Amusing Myself With Twitter

I had to check my blog archives to see where I’d mentioned Twitter previously and came up with just two occurrences. The first mention was in June 2007; the second one in December 2008.

That first occurrence was within an article I titled, How I Found You Online, where I marveled at the different ways I discovered people via the internet. At that time, I relied a lot more on forums such as Digital Point and Sitepoint as well as social media sites including BUMPzee, MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog to connect with people. Back then, I was a new user on StumbleUpon and was still stopping in on MySpace on occasion.

But it was my last comment that brought a smile to my face, particularly my comment about Twitter:

I plan on joining LinkedIn eventually, but I think I’ll sit Twitter out.

Yes, it just took me just seven words to explain that I wasn’t planning on using Twitter, likely for the reason that I saw no point in using it.  After all, Twitter was only a silly way for people to send one liners to each other all day, right? Who had the time for such nonsense?

Well, things certainly do change in the world of social media as I am basically forum free these days, choosing to meet up with people through their respective blogs and key social media sites. Yes, I even connect with a handful of people through email, but if you’re looking to IM me, that won’t happen — but feel free to send me a tweet!

It must have been an article I read, such as Mihaela Lica’s very first article on Sitepoint titled, “Twitter’s Little Known SEO Value,” that piqued my interest in Twitter. I’ve been following “Michi’s” writings for several years now and her candid explanation of Twitter caused me to revisit the site, digging a bit deeper to see what it is all about.

I joined Twitter long ago, have posted a bunch of links in the in the interim, but my network wasn’t much to brag about. But, this past week I invited a number of people to connect with me via Twitter, tripling my contacts and putting some life in my exchanges with other members. That move brought in a number of high end users, professional tweeters who add interesting stuff and make Twitter worthwhile.

Sure, there are some people who seem to be having conversations with nobody but themselves, but I’ve also come across a handful of really good articles that I probably wouldn’t have found had I not started using Twitter. In those cases I’ve read the article, posted a comment and, in a few situations, shared that information with someone else.

Mihaela’s article is a good read, making no silly promises that Twitter will do something that it won’t. But it was her last statement that I found most interesting (and true) — If you can make people come to your site via Twitter, then this is an SEO advantage you cannot afford to miss. – something I am taking into consideration as I tweet may around the site.

Oh, by the way, if you want to follow me on Twitter please click on the little tweety bird and you’ll be brought to my profile page for a connection.

Matt’s Mailbag

Q. My SU (StumbleUpon) traffic has been getting lower and lower over time, probably because I have the same set of people stumbling. How do you maintain healthy traffic levels from social media to all of your various sites? Do you have any SU or other social media tips that you’d be willing to share?

A. There are a number of things you can do to help your StumbleUpon traffic improve, though I cannot say for certain if you will reach the levels of traffic you are accustomed to.

That being said here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• Submit only on occasion to SU (once weekly, perhaps twice per domain), preferably having someone discover and stumble the article for you. Follow up with your own stumble if you like.

• Change the people whom you ask to stumble on your behalf. If SU catches you forming a “band” of stumblers, you’ll see diminishing returns.

• I don’t usually get that much traffic with Digg, Reddit and Mixx. SU rules!

• Comment on other blogs — good, relevant comments in order to get the owner’s approval. Place your article’s URL where the URL is featured after your name and email address.

• Spend some time stumbling daily. I like to click on my friends favorites and run through 50 to 100 at a time. When you stumble, people stumble back and the traffic begins to flow. Leave related comments from time to time; add discoveries too.

As always, good solid content will help drive people to your site, whether you plan to rely on social media traffic or not. When writing articles, don’t forget to cite other people’s work and embed a link back to their article.

I’ve been using StumbleUpon for two years now and have seen my traffic numbers fluctuate dramatically. I don’t rely on SU alone, but it does remain an important source for helping bring traffic my way.