Increase Traffic to your Blogs using Twitter

[marts56]

Thanks for the link I will read that article.

[Buffett Fan]

Can someone explain what is the attraction of Twitter and why it might be useful for my blog?

[khorrell]

I have many of the same questions about Twitter. One of my acquaintances is a social networking consultant and she just raves about Twitter. So far, I'm getting nothing but random updates about the minutiae of people's lives. Doesn't really seem valuable to me...

[hermione]

Originally Posted by Buffett Fan

Can someone explain what is the attraction of Twitter and why it might be useful for my blog?

Originally Posted by khorrell

I have many of the same questions about Twitter. One of my acquaintances is a social networking consultant and she just raves about Twitter. So far, I'm getting nothing but random updates about the minutiae of people's lives. Doesn't really seem valuable to me...

I sort of wondered the same thing before; that's why I didn't join twitter until a couple of months ago. And I discovered that it really has benefits.

I've gotten to know a lot of other bloggers there by following the snippets about their personal lives, responding and corresponding with them when I have something in common to share or an answer to a question they ask. This sort of seemingly insignificant interactions help to add a little dimension and personalize your perception of them and their blogs.

Also, by following and responding to some big-time bloggers and sites out there like ProBlogger and Get Rich Slowly, you are in a way making your existence known. (Just don't overdo it and only respond if and when appropriate and relevant.)

When some bloggers are looking for guest posters, they'll put the word out on twitter. I've seen tweets offering take suggestions for posts to link to in their roundups. And tweets announcing special events that may help you - i.e. ProBlogger's 48 hour event this weekend giving bloggers a chance to promote their blogs in 140 characters or less in a comment on his blog.

Even though I'd been blogging for 6 months, my subscriber numbers were struggling. The week after I joined twitter, I broke 100 and the numbers steadily climbed each time we published a new post (a couple of times a week). I'm sure twitter had something to do with this.

I've been enjoying twittering and I think it has helped our blog. But what I like most is that I've gotten to know quite a few other fellow bloggers I probably never would have otherwise. This puts a "face" (or person) to blogs which used to be "just another blog" and helps me discover material to link to in my roundups, and hopefully vice versa.

I wrote a post when I first joined about why I decided to join twitter with links to other posts on the web about the networking benefits for bloggers and cool tools and applications for twittering:

It’s Official: I am a Full-Fledged Tweeter

[khorrell]

Thank you so much, Hermione. I learned a lot and I respect your opinion. You explained so much!

[hermione]

I've had this song stuck in my head for the past 2 days. If you haven't heard the twitter song by i hate mornings, check it out. It's hilarious. And super catchy. I woke up today and it was still in my head.

http://www.ihatemornings.com/twittersong/

[khorrell]

Oh, great...now it's going to be stuck in my head, too

[arkadofbabylon.org]

Sadly I had let my blog slip in lieu of other e-commerce websites I've been developing, but it was also due in part to a lack of traffic. But after reading the article, I might start to ramp it up again.

It never occurred to me to use Twitter as a tool to increase visibility of my blog. And frankly, just learning how to use Twitter more effectively was a benefit of reading the article.

Thanks for this info Amy As always, your posts are fantastic and jam-packed with helpful information!

[Greg]

@hermione - thanks for sharing your experiences with twitter. It helps to get some perspective when I'm trying to figure out the usefulness of twitter myself.

@everyone - my latest favorite twitter character to follow is http://twitter.com/cobracommander

[FrugalNYC]

Thanks hermione for the explanation. Like many others, I don't want to spend more time on another platform at the moment.

@greg, cobracommander is hilarious. Adding it to my post on twitter accounts.