In great social media fashion, we all use Twitter in our own unique way. Use of Twitter often includes the use of many Twitter-related web applications. This means applications that are Web-based, and that we use to manage functions of our Twitter use. There are many great tools for finding people with common interests, finding people based on geography, scoring users’ perceived usefulness, arranging tweetups, viewing and sending tweets, and more. In many cases, we are blessed by brilliant visionaries who saw a need and got to work to provide a new tool to help us.
Help Create a List of Twitter Applications
I want to hear what you think. As many of my readers already know, I will soon launch my new book, “Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends“ to help people to gain a greater understanding and value from their use of Twitter. In order to make it as useful and up-to-date as possible, I am calling on you to share your experience with the many Web-based applications available today. I hope to review and use your suggestions in my book.
Please add your comment to this blog post and include the name of the service, the Web address, and your Twitter username. Please include your Twitter account in the form of http://twitter.com/username, and not just @username.
PLEASE NOTE: What I am seeking here is strictly Web-based applications and not desktop applications. Click here for my survey of other Twitter applications.
I have seen many reports of application usage with Twitter, but since I will be releasing a new book on the topic of Twitter very soon (“Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends“), I am seeking some data of my own. Many reports show massive use of the Twitter Website, with TweetDeck coming in second. I have a suspicion that my figures may vary simply for the fact that many users I tweet with tend to be very active and engaged users of Twitter. So let’s find out. Please take this very simple poll to answer what you use the most for sending and receiving your Twitter updates. If you use the Twitter Website, please answer “Other”, but what I am really after here is the popularity of each Twitter application produced outside of Twitter. I welcome your comments here on the blog.
What best describes your use of Twitter?
While I have you here, I am also interested to know which of the answers below best describes your use of Twitter. This is not intended to be a comprensive list of reasons for using Twitter. I simply want to know which best describes your usage.
I hope you can relate to this recognition of friends the way I do. When I think about the friends I meet through social networking, it brings a mental image. The particular friends that come to mind at any moment change based on my mood, or based on things around me. If I feel comical, I may think of friends who make me laugh, and if I feel intellectual, I may think about friends who make me think. These friends are a part of my life, just as much as the friends I see for lunch, or for coffee at my favorite coffee shops. These relationships deserve my attention, and when my attention to them is lessened by other things around me it can feel a bit awkward.
I would like you try and recall some of the friends you have made with which somehow the communication has faded in time. Perhaps you cannot recall why, or you had little control over the circumstances, but the communication has slowed down. One instance that comes to mind is a good friend, Jeff. I used to spend more time riding motorcycles with Jeff. Since my work has been in overdrive all year, and with a newborn baby in the house, I have not spent much time on my chopper, which is one of my favorite hobbies. We still talk now and then, but there is a kind of disappointment that we surely must remedy with a good road trip. I am still Jeff’s good friend, but life got in the way temporarily. Another reversed example is my good friend, Mike. Mike is a state legislator, and while he is in session, he becomes really busy. We still talk often, but with our busy lives it can become far too easy to lack communication. Fortunately, I spent much of my day yesterday helping Mike with a project, followed by a cookout at my home with our wives and children. It was a real treat!
How I Was a Bad social Networker
So how have I been a bad social networker? Similar to the instances above, I feel that I have neglected many of my friends here at my blog, and also Twitter, Ustream, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networking sites. This is something I always try to warn people against. After all, if you have invested your time in a relationship only to neglect it, it is worse than never having forged these relationships at all.
Why I have Been Bad
I have tried to make my excuse obvious, and I hope that people will understand. If you feel like I have neglected you, I want to be sure you know why.
On Sunday 10 May, I decided to write a book. A number of people have asked me to write it, and I believe I have a good message to share, so I decided to go for it. Since it was Mother’s Day, I did not begin the book that day, but rather I would begin on Monday the 11th. I decided to finish writing the book that week. That’s right, I wrote a book in a week! If you have ever written a book, you can surely understand how my days went. It was a big job, but I got it done. The reason I decided to write it in a week was to minimize the time I would be away from my social networks.
