For a long time I did not understand twitter. I thought it was pretty stupid. Then an opportunity came. The person who had the shoemoney account sent me a email and asked if I wanted it. I said I did and they just released the account to me. Pretty cool of them. I still did not do much with it until one day Michael Gray sat me down at SMX West last spring and showed me how he was using it (I had to sign a NDA or I would tell). I was pretty fascinated with it So last May I gave it a serious look.
The first couple months I used twitter it was down more then it was up. But I still had fun learning and now its pretty rock solid.
Starting To See The Light:
For the first month I was using the website only. I started to find other people I partied with met at conferences and followed them. Most of the people I hang out with at conferences I only talk to them during that time. The value of twitter was starting to become a little bit more clear to me. The best way I can do it is to compare it with other ways of communicating with people:
Traditional ways to keep in touch:
- Email – I honestly hate email. Between not getting email because of spam filters and people that fricking write a book it drives me nuts. I just do not have time to go back and fourth with emails 99% of the time even with friends. Just takes to much time and if the email is longer then a paragraph its probably lost me anyway. Twitter only allows 140 characters in a tweet. Its very easy for me to respond to pretty much 100% of the people who ask me a question and takes little time out of my day to do so. Also a lot of times with my answers to people it has a nice side effect of answering perhaps what other people were interested in also. Double win.
- Instant Messenger – Being most of our team works remote throughout the country we use Instant Messanger services as our key communication tool. I would say 90% of our communication even inter-office is done with Instant Messanger. I never accept anyone to my Instant Messanger unless there is a very good business need. Twitter is much less informal but still has that feel of an instant messenger client… only it does not bug you when you get a message if you are busy.
Ok so that’s what I realized after the first month. The just of the service IMO is that its a great way to contact people that is much more intimate and to the point then an email yet not nearly as invasive as a instant message.
Great way to find local people:
Being centrally located in what is not exactly a tech hub its been very hard to find developers. We have advertised in the local college papers, traditional papers, craigslist and other means but there has just not been one good source to find the people we are looking for…. until I started using twitter.
Twitter has been a great way to find people that fit well with us. For one if they use twitter they already get some social media stuff but lets go beyond that… Lets say I am looking for a developer who lives around me. I can simply search twitter like this.
Its also good to find local recommendations for restraunts, happy hour specials, and other local events.
Quality of traffic from twitter:
The quality of traffic from twitter is pretty awesome for a blogger. Check out these numbers for the last 2 months to shoemoney.com sorted by highest refer’s of traffic. (click on image to enlarge)
Lets break down these numbers a bit from twitter in the last 60 days I recieved almost 17,000 visitors. Of those 17,000 visitors over 40% had never been to shoemoney.com before. Once they were here though they viewed an average of 2.25 pages per visit and stayed on the site for an average of 2 minutes and 18 seconds. They had a 65% bounce rate.
Now if you compare that with Google traffic that was 95% for the search term “Shoemoney” (and should be the highest quality) that brought in double the amount of traffic but had less pages/vist, less time spent on page and higher bounce rate.
I now consider the #2 most important source of traffic in terms of value behind only stumbleupon which always delivers an amazing about of new visotors with the lowest bounce rates.
How do I get the traffic in the first place? Well I twitter everytime I have a post… so once a day. But the cool thing is other people retweet my posts probably 10x for each one I tweet… kind of a domino effect.
I know I hear the excusers saying it can’t happen to them cause they are not me but guess what its all relative.
The badass twitter reach:
Couple months ago we were really stuck in a rut. We were working on a new application and felt that a service amazon was offering called SImpleDB would make a massive impact on its performance. While simpleDB was open for anyone to appy for they only had about 200 people they let use it. I really wanted to try it out and so I twitted asking if anyone knew anyone at amazon that could get us into the SimpleDB program. Within 1 hour I had 2 different AWS people contact me asking what the application was and what SimpleDB was going to be used for. I replied and moments later got the email saying it was now added to our account.
There has been a ton of other times I have asked for tips, contacts, or whatever about a subject and got help within seconds. Twitter is an amazingly powerful tool.
So to those that don’t get twitter hopefully this makes a little sense. You dont have to have a blog or anything you just need to start connecting with friends. Through friends of friends you will develop an amazing reach.
