Article Promotion and Twitter

When I heard about the AC Twitter Challenge I was excited to track how influential this social media outlet is. I had been using Twitter for a few months socially. The AC Twitter Challenge gave me the opportunity to use my account for promotion. Even better, it made it so much easier to promote others' work. I started with 134 followers and ended with 179 followers, I'm starting to feel the love (or is it just 'twove').

Using Twitter for article promotion

It's pretty obvious that Twitter is used as purely promotional by many users (tweeps). I've never had the self confidence to shout from the highest cell tower, "Look what I wrote!" I hope my writing is enjoyable and gives the reader what was promised, but I don't necessarily think I am an expert on any one topic. The AC Twitter Challenge has given me a reason to promote my articles (tweet) in a conversational tone.

I took a few of my older AC articles struggling still to get page views, and tweeted the titles and URL's. I did not notice an increase in page views for any of the titles despite a few retweets from others. What I did notice was a significant increase in almost all of my other articles. I published six new articles and got immediate results with all six when I posted them on Twitter.

Tracking Twitter Results

Never having used any of the Twitter tools for tracking views or click-throughs, these results are based solely on page view information at Associated Content. I did move to HootSuite.com from TweetDeck. HootSuite allows users to easily track how many times links were clicked. Having not joined until the end of the AC Twitter Challenge, there were no stats available yet. It was immediately obvious, through page view tracking, the six articles written from trending topics were in a new league from my previous articles.

Here are some other tracking tools available for Twitter:
HashTags.org Excellent for tracking trending topics.
Klout Excellent for tracking your influence.
Happn.in Excellent for tracking local breaking news around the world.

Twitter for social promotion

Twitter is the world's best (and biggest) 'water cooler'. The place where users have a passing conversation, or listen in on others'. With so many working at home alone, we miss the social interaction of the office. Twitter gives every user an outlet to vent, or just catch up on the day's news and gossip. Users can be very upfront and controversial with their tweets, or become a reliable news source for breaking stories.

The six articles I wrote during the AC Twitter Challenge were breaking news stories from users I follow. By comparing Google Trends with Twitter Trending Topics (dare you to say that out loud), I came up with six articles that are still performing well.

The use of social sites like Twitter for overt personal promotion is often frowned upon by users, unless you are a major retailer offering coupons. There is a definite balance between chatting and promoting anything. I find it most useful to offer a title to those asking for help with a specific problem. This strategy (like using Yahoo Answers) is much more conversational and offers assistance to anyone following.

I will continue to use Twitter for promotion of articles, mine and others. More so, I will continue to watch the trending topics and compare to Google for better article topic ideas. I had the most success with these articles during the challenge.