So the book is done? Well, not entirely done, but the initial writing is done. The book is now in a second round of editing, and it is all looking very good. I have two highly experienced editors combing through the book, and both of them have been very flattering to me. It should not be surprising that there is a whole lot more to producing a book than just writing the initial content.
What is This Book About?
The book is about practical use of Twitter and includes many tools for buliding relationships for both business and friendships. The title is “Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends”. I feel very confident that this book will be a valuable resource for new and experienced Twitter users alike. I will provide a more in-depth review of the book soon.
When Does the Book Come Out?
I will let you know more very soon, but I anticipate having the book in print and available for sale within the next two or three weeks.
I Miss My Friends!
I miss my friends and the many engaging moments that we share. I promise to be back to my regular blogging, Tweeting, Facebooking, and etcetera, very soon! I hope that if you should choose to read my book, that it will make up for the time I have neglected you, and that you will forgive me. 🙂
Do you really think that sending a virtual wall of Twitter usernames at everybody you know is going to be read? This may help you to realize a bit of what you may not have known about the Twitter hashtag #FollowFriday. First, you should know that retweeted FollowFriday endorsements do not count, but if you don’t know what I mean by that, you should read the rest of this before you send a single FollowFriday tweet.
Where FollowFriday Began
FollowFriday began as an idea for endorsing other Twitter users who provide value to your network. Here is the blog post showing where it all got started. At the time, surely nobody suspected that it would cause such a clutter for Twitter users each Friday, the way it is today.
How Does FollowFriday Really Work?
In short, the real benefit of FollowFriday only comes if you are heavily endorsed. It is measured, and it is tracked at TopFollowFriday, TweepleRank, and perhaps others. It can surely not be presumed that you should try to follow each Twitter user that comes to you with a FollowFriday hashtag, as that would be impossible. However, I have wondered what relatively new users, or those unfamiliar with these ranking sites must think when they see that wall of names that is circulated each Friday.
Where is FollowFriday Today?
FollowFriday is largely comprised of Spam. I cannot imagine that you do this, but I certainly do not go through each FollowFriday that comes to me and try to frantically follow each one of those great treasures who received an endorsement. I use TweetDeck to filter out the FollowFriday hashtag. Otherwise I would miss all of the important tweets from friends and colleagues that I wish to read.
Maybe some people try to keep up with all of the so-called endorsements, but surely not for very long. There are following limits set by Twitter regarding how many Twitter feeds you can add in a day. Surely nobody who follows many people can even conceivably follow all of those Twitter feeds, much less actually look at each profile to see what they are getting into.
The hard cap set by Twitter allows you to follow 1000 new people per day, and not to exceed 110% of the people following you. If you have under 2000 followers, the cap for following is the greater of 2000 users or 110% of those following you. Understanding this cap as it relates to the volume of FollowFriday spam, you can see how this becomes unsustainable. FollowFriday becomes as much a crap shoot as just choosing from a random selection of Twitter users.
Don’t Retweet FollowFriday Endorsements!
Retweeting FollowFriday endorsements is where the real spam comes in. First, you should know that retweets do not count toward the measure of FollowFriday popularity as I described above.
By following over 11,000 people on Twitter, (and I mean following … if you tweet me, I will see it) I have a pretty good perspective on FollowFriday. Retweets, in my experience, account for about four tweets to each one endorsement. I find from a random sampling of FollowFriday tweets that many of the people presumably endorsing me are not even following me nor do they know a thing about me. How is that an endorsement? It is NOT! That is why I call it spam.
FollowFriday Done Properly
If you want to give somebody a proper FollowFriday recommendation, make it clear. Include why you think they are a good person to follow. Say something clever or meaningful and make it original. If you see a FollowFriday endorsement from me, it may just say something like “Follow Yoon (@yoonhoum) because he is sharp as a pitchfork”.
