Increase Profits with Microblogging Through Community Building
- Image via CrunchBase
Are you wondering how to use microblogging to increase your profits? First of all, this concept for me isn’t really about the money - not entirely. I do look at it as a good way to promote my blogs, websites, lenses, and other we 2.0 profiles. But, I thought I’d explore the concept about using microblogging to help us all make more money online.
I’ve been a member of twitter since last summer at around this time. I now have over 1000 tweets and over 200 followers. It’s been a productive year so far. And lately, some of my twitter followers have been tweeting about Plurk - which I’ve come to think of as a site that’s similar to twitter, but with it’s own twists. Those are the only two sites I use for the moment.
What is Microblogging?
MicroBlogging is a form of social networking. People make short updates of around 140 characters throughout the day. You find “followers”, “friends”, and “fans” depending on the site you use. When I first signed up for twitter, my first thought was - why would people care about what I’m doing? When I realized that you could make it fun as well as professional, everyone wins.
Use It to Get Traffic
My top use for microblogging is to use it to help me get traffic. When I write another blog post, I have a routine. I ping it, announce that I wrote it on twitter and plurk, and then stumble and digg it if I think it was particularly good. But of those, microblogging has been the most valuable. The traffic I get from Stumbleupon is a little fleeting. The visitors don’t seem to stay as long, and they rarely comment. The visitors I get from plurk and twitter hang around longer, read the articles, comment, and they’re likely to come back. I do a similar thing for my hubs and squidoo lenses.
Putting Affiliate Links in Your Updates
I’ve heard that some people put the affiliate links they are promoting directly into their updates. I’ve heard of people doing it. I’ve even tried it once or twice - with no results at all. I personally think the best method is to write an article or a blog post about the affiliate product and paste the affiliate link within it. Then, once it’s published, include the link to the blog post or article, not the link.
I think it’s a tacky and unprofessional to put the affiliate URL directly into the updates. So I don’t do it. And frankly, it’s annoying. I don’t mind sharing an original article or website that may have an affiliate link in it, though.
Meet New People
Another valuable thing that microblogging has done for me is help me meet new people - colleagues. As someone who works from home, I miss out on the benefits of conversing and meeting people “at work”. Well, I’ve heard people call these spots a nice “water cooler” and I feel as if that’s accurate, at least when it comes to the social aspect.
If I’m feeling stuck on something, I spend some time on one of the two sites (or both). If I need to ask people a question on what I’m stuck on, such as installing a template or figuring out something else on my blog, I’ll ask my friends on the site. After you build relationships, the people are more likely to respond to you when you share a link, ask someone to stumble or digg your latest article, etc.
What is it that you like the most about twitter, plurk, or any of the other microblogging sites?
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Jan 5th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Great post, Katherine. I use Twitter exactly the same way you do, only not as extensively as you.
Last week I wrote a blog post contrasting and comparing three ebooks about the same topic and I noticed an affiliate sale not long after I ‘tweeted’ the blog post. I’m fairly certain the affiliate sale was a result of the tweet.
Jan 5th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
I saw that post you are referring to - what a great idea to contrast three ebooks like that. Once I finally figured out what twitter is all about, I’ve learned it can be quite powerful.