Twitter, Interrupted

Okay. I admit it.

I dropped the ball in the Twitter department this month.

I’m telling you this because hopefully it will help you avoid making the same mistake I did. Fortunately, this story has a happy ending – and in the grand scheme of things, serves as just another lesson learned.

October got off to a fast start and the site was seeing more new visitors than ever. I was excited by the results and continued to plug away at the content creation portion of the 90-Day Content Marketing Challenge.

And then, it happened.

I got busy.

I’m talking about the kind of crazy busy that makes your head spin. You know what I mean – the kind of busy where you are completely swamped from the time you crawl out of bed in the morning until you drop back into it at night.

THAT kind of busy.

On one hand, I did a good job of keeping up with the content creation portion of the program. I have found that writing is a lot like exercise – once you get going it becomes part of your regular routine.  (I just watch a whole lot less television now ).

However, I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that I hadn’t logged into my Twitter account “for a while,”  but I honestly thought it was like 3 or 4 days – TOPS.

Wrong.

It was more like 18.

What got my attention was I noticed a downward trend in new visitors to the site. Not good.  Not good at all. I knew I was still putting content out there. But had to admit I hadn’t done as good of a job letting others know that it was there.

(Please note: using Twitter (or any other form of Social Media) is NOT a one-way street. At least it shouldn’t be. I kept putting off promoting my articles and posts because I didn’t want to drop in, tweet my own stuff and be gone. It’s important to support your fellow tweeters by sharing their “good stuff” with others, too).

Bottom line – my 18 day hiatus from Social Media (Twitter in particular – but I also post certain articles on LinkedIn, as well) resulted in a significant drop in the  number of visitors (unique and repeat) to the site.

Once I resumed – those numbers bounced right back up and have pretty much stayed there.

This is far from a controlled scientific experiment – but my web stats do show how much volume comes from Twitter-related links. In the interest of transparency, however, I should also note that I DID get a very nice bump from a completely unexpected (and much appreciated!) nod from Lynn Terry. (She included WebCopyResults.com in her list of recommended content-creation resources as a blog to follow!)

At the end of the month, I’ll go into the numbers in more detail.  However, the take-away for now is this: driving traffic to your site with content is a 2 step process:

• Content Creation
• Content Promotion

One without the other just isn’t going to cut it – especially if your site is new.

Til Next Time,

PS Be sure to sign up for the WebCopyResults.com Tuesday Tips (opt-in box in the upper right hand corner!)  Subscribers will receive a FREE report at the end of the 90-Day Content Marketing Challenge detailing all the ins-and-outs of Article Marketing – which directories to use, how to write a GREAT author resource box, and which ones allow you to do what.  Sign Up Today!