   
   How many times a day should a person Tweet? I've looked around for this too but there wasn't anything clear in what I've found. Can you actually Tweet once a day or every few days? Where's the line in Tweeting too much and Tweeting too little?
   
   How do you get followers on Twitter? I've seen a lot of information on getting lots of followers using some paid service or other but I think Twitter doesn't allow this. Some also said to search around for users with similar interests as yours but does this actually work?
   
   To those who are using Twitter, what kind of Tweets do you post, aside from links to your hubs or other people's hubs?
   
   Do you think that it's worth it to join Twitter? Do you like Twitter? Do you think it's helpful to you and that it's fun?
   
   Thanks for taking the time to read and answer my questions. It's well appreciated. I'm still trying to understand all of these things.

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   1. 87

      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      The gist is this: Only participate on Twitter if you are interested in being an active participant. Only share your own articles if they amount to LESS THAN 20% (ideally less than 5%) of all your tweets. You will gain followers by providing that which is valuable, fresh, and unique to other people, and by engaging in genuine interaction with others.

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      1. 39

         Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks for your reply. What you said makes a lot of sense. But is it actually worth it to join Twitter if you do plan on being active there? And if you're only sharing your own articles a few times, does it still help to increase traffic? Or is there a better method or way of doing this? Also, how many times a day should one Tweet?

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2. 76

   VVanNessposted 11 years ago

   Man you have a lot of questions. I could answer them all for you, but I only have ten minutes before I have to leave. I have had great success with Twitter. The only time right now that I "tweet" is when I'm publishing one of my articles. To get followers, you have to follow others, just like here on Hubpages.
   
   I highly suggest that you make use of the plethora of information and articles available on Google about Twitter to get to know it a little better. You will find more information than you could sit down and read in a week. The Twitter website also has tons of great information for you. You'll never really learn by me telling you. Sit down read through the info available online and try it out for yourself. Check me out. My name on Twitter is APieceofCakeWedd or you can search me by name. Let me know how it works out!

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   1. 39

      Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for your reply. I don't actually have a Twitter account yet because I'm still trying to decide if it's worth it to join this site. But if I do join, I'll be sure to look you up.
      
      I have been researching and reading a lot about Twitter lately, including information straight from the Twitter site like its rules and policies but there are still things I want to know about. And the information I've been seeing when Googling about Twitter shows info that is dated several years ago. What I would like is the latest information because what might have worked for others years ago may no longer be applicable now.

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3. 84

   psycheskinnerposted 11 years ago

   My advise with twitter is to treat  it like a conversation at a party.  Try to be interesting, if people start to unfollow you, take the hint and change your tack.  Make self-promotion only a small part of what you say (1/6 or less).
   
   I find it somewhat useful for my fiction pen name, not so useful for my hubpages pen name.

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   1. 39

      Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for your reply. You're right about self-promotion and this is definitely something that shouldn't be overdone. So do you think that it's worth it to actually have a Twitter account? Did you have a significant increase in traffic by using Twitter? And also, how many times a day do you Tweet?

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      1. 84

         psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I tweet 0-10 times a day on my main account, on average 1-2 not counting retweets and replies.
         
         For my fiction pen name I think it pays off because a person I snag there might by a book and make me 1-10 dollars. And I have got some readers this way.
         
         I don't know how to really make it worthwhile for web content.

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         1. 39

            Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Okay, thanks for the clarification. May I ask how you increase traffic to your web content then? I heard backlinks and traffic are important and Twitter was one of the suggested sites for this, which was why I've been looking into it.

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            1. 84

               psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               I, personally, take a passive approach to my web content (hubpages, infobarrle, webanswers etc).  I did not feel that the time spent driving traffic to hubs had a good enough pay off.  If I have time I just make more hubs.  I write content in my down time and bits of time in the day where I can't focus on ebook writing, which has proved more profitable, overall, for me.
               
               One tip I would shareis: IMHO if your twitter has "real" followers (who actually read your tweets) tweeting too often drives them off.  I don't ever tweet just for the sake of tweeting.  I look for stuff I think they will want to know or will find funny.  Just having thousands of follow-back people who never really read your tweets does not acheive anything. You want these people to actually do stuff like visit your page or buy your book. So you need to get and keep the right people who like your stuff. I aim to have 2-3 times more people follow me than I am following.
               
