Why I Don't Twitter

One of the hottest new trends these days is something called Twitter.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates to the Twitter website.

Hey...that sounds pretty neat!

So why don't I Twitter?

Because I don't see the point.

Readers who are interested in getting marketing updates from me simply subscribe to my blog.

Everytime I update my blog, my readers are alerted automatically - instantly!

Anyway, that's why I don't Twitter.

Look, I'm not knocking Twitter.

But as far as me using it, I just don't see the point.

David Jackson

 

twitter is a pretty fun thing
but i dont see the point in it either

 

You should take a look at this video, after I watched it, I gave twitter another try... and now it's a lot of fun

- jens -

 

I watched the video a while back, and for me, I still don't see the point. But if you like it, more power to you!

It's just not for me.

David Jackson

 

I am using twitter and it does help bring a little traffic to your site! More the social background you build, more popular you and your site get. Twitter is a just a way to do so.

 

I get traffic from twitter, and I use twitter like I am at a party (like the video explains). The only problem is that as everything else, twitter takes a lot of time... and I am not sure if it's worth it compared to other methods of generating traffic, but I am hanging in there and will keep on testing for a few more months

- jens -

 

And therein lies the problem with Twitter - time.

I've heard the same complaint from other Twitter users.

I have other ways of generating traffic that are far less time-consuming and much more palatable to me.

David Jackson

 

Hi David Jackson,

I am like you. I dont see the point of Twitter. But lots of people in my target audience do. They love twitter. So I have to jump in - I intend to pay someone to tweet for me, so I can grab the audience =) .

In the company I used to work in before, I watched Twitter spread like wild fire. First it was one person, then two. Before long, (almost) the whole department was twittering away - I am talking of around 20 people in a biggie biggie Fortune-some-number company.

You see, the charm of twitter is that *its short and sweet*. You have to make out time to read a looooooong blog post you see. No one wants that. We want instant info. Now.

I know people who spend lots of time on their iphone writing and reading tweets.

In the end, its not what we want, its what the customer wants.

PS - I still am not on facebook too

 

If Twitter can increase your site's exposure...why not?? But if you think it doesn't worth it, put less time on it and move on to the next task

 

That's true. And when the majority of my readers tell me to follow them on Twitter I will.

Until then, I don't see the point.

David Jackson

Until someone can prove to me definitively that Twitter is superior to the marketing techniques I'm currently using, I'm not going to use it.

I don't believe in "monkey see, monkey do!"

David Jackson

 

You know, you get to a point with these things where you can just tell that a trend isn't going to last very long.

Does anybody remember Friendster? You just HAD to be on Friendster just a few years ago.

Then it was MySpace.

Now even mainstream, non-techie folks are jumping on the Facebook bandwagon.

Twitter is the newest thing.

Believe me, for the amount of time and energy you'd put into chasing down Twitter to grab traffic, you could be building more stable infrastructure and time-tested ways to build consistent traffic.

Dan

 

I was attending a seminar years ago and they were talking about the crazy stuff people sell online. In one particular example, the product being sold was tumble weeds. The presenter said to the audience, "Someone tell me why anyone would buy tumble weeds online.".

There were a variety of answers being given. Some people talked about the novelty of it. Some people talked about market conditions or the use of powerful ad copy, etc... The answers came from all over the room and there were a lot of them. Mostly from people trying to prove how "smart" they were.

The presenter finally stopped everyone and said, "You're over thinking it! The answer is:

WHO CARES?!?! DID THE CHECK CLEAR?!?!?"

It doesn't matter if you or I "get it" with Twitter. The point is that the market place DOES get it and they USE it. Our job as marketers is to reach people where our market is.

So I started using Twitter along with all my other tools.

Total time spent on Twitter amounts to about 5 minutes a day.

Does it work for me? Absolutely. Someone started following me. They visited my site. They put up a "tweet" about the offer I was running.

Instantly ... more people found out about my services and my web site.

Nope ... I don't really get WHY Twitter works. But I get that it DOES work.

So I use Twitter along with my other tools.

 

From my observation, Twitter can be a really effective way of building a relationship with your audience and exposing you to a larger audience, or it can totally suck - depending on how you use it.

One of the things about Twitter though is that it's not a direct marketing channel, compared to something like Adwords, for example.

With Adwords you run an ad, people click on the ad, you get traffic.

Twitter is more based around building an ongoing relationship with people which indirectly leads to traffic as your follwing and reputation grows and grows.

A lot of people are looking at it as if they can go on and just shoot their links out and get traffic, and it doesn't usually work that way. Without a relationship in place, people will usually ignore promotional stuff from you.

So it's really a question of which is more important to you and how Twitter might fit into your business model. If it works with your objectives, use it. If not, there are always other avenues available.

It's funny, some people don't see the point of "blogging" either, and they just choose to use other marketing channels. As long as it works for them, more power to them.

 

Well, as an affiliate marketer I say that if using Twitter helps with my backlinks them I'm for using it.

 

Well said. I see no point of Twitter but the way you put it makes sense. I have seen many people say Entrecard is a waste but it does great for me. I have built lots of relationships and get a of return readers from there. I guess it is all how you use and what you have to offer. I joined Twitter and visit once in while but have to yet to have any benefits but I am willing to keep trying.

 

The problem is you are using twitter wrong. Unless you are a large establish organization you can't expect to be able to spam your affiliate link and watch the sales roll in. Twitter doesn't work that way.

Twitter is nofollow.

 

I think you cannot get quality and relevant backlinks if you are using tinyURL.

If Twitter works, then Twitter works. Every method I believe that is being by a lot of people is effective. It's just how we use it and how applicable it is to our business.

 

This thread should be titled: why I don't care.

 

Even though I don't see the point of Twitter, when my readers subscribe to receive my blog updates, I give them the option of receiving their updates via Twitter.

When it comes to my readers, I put my personal feelings about Twitter aside.

That's just smart business.

David Jackson

 

Well, I got 41 followers awaiting any messages I post
That's a potential 41 visitors with a simple post of a message..

Imagine if you have 20,000+ followers (or a lot?)
Write an article + post a message - there goes majority of the hard work promoting