It is best if you do not include more than one or two, but maximum of three people in your endorsement. Sending a tweet full of usernames will not do your friends any favors, and it will not make you more popular with most people. Please note that with over 20,000 public tweets sent and 1000 direct messages per day, I use Twitter enough to make this observation.
I welcome your FollowFriday endorsement, and I consider a real endorsement an honor. On the other hand, I consider it a disrespect of the purpose of Twitter as a communication tool when I see a huge wave of tweets from people retweeting something they never even reviewed.
Please Share Thoughts on FollowFriday
I want to hear it from you. What do you think of FollowFriday? Has this changed your perspective any? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Share it with the rest of us and leave your comment here on the blog. Also, please be kind to your fellow Twitter user and click here to retweet this.
Nearly anybody with a blog or other Website that is worth reading has heard of Twitter by now. The bloggers who use Twitter efficiently may already have realized some of what I will share here, but from what I have found, many bloggers have not. To say the least, I am shocked just what a small percentage of blog owners and authors are actually using Twitter, and even more shocked by those who are not embracing the synergy the two can produce when used properly. Note that while I say “blog”, this is completely interchangeable with “Website”, so don’t be confused.
Twitter-Improved Traffic: A Simple Example
As a simple example of how Twitter can improve your blog readership, I will use the blog you are presently reading. While looking at my statistics to find how many people arrived at this fledgling blog via Twitter, I found that an estimate of nearly 15,000 unique readers arrived by way of Twitter over the past 30 days. I say estimated because it is challenging to provide an exact number due to the many readers arriving by way of Twitter clients not providing an accurate source (although my numbers will be much clearer in May). This is more than the number of subscribers to my Twitter feed, which is presently just over 11,000 but was far fewer last month (ref TwitterCounter). So how did that happen? In short, people read it, talked about it, and retweeted it.
Blog Traffic Numbers: The Real Scoop
I will write more on this later, but I find that too many people find it convenient to try and lie about the real traffic of their blog. Let’s face it, this stuff is trackable. Some people may say that traffic estimates generated as a result of Twitter is bloated or that it is not so great, but just a simple look at Compete.com or Alexa.com will reveal a lot of what I am telling you. Of course, these are usually a bit behind and do not reflect an exact accounting, but they are usually reasonably close. I share this with you because I want to provide a real example for the purpose of this article.
When considering these numbers, let’s weigh in the facts that this blog was launched in December 2008, and my Twitter account only had 78 followers on February 7th of 2009, and it is a targeted blog about social media marketing and search engine optimization. I am not seeking everybody to read my blog, but rather the right people to read my blog. Be sure to also look at your own blog / Website and review the numbers and percentage of increase. It is pretty eye-opening what Twitter can do when used properly.
The traffic and level of engagement prompted me to question how Twitter has changed blogging. Here are just a few things that i found.
Twitter-Improved Reader Engagement
I will show examples of blog reader engagement separated into three parts, but this remains only one of the three areas of benefit derived from Twitter discussed in this article. There are many ways to determine reader engagement with a Website. Some ways blog authors have traditionally found valuable to measure the reader’s engagement are as follows:
Time on Page: The average time the user spends on a page is a good measure of whether they are actually reading what you have to say. This is clearly subject to the type and length of content you provide, but in any case, readers who are not interested will not stick around very long. A minute is a very long time for many internet readers. What I have found in the measure of time on page is that readers initially engaged by Twitter will spend more time reading my blog, totaling about three minutes per page view. This is a significant increase over users arriving from other sources, and is longer than any other source.
Page Views Per Reader: The number of pages each user visits is a strong reflection of the user’s interest in your industry, beyond the single topic of the initial page they viewed. I have noticed an improved page views per reader coming from Twitter, up .5 page views per reader compared to other sources, which is a significant sign of reaching the right audience.