               But twitter is a flexible tool, different people use it different ways.

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               1. 39

                  Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks for your detailed answer. That makes sense. And yes, it would be great if Twitter actually works for you. It wouldn't be good to invest yourself in a site if it just becomes a chore for you or if you're not enjoying yourself. 
                  
                  By the way, do you think that taking a passive approach to traffic actually works? I mean, will you still get traffic even if you don't do something about it? When I see the blue triangles on my hubs that indicate traffic falling, it does get kind of worrying.

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                  1. 84

                     psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     I think it works well enough for me. But maybe if I was a real whiz at driving traffic I would think differently
                     
                     For me there is more benefit in spending that time making a new hub because I find making new hubs pretty easy, and Google brings people to them even if I do no promotion.

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                     1. 39

                        Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        That's really great how you get traffic without having to do any promotions. I think everyone would like to be able to do that.
                        
                        I do want spend more time in making hubs instead of focusing on traffic and backlinks and things like that but I've been reading around and a lot are saying how these things are important. It would be great if Google just brings traffic to everyone's hubs without any promotion on anyone's part. I guess I'll have to do more research on this.

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                        1. 84

                           psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                           I think it comes down to finding topics where there is a gap in the market. I periodically get huge traffic to a short hub about what 'swayback' in a horse is.  It tends to track back to a forum where one person asks and some other person posts the link in reply.  It is a very simply hub but it saves someone from having to type the answer out themselves.  With hubs like that the backlinks make themselves.

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                           1. 39

                              Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                              That makes sense and that's really great. But how did the person find out about the hub in the first place? By using search engines? But it's going to be hard if you're not ranked well in search engines though because you won't be able to get organic traffic.

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      2. 71

         KrisLposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I've been on twitter for a long time, for fun, and I also use it to direct traffic to my hubs. I have about 2,000 twitter followers. When I tweet a hub I usually get 20-30 hits, except last week, when a bunch of people liked a hub I had recently revised and tweeted and it got more than 200 hits in three days, which is good for me, as I write on haiku, not anything wildly popular.
         I agree with what has been said above, but I'll add a few things:
         * If you have an interesting twitter account, many or most people will follow you back. Don't start by following 1,000 people, though, it looks spammy.  As you start tweeting, search for topics which interest you, and follow a few dozen people who write well on them. Then follow some of the people followed by those who follow you back.
         * If you follow like this, following and following back, and have an interesting twitter account, you might expect, for example, to follow 3,000 and have 2,000 or more followers after a year.
         * "RT" (repost) other people's tweets and they will RT you -- 1/3 to 1/2 half of your tweets could be RTs.
         * tweet a mix of your thoughts, quotes, and links to interesting sites, including your hubs and other hubs in harmony with the tone of your twitter account, with a some personal touches.
         * Respond to people who speak to you, and ask questions too as you get more followers.  Try to thank at least some of those who RT you.
         * There are services that allow you to auto-post tweets in batches . . . use them if you want, but also interact or you will look too promotional
         * There are also services that allow you to post the same thing on twitter and FaceBook - that could be be very handy.
         * I think you could do all of this in about 20 minutes a day 5 days a week, but if you get bitten by the twitter bug, and have twitter on your phone, you'll end up spending longer.

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         1. 39

            Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks for a very detailed and informative answer. I'll be sure to keep this in mind if I do sign up for Twitter. You give a lot of good suggestions and things to do once someone is on Twitter but do you think it's actually worth it to join Twitter? Is it really fun? Is it really good for increasing hub traffic? You mentioned the number of hits that you received but is that per day? And do you always get a lot of traffic? 
            
            And wow, you have a lot of followers. That's really great. How long did it take you to acquire such a huge number?

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            1. 71

               KrisLposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               I find twitter really fun - a bit addictive, actually.
               I've been on twitter almost 3 1/2 years, and I have not been trying to get followers for the past 2 years. I "only" follow 850 or so -- that's why I said that if you added new followers gradually based on mutual interests you could follow 3,000 and get 2,000 or more followers by the end of a year.
               
               The number of hits I receive generally come in the 3-4 days after tweeting a hub. There is no reason you can't tweet the same hub every month or few weeks, however -- people don't consider that spam. My few organic back-links are also from those who follow me on twitter.
               
