Yesterday I posted two examples of how some social media numbers are completely useless.
One of the examples was how I have almost 22,000 followers on Twitter, and yet I rarely get 1-2% of them to click on any link I share on Twitter. I said we’d check out my traffic from yesterday and see what level of engagement I would have with those 22,000 followers. Here’s the traffic sites from yesterday according to Google Analytics:
GA says there were 604 visitors here yesterday, 251 from referring sites, 226 direct traffic, and 78 from search engines.
For the record, SiteMeter says I had 597 visitors. I tweeted out a link to yesterday’s post THREE times, and as of this writing, it was RTed 125 times.
And if we say that EVERY one of the 600 or so visitors I had yesterday came from viewing that link on Twitter, that still means that less than 3% of my Twitter followers clicked that link. Obviously, not all of the traffic from yesterday came from Twitter, and not all of the traffic that DID, came from people that were following me.
I think there’s two key takeaways from this that I think we need to wrap our heads around:
1 – The level of engagement you have with your Twitter followers as a group is going to be low, and will likely be inversely proportional to the size of the group. If you only have your 10 closest friends following you, obviously you will have a high level of engagement with that core group. But as you grow to 1,000 followers, obviously you can’t be closely connected to all of those people, and their level of interaction and engagement with you will fall.
2 – The level of engagement you have with a certain portion of your Twitter followers will be MUCH higher than that of the larger group. This point is somewhat speculative, but I would bet that most of the people that clicked yesterday’s link also click most of my links. So while I may have a 1-3% engagement rate with my 22,000 followers as a whole, for those 500 or whatever number followers, I may have a 33% engagement rate. Or some other number much larger than 1-3 % 😉
What do y’all think? Does this make sense or sound like complete crap? I think the core message here is to focus on your ‘fans’, and try to connect with them. If you try to connect with everyone, then you’ll probably connect with no one. But how do you figure out WHO is in that core group of fans, and who isn’t? Or what about people that click some of my links, but not all?
Damn I’m getting a headache.
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I’d also add a point about reach … if you have 125 retweets – and those people have, say 1000 followers each, you could claim reach figures of almost 150,000. But what’s important? Engagement / approval from the 125? An “impression” with that group of 150,000? Or people who go so far as to leave a comment?
It all comes down – for me – to what you’re trying to achieve. If you want reach or awareness, it’s working. If you want recommendation, you’re getting the industry standard response (1-3%).
Gavin you’re right about reach, with 125 RTs, that link on Twitter could have easily been seen by 150K or more.
I think my main sticking point is with the terminology: Followers. Maybe ‘Connections’ would be better, but I understand why Twitter uses the term Followers, because it implies that we have people following us, and are thusly ‘popular’.
I just hope companies understand the distinction as well.
It seems like your conclusions are based on the assumption that every follower is currently online and reading your tweeted links. Some may not even be on Twitter for hours, days, weeks or months at a time. Not everyone “lives” on it.
Those people may care to click your link later or never at all, but since you are basing your conclusion on that particular day of link sharing, you consider them disengaged. They may value your links/opinions/sharing… just not as immediately as you’d expect.
Just a some thoughts. I hope they make sense.
Hey Justin! (Love your toy blog, BTW!)
You’re right about not everyone being on Twitter at the same time, which is why I usually tweet out links to my new posts 3-5 times a day. I tweeted out the link to yesterday’s post 3 times, I believe the 1st was at 9am, the second around noon, and the 3rd was around 4pm.
And to clarify, I watch my blog’s stats religiously. I know what my referral traffic from Twitter has always looked like. I know that the average daily traffic here is 200-300 a day. If i have a REALLY popular post with Twitter, that day’s traffic could spike to 2-4X that, like it did yesterday.
My larger point was that people and especially companies need to have an understanding of exactly what these numbers do and do not represent. 22,000 people ‘following’ me on Twitter might actually mean that only 1-2% will interact with me and my content. I think that’s significant.
Yeah, you are definitely right there. I think there is a misconception of what those numbers truly mean. But unfortunately, that’s what most companies focus on 🙁
I read your posts from my reader and although sometimes I see your tweet go by as well, I’ve usually already read the post.
This is an interesting topic though and may give some companies that have not entered into the social media realm a “see we told you it doesn’t work”. It has, however, worked for my company and I can’t imagine not having some type of social media involvement today. I know the naysayers still exist though, I run in to them occasionally, but I don’t relate.
I do like the idea of more interaction and connection, but I find people are much more open to the idea of connecting with me personally on Facebook rather than Twitter. It may be because I tweet as a company, but it’s still my picture and my name. Or maybe FB is just more suited to connection and interaction. Not sure… Anyway, great post!
