How to Use and Exploit Twitter for Targeted Traffic & Increased Subscribers
Posted on April 7th, 2008 by Jim under Blogging TricksI recently came across a brilliant technique that can increase your traffic and returning readers by a considerable amount, using Twitter! Yes, the same service that thousands have marked off as “worthless” and “a waste of time” can be exploited to really pump traffic toward your blog. What am I talking about? Twitter Hopping!
I’m taking this article from here on out assuming that you already have a Twitter account or understand the basic idea behind the service. If you don’t know, why not read up on it in my Twitter review post? Let’s continue.
Okay, so here is the basic idea. Twitter.com allows you to track both your “followers” and those that you are “following.” Here’s where the trick comes in, you can view & easily follow anyone listed under any other members. This is a networking frenzy!
As bad as it sounds, you can leech off of other member’s friends that are in your niche. People that are following, for example, ShoeMoney are very likely to be interested in affiliate marketing and making money online. By looking at all of ShoeMoney’s friends and opting to “follow” all of them… I’m going to pick up hundreds of interested readers for my blog! Thanks for doing the work for us, eh?
Use the video guide provided as an example of how to work this trick. It’s very simple:
- Find a popular blogger in your niche on Twitter
- Navigate to their Twitter page
- Go over to the “following” link off of the website
- Click the “follow” tab next to all of their interested readers!
This is not to say that I do not care what the people I am following have to say. I have pulled hundreds of interested viewers using this method, and have returned the favor by visiting their websites. It’s an awesome way to network in the blink of an eye with hundreds of people interested in your content… and it’s free!
I call this exploiting because lets face it, you are completely manipulating both the Twitter system and, well, your own friends. But as long as we are making connections (and money), who really cares?
The eventual goal here is to have all the people that you “followed” follow you right back, and in my experience about 1/3 of them will. This means that they will be reading your content and checking up on your status. Sure, you’ll have about 3:1 following-to-followers, but as long as you are expanding that all important consumer base… no one’s the wiser.
Let’s recap. You can gain hundreds of targeted, active and interested readers by tapping into other blogger’s followers with Twitter. By opting to follow all of the readers of a blog in your niche, you are essentially casting a baited fishing pole and are bound to get about 30%-40% of those people to follow you back. Once that’s in tact, more and more people are going to see your content, your updates and whatever else you have to say. It’s a win-win, it’s easy and super effective!
-The Net Fool
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So basically I should make sure never to follow you
Just kidding. However this tactic isn’t really new. When I first got to Twitter I had only one twitter friend. And since I’m not particularly known in the blogosphere, nor did I know that many people, I just picked about 15 of his followers and followed them. Some of them followed back. So I started twittering and eventually more people would follow me without me having to follow them first. Whenever someone @messaged-me , it would spike at least one of their followers’ interest.
I still don’t have too many followers, only 30ish, but to me that’s enough.
Caren’s last blog post..Twitter, education, and family.
@ Caren: Yup, definitely don’t follow me
Yeah I knew about this. I’ve had Twitter but I’ve neglected it. I did a quick check after reading this only to find that the “followers” is not a link on every profile. Just text. You’re talking about right under “stats”, correct?
@ CashJuke: Thanks for that catch, I had meant to say “following”… now updated
. You just need to follow people that popular niche bloggers are following
hmmm…very interesting and dirty, but mostly interesting. Nice post!
sukosaki’s last blog post..Marketing with Gift Cards
Luckily I wrote about this last week! Woohoo to Twitter!
Jay
Jay’s last blog post..“How to Generate Traffic to your Website” eBook (And Why You Should Get It!)
Twitter is a nice way to get traffic.
lovely video, thanks.
Tech blog’s last blog post..New Nokia N810 - WiMAX Edition !
The video is definitely helpful. I was confused by the text a little. Although, I can’t seem to figure out how to make it more clear.
Options Strategery’s last blog post..General Electric (GE) gets hit by an earnings miss
I no longer can post update on my twitter profile http://twitter.com/enam
What may be the problem?
Not sure Enam. If your login still works, it could just be a temporary problem in their server. If you still can’t do it now, I would try emailing support about it… they have small bugs like that occasionally
Jim’s last blog post..Top Ten Ways How Internet Marketers Will Scam You