NETWORKING YOUR WEBSITE: A Twitter Case Study

Networking Your Website

by Rita Wilhelm

I love meeting and networking with people in online communities. Just the other day, I met a fascinating person in Sweden by the name of Stefan Svartling on a social network called SocialMedian. We were both commenting on an article that someone clipped about using Twitter.

Stefan is a very active Twitter user. You can view his profile at http://twitter.com/svartling . At the time of this article, he has 1,343 people that he is following, 1,418 people that are following him, and he has a whopping 6,640 tweets! ( Just think about how many tweets that is in a given day!)

Many folks who use Twitter, have a disproportionate number of people who they follow, as compared to those that are following them. This typically means that they are just going out and trying to follow every Tom, Dick and Harry they can find, in hopes that people will start following them. So, Stefan's statistics are certainly worthy of noting. I was very pleased when Stefan agreed to be interviewed. I think you’ll learn a lot from him.

Here’s the interview:

Stefan, Can you tell me a little bit about your business?

I have three brands on the net, Svartling, Clipotech and PRYLINFO. They are all networks of websites and search engines that I market in different ways.

My most important brand is Clipotech. It's both a Tech Blog Network & a searchable KnowledgeBase. I have worked on the search engine for around four years, where I have "handpicked" every website in the search index to control the quality of it. It is now indexing around 11,000,000 pages!

Wow! That’s impressive. Can you tell us more about your KnowledgeBase?

My KnowledgeBase is made with Google Custom Search. I add new websites continuously (only English or Swedish). By using this search engine you are guaranteed to only find quality information and no spam and other junk. You can also refine the search results by clicking on one of the categories. For example "Knowledge" or "Gadgets".

You can say that this KnowledgeBase is filtering the web for the user so they don't have to!

What made you decide to use Twitter to help you market your business?

I joined Twitter in 2007, but I didn't "get it" at that time, so I put it on "autopilot" via TwitterFeed with almost no followers at all. In August 2008 I had a look at it again and started to use it for real. I found out early that it was perfect for marketing my brands, so I started to Tweet links to both my websites and to "Knowledge" search results from my KnowledgeBase.

For example if I tweet about a new Social Network service, I also put a link to my KnowledgeBase to find more info about the service. Many followers click on my links and visits my websites to read more information about what I tweeted.

How has using Twitter impacted your business?

My "Knowledge" links works really well, and I had many positive comments about it. I've got many more visitors and users because of this. Google is not the only traffic source anymore. Twitter is almost as good for my sites.

Are your Tweets all business tweets, personal tweets, or both?

I tweet both business and personal tweets because you need to interact and be personal on Twitter to succeed. You cannot go on "Autopilot" and think that you get many followers. You need to talk to your followers.

Since I stopped using Twitterfeed and started to interact, I've got over 1000 users. That in only six months!

Tell me about your daily Twitter routine.

I use Twitter all the time. Most of the day I tweet from my iPhone via the Twitter App Tweetie (here I would put a "Knowledge Link" from Clipotech if it had been a tweet or blog post :) ). This combination makes it possible to tweet wherever you are and whenever you have the time.

From the iPhone I scan through my 800 RSS Feeds in Google Reader for something interesting to tweet. I also scan through my Twitter stream after good tweets to ReTweet (RT). Twitter is brilliant as a news feed. Therefore it's important to follow people with the same interests.

When I'm behind a computer I use Feedly to find interesting news to tweet. I think Feedly is great because it integrates Google Reader with both Twitter and FriendFeed in a very productive way. It's really easy to tweet directly via Feedly.

I use Twhirl as a Twitter client on the computer, I think it's awesome in many ways and it makes me more productive than with other Twitter clients.

What other social networks do you frequently use in addition to Twitter?

I use FriendFeed a lot, both as a lifestream service and as a communication tool. SocialMedian is another service I use. Not as much as the other, but I think it's a great service.

What 3 tips would you give someone who would like to start using Twitter as a marketing tool?

1. Be engaging and interactve. That way you build up a great community with trusty followers
2. Don't use auto DM's (automated direct messages). They are really annoying and unpersonal.
3. ReTweet a lot. It’s a great way to get many followers, because all users wants to be ReTweeted.

Thanks for sharing your tips with us Stefan. We have learned a lot from you.

Rita Wilhelm is founder and president of SnapMonkey Inc, which is a company that provides both online marketing consulting to businesses, as well as easy-to-use web-based technologies to help businesses effectively promote themselves on the web.

___________________________________________________________

Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER. To subscribe for your free newsletter, go to http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/. For the complete National Networker Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free, continuous RSS feed (available either by traditional RSS or by direct email), go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com/. You are also invited to click our buttons:

Forward/Share This Article With Colleagues And Social Media:

NETWORKING YOUR WEBSITE: A Twitter Case Study