Converting Twitter Traffic: how Twitter is making your competitors rich and where you are going wrong
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Your competitors are seeing traffic increase of more than 1000%
“I don’t care what naysayers have to say about Twitter; it’s an absolutely fantastic social media tool when used wisely.” – on webpronews.com
(Skittles.com managed a spike in traffic of about 1332%! That’s quite a figure by any measure. The Wall Street Journal published a comprehensive report on how Skittles managed to achieve this feat. Then there are users who will readily tweet your 140 character message for a small price. It’s not difficult to see why Twitter deserves to be treated with respect if you are a webmaster.
Your visitors are a waste of bandwidth
“I must admit i have a problem with Twitter. It’s not generating traffic for my websites…” – Anelly on evancarmichael.com
But here’s your dilemma – You have set up a great Twitter account with hundreds, or even thousands, of followers and are posting 3 linked tweets every day. It’s not that you are not getting traffic from Twitter, but the visitors are simply not doing what you wanted them to do. They are not signing up for that newsletter you so prominently displayed nor are they clicking on the strategically placed ads. They are, in short, a waste of your bandwidth. If you have put in hours of work on your website, obviously you are making a mistake somewhere else. Maybe it is in the way you are using, or abusing, Twitter.
Don’t lie to your followers!
“You insult our intelligence.” – Nate on phandroid.com
People hate nothing more than a huge let-down after you have built up expectations with your tweet. If you have promised them the world in 120 characters (20 characters for the link!) and then presented a half-baked idea to them on your website, your readers are going to be pretty annoyed. If this is what is happening, it shouldn’t be difficult to figure out. They will post their disgust in the comments. If you suffer from the problem of exaggerating everything, it is time you watered things down before posting on Twitter.
Make sure you have followed the checklist
Ensuring that traffic from Twitter converts is a pretty simple thing. There are a few basic rules to follow. The first is that your followers should be targeted. Further, you should resist the temptation to spam them with a link every time you make a new post, unless your frequency of posting is less. Working out an attractive website and giving readers what you promised is of utmost importance. Give them an option to sign up for updates since first time visitors, who don’t convert well, are more likely to buy things from you after a few visits. You might also want to acquaint yourself with Twitter Etiquette.
Most importantly, don’t give up just because your traffic is not converting. Find out what the problem is and work on rectifying it.