For those already using twitter whats your tips?
- Comment Likes 
- Comment Dislikes
January 17, 2009 at 9:59 am
hello ,
First of all, I’m really impressed with you.
As You, Yaro and Ewin Chia and some others are my ideal in this blogging field… I really want to be like you people.. and I’ll … that’s my MOTO.
Well, as far as post is concern… it is nice like always… and now I’m going to use TWITTER on my first time.
Hopefully It will work for me as well..
thanks
December 18, 2008 at 10:29 pm
yeah Im currently in the process of becoming addicted to twitter
November 22, 2008 at 12:17 am
Something to keep short and quick updates for your follower…
November 15, 2008 at 5:58 am
Your good article sheds light to reconsider twitter again but we think twitter is now cluttered.
November 14, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I just started using twitter myself and its starting to pay off on my advertising store… Thanks shoe maker.
November 13, 2008 at 9:13 am
For ages, I didn’t get Twitter at all – I thought it was a cute tool with little practical application. Now that it’s starting to seduce me, the trick is explaining it to others and hopefully getting more writers and authors using it (and joining http://www.livejournal.com/community/writer_tweets)
November 12, 2008 at 5:54 am
Guess im late to the twitter party
November 7, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Thanks for sharing. Been on Twitter for a while, but never used it much for social networking per se. I do use it to shoot questions and have received prompt and helpful replies on it and immediately too.
November 4, 2008 at 9:30 pm
I impressed how twitter can be a marketing tool
November 3, 2008 at 6:39 pm
After reading this post, I will put more effort into Twitter and hopefully make more friends there.
http://seventoten.com/2008/10/30/what-is-twitter-good-for/
October 29, 2008 at 11:44 pm
I joined twitter after reading a bit about it here. It is really a great marketing tool
October 28, 2008 at 5:36 pm
I didn’t think much of Twitter until Tris Hussey was urging people to check it out at ASW, so I signed up… It’s been a great tool. My wife still isn’t a fan.
October 28, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I feel its not working for me ..But by seeing the stats i need to work on it hope it will help to me to convert more traffic
October 28, 2008 at 7:58 am
I really like twitter now. I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about, until I joined.
October 27, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I’m quite impressed with Twitter as it increase my traffic
October 27, 2008 at 8:52 am
Congrats on getting the most out of twitter.
I would like to know where you get those stats from? How can I get them?
October 26, 2008 at 11:05 pm
i felt the same way about twitter at first, then i began to see the big picture and have been an avid fan ever since!
October 26, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Offtopic: wow, the number of comments you’re getting is now insane. These contests are great marketing instruments…
Ontopic: I’m quite impressed with Twitter too. Made me meet a lot of new and interesting people.
October 26, 2008 at 1:02 pm
i have heard so much about this new social bookmarking site (whatever) but it does seem hard to find more people in here right?! and about to increase more traffic, i think its still far away comparing to blogohblog or blogcatalog
October 26, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Yea, by the time I started finding the good things about twitter, a news just happened today! http://tinyurl.com/5jmxcj
October 26, 2008 at 4:54 am
So, Twitter has brought youa lot of traffic and hope it will increase during the time
October 25, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I still have my doubts about twitter, though its good to see there are people who have figured out.
October 25, 2008 at 10:16 am
In addition to the twitter traffic, look at the photoshopdisasters blogspot traffic, the slate, reddit and stumbleupon traffic. You da master !! How did you make that happen?
October 25, 2008 at 6:10 pm
yea that is a lot of traffic from social book marks, its amazing to see they generate so much traffic
October 25, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Wow, Slate really brought him a lot of traffic. I just saw the article and it just had a link to Shoemoney and talked about his big Adsense check.
October 25, 2008 at 4:49 am
i’ve been using twitter sporadically for a few months now, i’m still trying to wrap my head around it. i don’t attend many conferences, so that aspect wouldn’t serve me too well. i am reluctant to tweet my blog posts as i have a twitter plugin on the site and, well, it just looks kinda stupid when it appears there, basically advertising what’s already on the page. maybe i need to kill that plugin.
October 25, 2008 at 3:40 am
Twitter has done wonders for one of my sites. The traffic it gets from there is insane.