Blog Comment Volume and Quality: An important measure for the blog author is in how many comments, and the quality of comments the blog post receives. When writing something relating to Twitter, I have witnessed great results for blog comments, on this blog and others. One of my recent blog posts relating to Twitter usernames has received upward of 140 approved comments. I attribute much of this to the fact that many readers already have some knowledge of the author, and are already a part of a conversation. A blog is one way that they find out more information and continue the conversation. I think many bloggers would agree with this finding.
Assessing the reader engagement of Twitter users, both on a blog and on your Twitter feed, can also be measured by the comments received in reply to the posting of the blog link to Twitter. I find that some people will respond to the title of the tweet. It seems that every day I see somebody respond to the text of a tweet in a way that I know without question they have not read the blog post linked to the tweet. A great example of this was when I tweeted a blog post titled “Will Oprah (@oprah) Ruin Twitter?” and I received a lot of comments in defense of Oprah Winfrey’s use of Twitter. That was kind of silly, because the blog discussed the changes that may come from the inevitable increase in traffic and how a large influx of new users may change how we use Twitter. This absurdity should always be considered a measurement of engagement of your Twitter following and not of your blog. What it also points out is that Twitter users who do read your blog are likely truly interested in what you have written. If your Twitter account is managed properly and you spend time to get to know your followers and let them know you, blind comments should largely only happen with your newest followers.
Twitter-Improved Search Engine Optimization
Many search engine optimizers (SEO) will overlook the value of Twitter for improving search engine penetration. If they miss this part, they are making a big mistake. A reason many SEO will dismiss this value is that Twitter uses the “nofollow” attribute in outbound links, thus, no increased Google PageRank. Make no mistake; Twitter can greatly enhance your visibility in search engine results. This can come from many outside factors related to Twitter, as well as Twitter itself. I will just name a couple, but here are some ways SEO is enhanced by using Twitter. First, I should point out that Twitter’s Search is a Search Engine! As more people use Twitter search to find information, using Twitter will help many people to find your information. Aside from just Twitter searches, the likelihood of particular tweets being listed in other search engines referencing a Twitter tweet or one of the many Twitter-related applications along with your link are improved. Be sure to realize that each person who reads your blog also comes with a voice to further spread your blog in many other ways. Thus, each reader who finds your blog in any Twitter-related way has the potential to further propagate your message in search engines as well. It all adds up to make a significant end-result.
Twitter-Improved Call to Action
Along with the added benefits of brand recognition and brand loyalty, comes the greatest benefit of all … an improved call to action. This means that the message you distributed has gone beyond just readership, and the reader has heard and responded to your call to action. In my case, that literally means that they have made a call to reach me and discuss improving their market reach. For you, it may be that they enter their order for your product, apply for a job, donate to a cause, or many other possibilities.
How I measure a greater call to action from Twitter: It has become standard that I speak on the telephone (direct line *REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE*) or on Skype (username murnahan) to a minimum of five different inbound callers per day as a result of Twitter users who also read my blog. In addition to inbound callers, I also call at least five people I meet on Twitter to simply make an introduction and to get to know them better, so this certainly works both ways.
I make it my practice to reach people beyond the singular communication tool of Twitter, and expand my communications to other tools. This means that not only has Twitter greatly impacted my blog readership, it also goes far beyond blogging to reach people I would likely have never met otherwise.
How Does This Apply to You?
Surely some people reading this do not have a blog or Website, and may not have a great importance of reaching out to other people, but I think those numbers are fairly small. Most people who read this have a reason to reach others. If this is the case, you should not neglect the value of Twitter for reaching a very important audience.
Reaching a larger and more valuable audience is what I do for my clients, and what I am paid for. I have found Twitter to be an extremely useful tool. If you are getting frustrated and you want to see better results for your blog or other Website, please reach me to explain how I may help you.
Don’t Just Comment on Twitter!
If you made it this far, I hope that you will give me the honor of reading and responding to your comments right here on the blog. Yes, of course, your comments are also always welcome by way of Twitter, too. Please tell me what you think!
