Look at this curve. Just look at it. It represents the follower growth of @Sourcererblog since roughly the first of January. It’s not a phenomenal curve, but it’s notable for two reasons. The first is that Nov. to Jan. was just a flat line. I cropped that out to make the image sizing work. The second is, there are no real dips. There are a couple of sorta-dips in February. Otherwise, it’s all in one direction: up.
I am writing this series because I think almost anyone can do this, and most of us can do better than I’ve done. I’m starting from the very beginning and covering the basics first. Those of you who are already good at Twitter might be a little bored with the first few posts, but we need to bring everyone along who wants to come with us. That’s the whole secret to what I’m doing here, really — learn from people who are further along, share the knowledge with people who want to come with.
So. The curve. That first nearly-vertical uptick at the bottom of the slope is where I went from 60 to 80 followers on Jan 15-16. That upward trend at the very top is @Sourcererblog going from 1260 to 1310 followers last weekend. The stuff in the middle is the product of rational thought, help from others, and opportunism. I can explain every tic on this curve, but who wants to read that? It cannot speak for itself, so I will speak for it.
If you like this curve. If you want to look at your own Twitter analytics and see a curve like this one day, stick with me for the next few posts. I’ll try and explain what I’ve been doing on Twitter in the last three-and a-half months that’s gained me 1250 followers.
More to come. Today.
image: I am pretty sure that little bird is property of @Twitter, but I snagged it from Molly-Greene.com.
Excellent! I just don’t get Twitter at all
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It took me quite a lot of effort and frustration to get it.
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Glad it’s not just me 🙂
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Will be keeping a close eye! 🙂 My Twitter isn’t privacy protected but not many readers from there :-\
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I will be interested to see the information on readers vs. followers. A lot of my twitter is political follows/follow backs, but some blog audience (though limited).
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As far as I can tell, Twitter isn’t very good for generating readers. A lot of bloggers have told me people don’t really click links on Twitter. Based on what I can see from the free analytics, fewer than 1% of the people who see my tweets click the links. I get 3-5 Twitter referrals per day, and only started getting those recently. I’ve gotten as many as 15, but that doesn’t happen for me often.
What I find twitter useful for, is for finding other bloggers who are interested in really being social, and who write about things I’m interested in.
The most efficient way I’ve found for getting readers is to give tons of wordpress likes and comment on other wordpress blogs.
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I’m getting better at Twitter, though it’ll probably never be my favorite of the social medias.
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Aside from WordPress, it’s my very favorite. I live on WordPress and Twitter at this point. Down to a Facebook status update every other day, and check my other accounts only once per week.
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I check all of mine daily, but I’m down to dealing with Twitter, FB, and WP on a consistent basis, and monkeying around with Pinterest when I have some time and/or need images. I’m just slowly amassing the sort of pins I had in my old account.
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I mostly use FB for private chat at this point. I do look at my feeds once a day, but more and more, I’m having to decide whether to browse the WordPress reader or the FB feeds, because no time for both. Since the WP reader does more for the blogs, that’s usually the one I go with.
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Yes, if I had to chose and what I was doing on them both was blogging work, I’d chose the WP reader. Keep in mind, though, that I’ve had a FB since the days that they were only open to college students with verified college e-mail addresses, back in 2005-ish. I use it differently now, but it’s mostly to connect with people I know IRL.
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I have a twitter account but also really don’t get it. Hopefully this will hp educate me,thanks,
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Awesome post.
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Thanks!
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Very happy to see these Twitter related posts show up! I’ve been waiting to read them! 🙂
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I haven’t really touched the three-page draft I was telling you about. I started revising it and realized it needed an introduction, which turned into the three posts I’m running today. 🙂
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Where’d you get that graph? Did you create it yourself or find it through WP somewhere?
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In your twitter settings menu, you should see “Analytics.” It will show you cool stuff. Tweet reach, followers/unfollowers, etc.
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Loved that graph! That was some growth! Like you say, no decrease! That’s really impressive.
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