October 25, 2008 at 12:41 am
Hello,
I refused to join Twitter and just recently did, e.g. this week. A great way to stay in touch. I use the Blackberry application that updates my facebook status too, saving me time and I can update more people at the same time
Did you check out the add on to Firefox? Like Sage, a nice little tool to twitter whilst surfing the web, sharing links and sites instantly.
Thanks for the article, I definitely like Twitter – long it may last
Volker
October 24, 2008 at 11:10 pm
I am starting my twitter account tomorrow. I need sleep for now. I worked on my blog for 10 hours today :^)
October 24, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Twitter is great. I love it… and it will just keep getting better. It has definitely helped my overall business online.
October 24, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Referring to you IM take…it’s kind of like an answering machine for IM. Also, if you use a 3rd party client like twhirl, you can manage multiple accounts very easily for marketing purposes.
October 24, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I’m the dude that sent you the shoemoney twitter account. I figured it might be a good idea to reserve it for you as there are a lot of fakes out there.
Now I’m starting to think that drop.io is da bomb… check it out:
http://www.drop.io/shoemoney
I’ll send you the password so you can monkey around with it.
October 24, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I was overly inspired by this post and we launched a twitter contest of our own over at our site.
Good Stuff Jeremy.
October 24, 2008 at 1:35 pm
okay, finally jumped on the twitter bandwagon – check out the feed at http://twitter.com/EADFL
Momma
feature blogger at Engineer a Debt Free Life
http://engineeradebtfreelife.blogspot.com/
October 24, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Here’s a list of 218 Twitter links: http://delicious.com/twitterfaves
October 24, 2008 at 11:47 am
So its safe to say your a fan of twitter? Twitter is definitely an amazing tool and is much more than just a communication tool as shoemoney explained above.
Thanks for the tips shoe they were right on the money…lol..yes that was corny.
October 24, 2008 at 1:38 pm
That was corny, especially coming from the Twitter Man
October 25, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Yup, def a corny joke… Seriously, so corny…
October 24, 2008 at 10:40 am
Been signed up for Twitter for months and still haven’t used it….but want to!
What are the best widgets/add-ons for various devices/browsers?
October 24, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Twhirl is a client that you can download instead of visiting the site, it has a lot of good features.
October 24, 2008 at 8:59 am
I am glad you posted this…I have been trying to explain to some non-SEM friends why Twitter isn’t stupid!
October 24, 2008 at 8:46 am
I’ve had a twitter account for awhile but just recently started tweeting frequently, and I’ve been noticing the increase in traffic as well. Besides forums where I am an active poster, twitter has some of the best stats, with a low bounce rate and high time on the site.
October 24, 2008 at 8:34 am
So, the readers are more interested and new to your site, thats cool. I think twitter is a good way to send out interesting blasts too. Just dont go all Chris Brogan on us and start sending tweets 20 times a day..
October 24, 2008 at 8:29 am
I haven’t found that twitter is a big traffic source yet, but I’m under 200 followers at this time.
The greatest thing about twitter is connecting me real-time to A-List Bloggers. Until I was on Twitter, I was really out of the loop.
For me, Twitter is the only way I can connect with like-minded people all over the world and virtually watch over the shoulder of hundreds of the best online bloggers, PPC masters, podcasters and videocasters.
Twitter lets me create my own University!
http://www.twitter.com/douglaslampi
October 24, 2008 at 8:26 am
The best piece on twitter I’ve read so far – and I totally agree with you. The quality of the generated traffic is great, and it’s a great “virtual mouth-to-mouth-tool” as well.
October 24, 2008 at 7:50 am
I think now all you need to look for new ways to traffic. -)
October 24, 2008 at 8:28 am
That didn’t make much sense to me at all.
October 24, 2008 at 7:20 am
Twitter is a fantastic thing, I am hooked on it, abit more than I should be, but it does drive alot of traffic to your blog, which is definately a good thing.
October 25, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Yup, I didn’t get twitter for the longest time, but now I’m hooked!
October 24, 2008 at 7:06 am
Great post. Thanks for the tip on Google Analytics.
October 24, 2008 at 7:04 am
I just got back from Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin and now have a huge stack of business cards and new friends through Twitter. It was crazy sitting a packed room listening to a speaker and seeing tons of people tweeting about the lecture. It really showed me further proof of the power of Twitter.
http://twitter.com/lostinsweden
October 24, 2008 at 6:50 am
I have been using twitter but haven’t really get traffic from it.