Mack:
Maybe Twitter doesn’t drive much traffic, but it’s 2 or 3% more than what you had a few years ago without Twitter. And if Facebook delivers 2 or 3% and then Digg, and StumbleUpon… etc. I think you have to look at it as a incremental group.
Does the day of the week make a difference? Or time of day?
I find I don’t have time for Twitter, reading blogs, commenting and following up on things unless it is before or after work.
Chris
Mack,
those numbers are actually good. I’ve once ordered a tweet from a guy with ~40k followers. I’ve got one click! 🙂
To me Twitter seems like a giant black box, where everybody shouts in and mostly nobody is listening. It’s a really weird box that I won’t understand.
Even if my family were there I’d find it hard to follow with all that noise. It’s gotten a little easier with the lists, but still only a little…
Would more people click Twitter links to your blog if they didn’t come from you? Perhaps link exchanges might make sense… between Twitter users and each other’s blogs.
I find that it depends how many people are on twitter when you tweet. I know that even with tweetdeck, if I turn away for a few minutes, i have missed loads of tweets (and links) and they are off my screen. If they are not on my screen, I don’t go looking.
Twitter for me is a form of connecting and a form of entertainment. It is not a must read of each tweet.
I will launch a provocation here. When you meet someone for the first time, you immediately weight the pros and cons of this meeting, trying to understand if and how it will profit you, or you just play along and relate?
Honestly, I don’t ask myself too much how my 500+ followers are going to relate with me, or how I am going to relate with them. I just play along.
Recently I came to talk a bit with Suzanne Vara, we follow each other’s blog and we shared ideas and views in the comments section of one of her posts at Kherize5. It just happened, I didn’t follow her on Twitter with my mind on her stats. Perhaps I should care *more* about numbers but I can’t really help it.
Susie,
I think you’re right about Twitter not being a must read for most people. Most people don’t have thousands of followers, nor do they want them. When you look at it from THAT perspective Twitter is mostly for ‘connectainment.’ Sorry, I couldn’t help but join the words because we as social humans love the entertainment of connecting with others. Call it conversation or interaction or engagement if you must as a marketer. But for the vast majority of Twitterfolk outside the social media fishbowl, it’s still about finding a way to add more enjoyment to a ball game by sharing, or finding a few more people to trade LOST theories with. If it happens to influence someone to see a movie or select your brand as their new mobile phone, then that’s OK too.
Mack –
Definitely not complete crap. I think this is one reason that being listed on someone’s Twitter List could be the new “promised land” for us Tweeters. It means someone’s willing to filter us out of their feed of thousands, which we all know we’ll never keep up with. It’s certainly what I do.
With that said, I can tell that my company just launched a blog and 30% of its traffic came from Facebook in the first month. It’s probably a click-through of around 5-10% of the total fan number. Which only underscores your point: drill down into your list and find your true fans, and simply target them. The rest is icing.
To Gavin’s point on reach, I know it’s important somewhere in the marketing scheme of things, but “Reach” is just positive spin on “clutter.” Take what you can get, but it’s not a reason to use Twitter.
bd
@bdunc1
Hi Mack,
The numbers are not disappointing by any measurement. Compare those results to Direct mail, email or newsletters and you get more or less the same results of a well crafted communication piece.
Two things work against us as we use Twitter to communicate – Timing and Noise. Timing has already been covered by someone else earlier, but noise is also a huge factor. Will my connections see my important tweets in amongst all the other tweets they get and even apart from my mundane ones?
Add to the Twitter noise all of the other communications these people get daily and 1-3% starts to look pretty sweet.
Personally, i limit my conversational tweets to chats or touching base. Otherwise my tweets are focused on content i know my connections will jive too and appreciate.
When i am looking for good content, i use my lists exclusively and built them that way. I follow my great thinkers list to catch up on communications from people i consider enlightened peers. I use my marketing content sources list for research exclusively. My other lists are targeted on marketing/tech events i may want to speak/attend, and two prospecting lists of folks i know who can be potential clients/influencers for my business. Everything else I miss.
How does your traffic compare to your listings? maybe that can give some insight too. I’m sure I’m not the only one that follows this routine. In fact, its how i found your article 🙂
Great post!
Cheers!
Jeff – Sensei
I believe social media is a great way of marketing your business, that’s only if you know how to use it correctly. However, I would like to give you an answer to what you stated ” I think the core message here is to focus on your ‘fans’, and try to connect with them. If you try to connect with everyone, then you’ll probably connect with no one. ” That isn’t the case, in business it’s not what you know, its all about who you know. I don’t know if you aware of this, but this is very important in market.
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