Is there really any benefit of having thousands of followers on twitter. Typically when I add somebody they add me back and send me some affiliate link.
I have now linked my Facebook page with my twitter, so one Facebook post automatically updates twitter. I currently have something like 80 followers, most of which I don’t know.
But are there any obvious benefits? If I knew the people in real life it might be different, but the trouble is I don’t. Many come to your twitter page and see how many followers you have to rank you to your status.
I am fairly sure most people here use twitter, but does it work in driving traffic.
Best way to get rid of the tweeters you don’t want to follow anymore (to remove the fluff you see) is simply to stop following them. There’s no point following people who you don’t care about. As for ways to keep up-to-date with tweets, I recommend the desktop client Tweetdeck, it uses Adobe Air (so you’ll need that installed) but it’s awesome. I use it for it’s instant push notifications, alerts, lists (for organising followerers) and it’s ability to show me who’s added me to their lists.
Also, I don’t mind stacking the numbers of followers, but I would have to hide the remaining followers I did not want to see, either that or remove them completely.
Very well said, I didn’t think of it like this. I saw it as a popularity contest too.
How do you view other people’s Tweets, apart from logging into the website? Synchronizing Facebook with twitter works well for me, but I cannot see other people’s tweets.
You haven’t said what your line of business is or what your site’s about but for me personally, most of the people who follow me do for one of four reasons:
Graphics and Web Solutions
So obviously your usage will depend on what you do. If you’d like to build a network of people who are interested in the same area that you operate in, then Twitter’s a good thing to get into.
The trouble is I started adding lots of people, now I follow something like 1500 people and I just want to get rid of them.
If you’re a company with regular customers, Twitter can be a good way to promote your latest specials or promotions (and you can push the use of Twitter by making some offers only available via Twitter).
It’s a new business, officially opening on the end of September. I only have the one true customer. The other clients I had did not want to pay as much.
Other companies use Twitter as a way for people to get in contact with your company as a sort of informal help or support line.
I can see it’s usefulness. I kind of shot myself in the foot adding all those people. I tend to get around 30 confirmation emails a day. Yesterday I had 50, so you can see how much of a nuisance I have made twitter.
You haven’t said what your line of business is or what your site’s about but for me personally, most of the people who follow me do for one of four reasons:
I do a lot of work with ExpressionEngine so get added most by people in the same community.
I have written some web dev articles in the past (not so much these days) so occasionally get added by people with an interest in those topics.
I sometimes get added by other designers in my home city.
I get added by spammers or ‘social media experts’.
People in groups 1-3 I normally follow back; people in 4 I either ignore or block (and quite often they unfollow me a few days later if I don’t follow them).
So obviously your usage will depend on what you do. If you’d like to build a network of people who are interested in the same area that you operate in, then Twitter’s a good thing to get into.
If you publish regular new content, then Twitter can be used to promote that. In fact, a lot of people use Twitter over RSS feeds these days (I myself use a combination of both and often find notifications of new content come via Twitter before RSS).
If you’re a company with regular customers, Twitter can be a good way to promote your latest specials or promotions (and you can push the use of Twitter by making some offers only available via Twitter).
Other companies use Twitter as a way for people to get in contact with your company as a sort of informal help or support line.
If you’re using Twitter in the hope that it’ll gain you more traffic just by being there, as simply another avenue to your site, then I don’t think you’ll get much out of it. People will use search engines to find you in the first place, they won’t use Twitter for that. Twitter should be used for engaging with people after they’ve already found your site (if you’re using it as an extension of your business).
Like Alex says, a dedicated Twitter client is better than using the website. I’m not a big fan of Tweetdeck but there’s a lot of others out there to choose from. I’m using DestroyTwitter on Windows at the moment but usually use Echofon on a Mac.
What this shows is that you should be far more picky in whom you decide to follow - as a general rule I never follow people to try and beg for followers and thus my enjoyment and return from twitter is much greater than what someone who simply tries to clock up heavy numbers would get as a return. The benefits from Twitter is that people whom follow you out of interest will often be exposed to whatever you write and therefore they automatically by association will be more likely to click on links you provide or even contact you regarding what you post (I’ve had job offers from people who’ve followed my tweets). The problem with your perception on Twitter is that you assume people only care about the follower count, while that may be true about amateur tweeters (who think numbers equal sales) the truth is that it’s the quality of the follow that matters, not the act of signing as many people up to your stuff as possible. As an example of the return I’ve gotten from Twitter, apart from making a few new friends I’ve had job offers, additional sales, quotes for work and promotion for my writing efforts. Ultimately it’s up to how you use a medium as to how effective it will be, but I’ve found Twitter to be a VERY powerful and useful resource (not a popularity contest).