October 24, 2008 at 8:28 am
It really depends on how many followers you have, and how responsive they are.
October 24, 2008 at 6:27 am
Twitter may come in real good action if you have lot of followers. How to increase the no. of followers? Is there any secret? If you are very famous( like Shoe ) then its not a problem to get big number of followers but what about normal people like me?
October 24, 2008 at 5:48 am
I’ve only got 77 followers but I do like twitter. I find that if I ask an @ question, I often get a reply, however if I ask an open question to everyone I never get a reply. Guess I need more followers. Traffic from twitter is still really low volume. Those figures you’ve got are amazing.
October 24, 2008 at 5:25 am
Pls why is everybody talking about twitter here and there. I have heard of it but I don’t know how useful it is. I find it difficult to understand what it does on their site. I will be happy if anyone can just simplify twitter’s importance in my blog. I tried to figure it out. But it won’t just come
October 24, 2008 at 8:29 am
You have to experience it to understand it!
October 24, 2008 at 5:24 am
I first thought tweeter was one complicated IM to use, it just seemed too extreme for my liking. I signed up, but still not using it.
When I have the time I’ll explore it, thanks to this article. Now it sounds a quite interesting and not so complicated.
October 24, 2008 at 5:25 am
correction: “twitter”
October 24, 2008 at 3:36 am
Huh- I too have been struggling to get what’s the big deal with Twitter. Your post has helped me understand a lot better. Looks like I need to give it a more serious look. Thanks for the explanation!
October 24, 2008 at 3:34 am
Daym..i am whooping ass .. but only make $30/day from stupid adsense with its 0.80 eCPM
here is the stat :p
http://i36.tinypic.com/2cdierc.jpg
October 24, 2008 at 2:11 am
I guess it’s easy to be successful on Twitter (having a lot of followers) if you’re already very well known. I think it might be more interesting to read a story from some chap who nobody knew before he got on Twitter.
October 24, 2008 at 1:25 am
I had like 3 friends on twitter. Now I only have one. Just use it for updates on my site with the twitter-box.
October 24, 2008 at 12:09 am
Very very nice. The power of twitter. I never thought that twitter can make this kind of quality traffic.
October 24, 2008 at 12:04 am
Twitter helps my blogs get more visitors. Some of my followers are my blogs’s readers. When they see that I have posted new posts, they will go to my blogs and read new posts.
October 24, 2008 at 8:29 am
It kind of works like RSS or Email in that sense.
October 24, 2008 at 12:02 am
Twitter is awesome
October 23, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Twitter is great and I receive information fast on it. But I have to filter much of it with a program like tweetdeck to get ride of the noise
October 23, 2008 at 10:49 pm
I’ve only just started scratching the surface of twitter, but compared to other social media outlets the ability to communicate with and interact with other people in web development/SEO/SEM/etc is amazing.
October 23, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Sounds like a interesting and great tool to increase traffic to my blog, will definitely try it out and see if it does help.
October 23, 2008 at 10:30 pm
I am still trying to figure Twitter. Great application for the tech world, but when you are not blogging for bloggers, what is the use? I am not saying nay, but still looking for use. I have over 900 people in my address book, and when I signed for Twitter, only two were found with Twitter accounts. That leaves me finding new people on Twitter. Not a bad idea, just that with all the other things I am doing online, is this a good use of time? With MySpace, Facebook, Delicious, Stumbleupon, etc. is Twitter worth the effort?
October 23, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Maybe you should put your twitter link up somewhere on your website and tell your visitors that you have a twitter account so they can start following you. With Twitter every time you post a new blog post you can quickly update your followers by linking to it in your Twitter updates. Maybe if you’re doing a live stream or something of that sort you can just update your Twitter and notify your visitors and then they will come right away.
October 24, 2008 at 7:53 am
This is a good idea. However, I think that in addressing this problem is helping the popularity of the blog.
October 23, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Gosh, guess I will have to experiment more with Twitter and see what results it brings!
