This post comes in response to two articles I have read recently: Tech blogging, missing something? at ChristopherMarkSmith.com and the other is How Not to Promote Your Blog: Top 10 Broken Blog Promotion Strategies at ProBlogger.net. In Chris’s article he makes the following point in regards to social media:

The market for using these new types of technologies is still growing and is rather fresh for most companies. Many businesses do not use the social media and web apps at all to market or make their businesses run more efficiently, mostly because no one is laying it out for them in a fun and easy way.

I thought to myself “How can I expound on that? How can I help show people how to use social networking to their advantage?” I pondered over this for a while before realizing “I’m not the best person to do this” as I am a fairly new passenger of the “social networking train” having only recently punched my Twitter and Facebook tickets about 2 months ago. However, blogger Darren Rowse of ProBlogger has started a site for exactly this purpose: Helping people (and businesses) use Twitter effectively.

So what does the second article have to do with this post? As I read through Kevin Geary’s guest post at ProBlogger, I realized that I am guilty of number 4: “Making Twitter all about you and your blog.”. In that point Kevin says

The people who are breaking Twitter (yes, it’s being torn down in terms of value as we speak) are the ones who use it to promote only themselves and only their blog. They’ll throw a retweet out there every once in a while and join in on a #followfriday session, but that’s about it. Their main goal is to drive traffic without adding any value. And who can blame them? It’s free and easy.

If you take a look at my twitter status, you will notice how guilty I am – just how much of a “twitter spammer” I am. So far a mere 2% of traffic to my site has been referrals from Twitter. Obviously I am not using it effectively.

So how am I going to use Twitter effectively? Well first and foremost, I need to follow Kevin’s advice and not make twitter all about me. I have, to this date, not followed one single person that I do not know personally (with the exception of the ESPN follows and Stephen Colbert). So, I need to start following other people in my field/niche first of all. By taking advantage of the information and knowledge that other people posses, I can expand my own knowledge. Secondly, ReTweet something, or lots of somethings. I will shy away from my “twitter spamming” ways though and only ReTweet the content I find useful and worth sharing. Lastly: read, read, read. I will obviously be starting with TwiTip.com as my source for all things Twitter, but will be Scouring the web for more Twitter information to help me become a better tweeter and less of a spammer.

This will be a 2 week experiment on using Twitter effectively and the difference it can have on my site. I will keep track of my referral traffic from twitter, as well as my “following” and more importantly, my “followers” and content of mine that has been “retweeted” during the course of the experiment to see what kind of progress (if any) I will be making. Check back often to see the results of the experiment.

Of course it’s not all about me (as I am learning). What methods have you used to grow your business/site traffic with Twitter? Share with others in the comments below.

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