               In terms of number of tweets, I'd go for 10-25 most days a week, spaced out a little, including original posts, RTs, replies, links etc.
               
               Also, you can mention it in a hub's comments when you are tweet that hub, and many hubbers will tweet one of yours.

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               1. 39

                  Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  That's really impressive. It's great that Twitter is working so well for you. Do you get a constant source of traffic from Twitter? GeniusKnight from below said that Twitter was a fast promotion site so tweeting hub links would only give you a short burst of traffic before it dies down. Is that the same for you? Would you say that Twitter is good for backlinks or traffic?
                  
                  Oh and when you said "spaced out a little" when posting tweets, do you mean something like every few hours or so? Sorry for all the questions, I'm still trying to decide if I should join Twitter or not. And I guess lots of people find it fun and addicting but I'm still trying to see the hows and whys of that. Looks like I need to do more research.

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                  1. 71

                     KrisLposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     I'd go with GeniusKnight, twitter gives a small or large burst of traffic after you tweet a link, then dies off -- although people on twitter may make it a larger burst by retweeting or posting on facebook.
                     But if you had a large following and tweeted several different hubs you wrote every week, the burst would add up to steady traffic from twitter.

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                     1. 71

                        KrisLposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        (To answer you other question: Yes, most popular "tweeters" go with single or small groups of 3-5 tweets spaced out by a few hours.)

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                     2. 39

                        Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        Oh. I guess that makes sense. Thanks for your response.

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4. 86

   SidKempposted 11 years ago

   I have a plan - which I haven't implemented yet - for 10 tweets a day - that fits with HubPages guidelines and is likely to work. That's about 15 minutes a day on Twitter. If I get the plan rolling, I'll try to come back and let you know how well it works.

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   1. 39

      Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks. I'm very interested in finding out how well that works for you as well as how much traffic you'll get to your hubs. I'm still deciding on whether to get a Twitter account or not. By the way, when you say 10 tweets a day and 15 minutes a day, do you mean posting 10 tweets in quick succession? Or would you wait like a few hours in between posting tweets?

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5. 69

   Geniusknightposted 11 years ago

   Twitter is a fast promotion site when it comes to promoting your hubs. The usual life of a tweet is less then an hour so don't consider it to generate any traffic like that of back-link seo traffic. Use your hub links in popular articles as back-links to generate traffic. Use twitter for sudden rush of traffic which will be alive for at most an hour, so in order to get huge traffic from Twitter you need to tweet about 10 times a day (Rather cruel choice ) . Just use other seo techniques and use twitter for promotion.

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   1. 39

      Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for your answer. I didn't know that about Twitter being a fast promotion site. I guess that means that after an initial spike in traffic to your hubs from Twitter, it would soon fall? So maybe it's not really worth it to use Twitter? What do you think? Do you use Twitter?
      
      Can you give suggestions of other places to get backlinks to generate traffic? What did you mean by "use your hub links in popular articles"? Which articles are you talking about?

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      1. 69

         Geniusknightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Having a Twitter account is good for fast promotions and people love new stuff , so a occasional promotion on Twitter is a good thing to do. I am usually to busy with my work so whenever I get time I tweet my hubs on Twitter.
         
         By  using Back-links I mean promoting them in your already established works on Blogger or any other read article. For example: If your article is " How to eat an Apple " Then you can embed a back-link in an article containing a specific keyword like " I was [eating an Apple] " and embed it into the words within the bracket. That's the best way of creating backlinks or else you can also promote them by adding popup links to your articles which will simply attract anyone to visit your hub. Hope this helps !

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         1. 39

            Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks for your reply. Backlinks can be a really confusing and complicated topic. I still have much to learn about all of this. How often do you tweet?

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6. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

   My personal experience is that Twitter is a total waste of time. However, apparently others' results may vary...

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   1. 39

      Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Really? What makes you say that about Twitter? I'd like to hear the different opinions of others as I'm still trying to decide if I should join Twitter or not. So you don't use Twitter then? How do you gain backlinks and traffic to your hubs then?

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      1. 60

         paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I've got over 1000 followers. But none of those slackers ever follow my links. Or anyone else's as far as I can tell.
         
         Doesn't hurt to join. Give it a shot. Just keep your expectations low.