Momma
feature blogger at Engineer a Debt Free Life
http://engineeradebtfreelife.blogspot.com/
October 23, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Twitter is also great if you have aproblem and it is eas to do a global search and find info or ask a question and someone you never tweeted with before jumps in to assist. Terribly addicting. have to set limits.
October 23, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Twitter is definitely good, I use it recreationally but should really invest more time into it as a marketing tool..
October 23, 2008 at 9:33 pm
I also didn’t understand what the fuss was about with Twitter and resisted until shortly before BlogWorld. Now I am hooked! Hope to add some more twitter friends – http://www.twitter.com/asktheboater
October 23, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Better get an action plan for twitter. Those stats for traffic from twitter make my mouth water..
October 23, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I honestly don’t really get Twitter, but I think it is interesting none the less. Better to be prepared than not.
October 23, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Twitter is a hoot…
October 23, 2008 at 8:14 pm
unless I start some popular website in the future, I don’t plan on using twitter. It just seems like a waste of time, i’ll update my status on facebook instead of twitter… I can’t believe how this idea has taken off. Weird
October 23, 2008 at 8:11 pm
“people I partied with met at conferences and followed them”
Jeremy, seriously, if your in town, I would like to have a beer with you. All joking a side, I will even buy it for you.
October 23, 2008 at 7:53 pm
The coolest thing about twitter for me is the fact that I am able to follow the big dogs in my niche as well as blogging as a whole. It’s great to see how they think and often there are special tweets they do that aren’t even posted on their site.
October 23, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Wow that is a lot of visitors from twitter, I never knew it was so good
October 23, 2008 at 6:44 pm
I have just started using Twitter and appreciate the analysis.
October 23, 2008 at 6:39 pm
I also just started using twitter, and I’m getting a lot of traffic from it.
October 23, 2008 at 7:36 pm
That is great to hear that you are getting traffic from it, its really great
October 23, 2008 at 9:33 pm
That should only grow
October 23, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Twitter is not a really great source of traffic for me but it is a great way to get instant traffic! I recently started using it and always post my updated posts whenever I make a new post on my website. I see instant traffic from Twitter coming to my website. It’s a great way to keep your users updated.
October 23, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I am still yet to figure out Twitter to make it really work. I guess a lot of it is just getting things built up on it. I am sure there are many tricks I am missing but to see the amount of traffic you are getting from it I might want to revisit it.
October 24, 2008 at 1:39 pm
In my opinion the more active you are on it the more followers you get.
October 23, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Have had a twitter account since June and have never used it. Your posts on the subject may encourage me to play with it some and see what happens. Thanks.
October 23, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I still do not get twitter. I tried adding a few of big names but i had to drop them it was too much noise for me.
October 23, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I got a tiwtter account but I was wondering the whole time how people could use it but you told me
October 23, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Shoe, you say ‘For the first month I was using the website only’, what do you use now?
October 24, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Probably a downloadable client such as Twhirl.
October 23, 2008 at 5:17 pm
So have you used twitter vision?
That is a cool waste of time !!!
October 23, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I love twitter wish to get more subscribers.
October 23, 2008 at 9:34 pm
What is your twitter handle? Mine is asktheboater
October 24, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Mine is linkersblog, for some reason I chose my blogs name over my real name!
October 23, 2008 at 5:11 pm
The problem with these “social” sites is getting friends, followers, buddies, whatever you want to call them. If you’re already a mega rock star like Jeremy here, then no matter what social site you use, people are going to flock to be on your “Friends” list. But for the mere mortals who want to use Twitter as a way to get our sites in front of people, getting the initial flux of people to “follow” you is the obstacle. Same with Digg. If you can get 5000 friends, you’ll get 300-400 Diggs on everything you post. But how do you get those friends? That’s the million dollar question.
October 23, 2008 at 6:38 pm
You just need to be yourself and provide value.
October 23, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Yeah that’s good advice..(by the way, I borrowed your belowabuck idea for the site in my name, just put a different twist on it. Hope that’s cool.
October 23, 2008 at 7:09 pm
I agree with this tip but you still have to get yourself noticed and own a big website/blog to get a lot of followers.
Now if you want a massive amount of followers like Shoemoney will be getting by January just follow what he does. Launch some sort of contest that will make people promote your Twitter account and have people follow it.
October 23, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I use Twitter lightly to keep in contact with clients casually, but I didn’t know the search functionality was able to query to such a specific level.
