Twitter – the next big source of your blog traffic

There is a lot of buzz about Twitter in these days. If you haven’t already, this is the right time to join Twitter, as it is set to be the next big social network thing in 2009. Earlier you join and start building your profile and credibility, easier it will be to use the growth of Twitter to increase your blog exposure in 2009.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a social network and a new generation of instant messaging. Twitter is all about sending short status updates called “tweets” of 140 characters or less. Twitterers can “follow” each other so people who follow you will see your tweets and you will see tweets of people you follow.

Why is Twitter important for bloggers?

Hubspot has just published interesting State of the Twittersphere report. The report has reveled some very interesting facts about Twitter that most bloggers will be interested to hear:

• Twitter traffic has grown over 600% in the past 12 months
• Twitter became one of the top 1,000 websites by traffic in May 2008
• Twitter is dominated by newer users, 70% of Twitter users joined in 2008
• An estimated 5-10 thousand new accounts are opened each day

All these facts mean that Twitter is a growing platform where bloggers can increase their blog traffic and exposure by finding, getting in touch and providing value to people interested in their blog content.

How to use Twitter?

Twitter is referred to as a micro-blogging platform. Twitter can be used as a networking tool, it can be used to get in touch with different people, find information and trends, and it can be used for marketing.

You have to sign up, customize your profile and find some people to follow. Hopefully, if you are interesting and you provide value in your tweets, people will follow you back. More people that follow you, more exposure your tweets will get. That way your blog gets more exposure and hopefully visitors and subscribers.

What should I tweet about?

I sometimes send tweets of personal nature, but majority of my tweets are blogging related. The image above in this article shows the words that I have used the most in my tweets until now. You can make your own image at Wordle.

It is important to provide value to your followers in your tweets, so I try to do that by pointing to interesting articles I’ve found online, and build credibility and influence that way. If you already spend time on StumbleUpon, finding and recommending quality information and articles, it will be easy for you to continue this on Twitter. You will just have to take some time to update both your Stumble and your Twitter account for each of the links you want to recommend.

I also make sure to promote my latest blog articles on Twitter as well, but it is important not to be all about promotion as that is seen as spammy, and will make it hard for you to get new followers. Remember that everyone can see your tweet history at any point of time by visiting your Twitter profile.

Hopefully this was an introduction which will get you interested in Twitter.

Twitter Marketing E-Book

For much more information on Twitter, check out my “Twitter Marketing E-book: How to go viral on Twitter“. The e-book includes all the tips on how I use Twitter to build my authority, drive traffic to my blog and get customers. Enjoy twittering!