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         1. 39

            Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I guess. I just don't want it to feel like a waste of time especially if it's not going to be fun, not to mention if you're not actually going to get any traffic. Do you actually find it fun? I know lots of people apparently do but I'm not really seeing what's so fun about it, at least not yet. Oh, and what do you do about traffic and backlinks then if Twitter isn't good for that?

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7. 84

   psycheskinnerposted 11 years ago

   I have just over 700 followers and most of them are pretty engaged.  I tend to channel things through my blog as my main hub, and whenever a new blog post is announced on twitter I see people coming over and commenting.  I suppose the main advantage of that is my blog got a commercial sponsor based on its traffic and engagement level.

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   1. 39

      Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That's really great. And wow you have a lot of followers. How long did it take you to get so many followers? And how did you start getting followers?

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8. 57

   theodoresumrallposted 11 years ago

   About the data: Try searching with #tag, you will be able to view all the latest tweets ongoing on twitter.
   
   About promotion of products or services via Twitter:  Is not a good place to promote your products or services.

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   1. 39

      Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for your reply. What makes you say that Twitter is not a "good place to promote your products or services"? Can you elaborate? What was your experience in using Twitter? Is it not good for backlinks and traffic?

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      1. 57

         theodoresumrallposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I would say twitter is a waste of time for a single unbranded person to invest in, there are exceptions, such as a celeb, author, someone who has interest. Only other people would be spammers... As for a corp, its a good way to stay in contact with and grow a channel of advertising.. but if you are just intersted in posting urls.. not going to help you.... watch how the pro's do it.they eat chocolate at so in so and give a plug.. then they have 5 friends who plug them back, and so on.. but never direct sales.

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         1. 39

            Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            You have a point. Do you use Twitter? How is it working out for you? What if you use Twitter not just to post URLs but also to post other things? Will that work?

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            1. 57

               theodoresumrallposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Yes I use twitter but not for promotion of products or services.
               
               If you are a big brand, it may help you at some extent. Again, active participation is a must.
               
               Only brand promotion not traffic or backlinks.

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               1. 39

                  Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Okay. So, do you find Twitter fun then? And how do you get traffic or backlinks if you don't use Twitter for that?

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                  1. 57

                     theodoresumrallposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     If you need only traffic and backlinks, there are a huge lists of sources you can search online.
                     
                     P.S.  Yes. I find twitter fun and an excellent place to  know real time happenings around the world.

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                     1. 39

                        Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        That's great that you find Twitter fun. I'm still undecided on the Twitter matter.
                        
                        Oh and as for the traffic and backlinks, yes, I know. I've been searching around but a lot of what I'm finding appears to be outdated already because they're from several years ago. I'm trying to find the latest ones that we can use that are still relevant in this year. Do you have any suggestions?

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                        1. 57

                           theodoresumrallposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                           Indulge, indulge and indulge. You will be decided on the twitter matter!
                           It is difficult for anyone here on the discussion board to be very specific on any point.

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                           1. 39

                              Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                              I guess so. But I just want to hear the others experiences with Twitter and see how it's working out for them as well as their opinions on Twitter because they're more experienced about it already and they know what works, how it works and all those other details.

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9. 59

   Toytastingposted 11 years ago

   Hi Ceres, in my experience I have noticed that in order to get more traffic on Twitter you must first follow influential people in your industry. Most of your tweets should not be self references, I mean out of 5 tweets you can tweet about your product or service in 1 tweet. Understand your target audience and give them a reason to follow. For eg. if your target audience is mothers, tweet on tips and tricks on parenting. Well lastly, be at it and you will get your desired results. Cheers!

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   1. 39

      Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Hello. Thanks for your response. What you said makes a lot of sense. But do you think that joining Twitter is worth it? Is it something that you enjoy doing? Is it really fun? And how hard is it to get followers from Twitter? How many times a day do you Tweet?

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      1. 71

         KrisLposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Hi Ceres, I just re-read the forum.
         What I'm beginning to see is that twitter may or may not work for people, but will only work if they enjoy it.
         Why not join and try it for a month? If you enjoy it, finding people you want to follow and having some of those follow you, all good. If not, go on to better things.

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         1. 39

            Ceres Schwarzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Hi. Thanks for your reply. And you're right about that. It doesn't hurt to try and see for yourself if you like it or not. So that's what I'm going to do.

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