Guess you learn something new everyday
October 23, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Twitter advice..
Follow people you find interesting even if they don’t follow you back (the more than likely won’t) you still learn new things and could possibly make a good future contact.
Don’t be afraid to @ reply those big name people ie Shoemoney
when you do have a reply to make they may not reply back but that doesn’t mean that they don’t see your reply and who knows they may reply and you become friends 
twitter.com/driftermama
October 25, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Uhhmm… i am not sure but your avatar is great…
October 23, 2008 at 4:38 pm
You only get good contacts depending on your “STATUS”
-Mike
October 24, 2008 at 2:24 am
That’s probably true, but anyone has the option of following these ‘good contacts’ so if you have something really good you can @ message them.
March 4, 2009 at 11:02 am
Yes.. It True.. I agree with you.
October 23, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Shoe, you still have me blocked on Twitter. I’m wanting to send you some fleece jackets for Free Shirt Friday, but I can’t communicate with you man.
@chrisjacobson
October 23, 2008 at 3:54 pm
The networking side of twitter is awesome. I don’t think I have enough followers to really make a different in my web traffic. But then again, I also don’t tweet every time I update my web page. I think I’ll start doing that.
FWIW I’m at http://www.twitter.com/rafaelmarquez
October 23, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Great post. Thanks for the tip on Google Analytics. I’ve been trying to figure out how to interpret all those numbers, trying to figure out what a good bounce rate was or how to value time spent on site, etc.
October 23, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I still don’t get it. Perhaps it is because I know (actually know, like in person) almost no one who knows anything about social media.
October 23, 2008 at 9:34 pm
So then network with other like minded people online? It is a very wide web, so there are def others like you that you can get help from.
October 24, 2008 at 2:22 am
So true, I’ve found so many people who are interested in the exact same things as me.
October 23, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I am going to have to sit down and give twitter a serious look. See what kind of benefits it has for my industry.
October 23, 2008 at 11:45 pm
Simply ask yourself what benefits YOU have to others, business or personal.
So the same way you might approach someone in person, you sort of do that in Twitter.
Business-wise, you come at it from the perspective of ‘how can I help or offer value?’.
October 23, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Great post! Love the search syntax! I did not get twitter for a while either.
I found that putting twitterific app on my iphone made it for me.
I also searched all the things that interested me and followed everyone who was following people interested in what I was interested in. what?
October 23, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Hi Shoe-
First timer on your blog…looks great!
I am relatively new to Twitter as well but see that it is working to deliver some pretty high quality traffic. No where near what you are getting yet, but well on my way.
October 23, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Shameless self promotion. twitturls.com. We’ve seen the api feed numbers continue to ramp through the summer. It just continues to grow.
October 23, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Wow. My twitter grade is 93, but I never see numbers like that as referals from twitter. I’d be interested in hearing how you’re using Twitter to drive traffic to your site!
October 23, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I love Twitter. It is a great tool to drive traffic and I like conversing with people on it, and answering questions.
However, one question for you Jeremy, what statistics software do you use to keep track of the traffic on your site? It looks like a great tool! Is it free?
Thanks a million!
October 23, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I was also very slow to jump on the Twitter bandwagon. But I’ve found it extremely useful for getting instant feedback on projects. Plus, Twitter Search is a fantastic tool to see which topics people are buzzing about.
October 23, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I can’t stand people that make like 5 tweets in less than 30 mins, I just click unfollow.
October 23, 2008 at 5:14 pm
It can get easily distracting when people abuse Twitter like that. I wish there was some sort of “karma” ranking on Tweets so you can only get the ones others judged to be worthwhile.
I’d even compromise on the instant nature of the updates by a 15-30mins just so others can rank the Tweet for me and then Twitter can filter it for me.
October 24, 2008 at 2:21 am
If people are doing five things that are ‘update worthy’ then I see no problem in that.
November 8, 2008 at 3:21 am
True. However, for arbritrary tweeting, what would the socially acceptable quantity per hour or half four be?
October 23, 2008 at 2:44 pm
The networking opportunities that I have gotten from twitter are amazing! In under a couple of weeks I have gotten a handful of A-List bloggers to agree to be on a beta testing team for my new project, and I am certain that there is no way I could have done that with out twitter!
