Is Twitter really effective?

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   ForTheInterimposted 14 years ago

   I'm trying to understand the purpose of twitter... more so as a marketing tool for self promotion.  I understand its purpose for teenagers, maybe for larger companies like Starbucks. But for those of us who don't have a following through their own website, what's the point?
   
   Sure there's ways to have 2000 followers just by randomly following other people and hoping they return the favor, but what does that accomplish? Is the hope that some of these 2000 people take Twitter seriously and will follow a link you post? Does that work?
   
   I'm not referring specifically to Hub Pages, but just generally wondering...

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      IntimatEvolutionposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I don't know how effective it is.  When I tweet one of my sex hubs, I do get alot of traffic from it.  However, I don't think it ever mounts to much.  Moreover though, I love tweeting and using twitter.  I think it's fun.  I think a lot of people either hate it or love it.  I even have twitterdroid on my cell phone.

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   Lady_Eposted 14 years ago

   I wasn't into Tweeting until a friend hi-lighted the Advantages from a Business point of view.
   
   So... I signed up about 2 months ago and have found it very useful. The people I follow are either in my Career line, Personal Coaches or other very motivational people - most of whom I've met on Business Networking sites and decided to follow them.
   
   The links they post are very useful and I don't feel obligated to follow people. (e.g someone followed me yesterday wanting me to check them out in their sexy lingerie. lol. I just block such people)
   
   It depends on how you use it...

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   livewithrichardposted 14 years ago

   Twitter is a microblog that in its most basic use is to give updates on what you are doing, following, reading, watching, listening to, etc..  This information is aggregated by some very large marketers to track trends and activities. 
   
   It's known as "peer recommendations" and is one of the key indicators of where the internet is heading in the future.  When you have a large body of contributors making suggestions and recommendations, certain companies can take advantage of this and implement that information into predictive tools.. You see these tools at work on sites like Netflx and Amazon, ie. people who liked product A also liked product B.
   
   How can you use this to your advantage? Get a lot of followers, but not by random following. To have any real success you have to have real followers, people that are truly interested in your recommendations.  A good way to get these followers is to ask for them in the niche forums you visit, if you visit any...lol and by placing your link with everything you write in your niche.  This can drive traffic to your content which is only important if you sell stuff.

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   ForTheInterimposted 14 years ago

   Thanks both of you It does seem that being legit is the best way to go about things! I think I'm struggling to figure out what exactly my niche is.  I go from travelling, to vegetarian cooking.... to wishing my niche was something which could one day potentially lead to earnings.  Once I figure my niche out, I'll likely be a bit better at deciding how to manage my twitter account!

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      livewithrichardposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      You can have both of those niche subjects and even more if you like, just try to keep them apart...lol or you can combine them with the best places to travel for vegetarians.. any niche can lead to earnings you just have to know where to market them.  Try doing a search for "vegetarian forums" or "trave forums"  and then join them, create a signature for your profile that has links pointing to the specific content your are trying to promote, preferably your personal blog and one of your hubs.
      
      Here on HP it really doesn't matter what your niche is.  You only need to be specific on your own personal blogs and websites.  Take a look at my hubs, they're all over the place but I have several personal blogs that are very niche oriented.

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         IntimatEvolutionposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         You know that is a really good idea.  I think I'll give that a try.

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   ForTheInterimposted 14 years ago

   Thanks Richard (livewithrichard=Richard?) for the niche suggestion! I never really thought there was a niche for me unless I faked interest in something - such as hats for cats. (That's a fun google search btw!)  I'll have to give that a try.  That would be quite fun and useful for myself in future travels as well.
   
   I do quite like Hub Pages because I haven't had to declare my niche, so to speak.   I can write about whatever is interesting to me and I hope may be of interest to others....

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   Jamesycakesposted 14 years ago

   twitter is for stalkers. i tried it, couldnt really see the point of it.

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   DaniellaWoodposted 14 years ago

   Personally, I think Twitter isn't half as good as facebook. It bores me because there's nothing to do on it. You only have a limited amount of characters to tell the world what you had for dinner that night or something as equally pointless and then you sit there and...do nothing. Maybe read a few other people's posts? I have twitter and I post my links to twitter when I publish a hub, but I dont know how effective it's been for me. Not very is my guess!

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   skyfireposted 14 years ago

   I have my own forum and i have found twitter as tool to get new signups for it. So i can say it is effective to some extent.

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   bojanglesk8posted 14 years ago

   For increasing traffic, honestly I don't think so.

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    bgamallposted 14 years ago

    Twitter isn't much for traffic, however it is good for content if you go to twitterfeed.com you can add feeds from different places, then get the complete feed from your twitter account, then burn that feed at feedburner.com.
    
    There you can get feed in an iframe and post it to websites. Probably not Hubpages, but you don't need to post an Iframe here as you can just get the link.
    
    So for content it is good and keeps your webpages refreshed. You may want to post something intelligent. So for example, you can twitterfeed Seeking alpha instablog, or any blog or comments, or hubpage creations, etc and then go to your twitter account and get the total feed and burn it at feedburner.

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    Audreveaposted 14 years ago

    I hate the idea of it - but it makes sense to use it. We're in a time of instant gratification, so if you can put somethig tasty right under their nose it seems a good chance they'll follow the scent.

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