November 8, 2008 at 3:19 am
Your point well taken! The power and potential of twitter is quite remarkable. The IM aspect to a select audience without the annoyance factor is definitely a plus.
October 23, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I hardly use twitter but I love how I can use twitter feed to send my latest blog posts which always gets nice hits/traffic.
October 23, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Great post; I was wondering when you’d do this one. Still doesn’t tell me how to get @shoemoney to follow @domainpubber but you haven’t said move along yet so I’m still hopeful
October 23, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I too have seen the twitter light, now if I could only get people to follow because THEY want to.
October 23, 2008 at 2:49 pm
From my experience the only way you can get folks to follow you, is if you provide quality off-twitter content that folks think might spill over into your twiiter account, so in other words keep building your base offline and give that base your twitter details every chance you get.
October 23, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I’m officially a month in to using twitter on a daily basis… Everyday I learn a little bit more about how people use it and how it can be an effective promotion tool as well.
I can’t wait to see what I know after month 2.
Dr. Ben
@benadkins (btw)
October 23, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I bashed on twitter for so long…Now I think I like it and it’s full of potential.
October 24, 2008 at 2:20 am
Lol, you joined all the people who at first thought 140 words was a big waste of time, but now can’t get away from it.
October 23, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Twitter has been pretty big in sending traffic to my site. It has become one of my top 5-10 source of traffic – and as you said it is a good quality traffic.
October 23, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Twitter definitely seems to be one of those things that from the outside looking in does not appear to bring much value to the table. Once you try it though you start to realize how wrong you were in thinking that and how much value it really can bring you.
I thought this until I got my iPhone and installed the twinkle application and it went from there.
October 23, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Twitter, like any online tool, is only as good as what you put into it. I use it for many reason but the greatest benefit is twofold: expansion of my social network and by following “industry experts” I am constantly learning new things.
@khawe
October 23, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Twitter is definitely an amazing networking tool and I agree with Peter that the solution space it opens up is fabulous. I’m still learning how to use the various search, tags, and aggregation possibilities with Twitter. The sheer volume of potentials is a little overwhelming at first so I’m building up a dash-board slowly to ensure I understand each step. Definitely an exciting part of social media.
October 23, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Twitter traffic hasn’t been as good for me, but the networking has been great.
October 23, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Count me in as one of the “never been to shoemoney.com before” and retweeted one of your blog post tweets, all because I follow you on Twitter.
StumbleUpon is still my #1 with 6,896 visits, followed by Twitter at 1,549 visits.
October 23, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I’m pretty impressed with the large amount of new readers he’s getting via Twitter and the quality of those users (such as yourself).
I might have to reconsider Twitter as another viable traffic source once I am comfortable with it to market.
October 24, 2008 at 2:19 am
Stumbleupon is also my top referer, and I’m not even active there!
October 23, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Thanks for sharing.. even i has started using twitter to promote my blog .. and have got a good nos of followers .. as in your in your case.. now twitter is second highest referer to my site , followed by digg.. Now since twits are delivered instantly .. i need not bother bout sending crap newsletter etc..
October 23, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Twitter has been one of the key factors in flooding my blog with traffic. If it weren’t for Twitter, I probably wouldn’t be as far along with my blog as I am.
October 23, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Could you share with us your traffic levels and how much Twitter contributes to that count?
Also, are you referring to the blog at “steven-sanders.com” ?
October 23, 2008 at 5:59 pm
I agree, I have had substantial traffic from Twitter especially since I installed the Twitter auto update plug-in for WP
October 24, 2008 at 2:18 am
I don’t seem to be achieving /great/ results from Twitter, probably because I don’t follow anyone unless they follow me first though..
October 23, 2008 at 2:10 pm
feeling a bit like emperor palapatine
October 23, 2008 at 2:20 pm
hahah
October 23, 2008 at 5:08 pm
The article on Wikipedia on Emperor Palpatine is scarily comprehensive for a fictional character.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palpatine )
October 25, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Great words.
October 23, 2008 at 2:10 pm
In addition to the things you’ve mentioned, I’ve found a number of good tips and information through the people I’m following on Twitter. It’s easier to post a link referencing to something interesting on Twitter than it is to write a blog post about something. I think it makes information in general flow much quicker than even blogging, IMing, emailing, etc, has.
October 23, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Shoe, I was like you a few weeks ago…didn’t understand Twitter at all. Now, I cannot claim myself to be an expert, but whoa, was I missing out.
Twitter is awesome for all the reasons you named, but the networking is incredible. Whenever I have a problem or an issue, I tweet it out to the Twitter Nation and almost all the time they come back with answers or conversation that I need to move to the next level.
I don’t know what I did be fore twitter, but now I am hooked.
LOL, I got to this post from your Twitter broadcast, so it is working!
Keep it coming!
October 24, 2008 at 2:17 am
Oh yes, me and Freddie can both agree it is great for networking purposes.
October 24, 2008 at 8:42 am
I concur. I didn’t start with twitter until last week. Now I am addicted to it and spend too much time on it. But in just 1 week I have met new people and gotten to know some other even better than I did before.
October 23, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Shoemoney,
I came to the same realization. I had discovered Twitter in April of 2007 at Web2.0 and thought it was a huge waste of time. But, when you start to realize the value of sharing information with the brightest minds in internet marketing, you begin to realize the potential of this thing. Now, I’m like a twitter crackhead.
Thanks for this great writeup… that I found via twitter.
http://twitter.com/teedubya
Travis Wright
October 24, 2008 at 11:20 am
its like a quick way to ask questions to your personal network. I read an ebook about tweets and it has changed my approach to it all. I don’t remember where I found the book but it basiclly says that let people know what you are doing more than telling them what you are doing. Meaning….like shoe said. if you put a blog up then let them know about it and put an eye catching “NeW BLOG PoST — “How to make your exgirlfriend hate her new husband” http://www.storyboardlife.com
HERE’S ANOTHER POINT!!! i DON’T EVER USE TINYURL. REASON: because the post I just let everyone know about it on the front page. Let your followers get to know your url. Do not let them work for it. Know one likes to work for anything they are unsure about. WELL,
October 24, 2008 at 11:23 am
WELL…that’s not true maybe in relationships we will work hard for something we aren’t even sure about and then wonder why we didn’t see what we should have seen. Oh, well. I will also invite people to make comments on the tweet as well as my status on FB.
I’M IN THE BEGINNING STAGES OF THIS SO IF YOU GO BY MY SITE YOU WONT SEE MANY COMMENTS. BUT YOU COULD IF YOU WANTED TO.
THANKS SHOE
October 23, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I’m seeing the same thing in log reports. Twitter and tweet related sites are sending good traffic. btw I’m really looking forward to your new followers and my Macbook pro.
October 23, 2008 at 2:23 pm
never gonna get to 15k before jan 1 my money is safe
October 23, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Hey Jeremy, you never know. You’re pretty popular. Someone should run a contest to help promote Jeremy’s contest and his twitter account. That way someones more likely to get that macbook.
October 24, 2008 at 11:07 am
Yeah, I just went on Twitter and was confused as to how the site actually works. Don’t you have to ask people to be your friend or something? Just like you I thought the site was weak and stupid, but after this post, I might go ahead and give it a second look.
October 24, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I Just had another thought. Dang you used twitter for 4 months? I usually get bored and move on the the next social site. Twitters interface just looks to boring to me for me to stay interested. Next!
October 23, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Jeremy – if we help you it is possible, but I want that new Macbook!
October 23, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Ha ha ,that stands to be proven..
October 23, 2008 at 9:47 pm
I still dont know, how twitter can bring traffic
do we need to paste our urls when twittering ?
October 24, 2008 at 12:05 am
But if you make 15.000 this means your traffic will be increased very
much and more traffice means more money and maybe who knows you will make 3 macbook money with these new followers. And we are the
power of shoemoney. Just wait:)
November 8, 2008 at 3:16 am
Hmmmm, you are the programming and stats guru, so what are your projections, I wonder? This seems like the ultimate popularity contest!
November 2, 2008 at 4:46 am
Lol.. so am I!
November 8, 2008 at 3:07 am
Love analytics! The stats don’t lie, and those figures are pretty impressive. Your amount of traffic from social networks is really good, all told!
October 24, 2008 at 12:41 am
Twitter helps me in finding and collecting specimens or just finding a good meal.
Hahahahahaha