Social media is one of the most popular and recommended marketing tactics online. Almost all marketers recommend social media as a starter marketing tactic.
But I believe social media is way overhyped, especially for new webmasters or anybody without a relatively well known brand or name.
My Twitter stats fail to inspire
Despite being an avid Tweeter (mostly because I enjoy it) and having written a short guide on social media, I dont believe social media is an effective strategy for new webmasters.
Let me share my Twitter stats:
116 days on Twitter
669 Tweets/updates
85 followers (although this number is smaller than it probably should be as I only follow 34 people as I regard low quality followers as completely usless)
In the past 30 I have received 71 visits to my website as a result of my Tweets (not counting SEO benefit)
Lets break that down a bit.
I average just under 6 Tweets per day. I estimate that I spend at least 45 minutes every day on Twitter. So over the last 30 days I have spent 22.5 hours on Twitter and only received 71 visits.
Thats 3.15 visits per hour spent Twitter marketing
Remember that number as we compare Twitter with other marketing strategies.
Twitter VS. Guest Blogging
I wrote a guest post about my new ethical link building eBook for Ileane Smith of BasicBlogTips.com. The post took just over an hour to write and submit and I spent a further 1.5 hours answering peoples questions in the comments section.
I received 31 visitors to my website in the 20 days since posting the article:
Thats 31 visits from 2.5 hours of work and thats only in 20 days compared to the last 30 days with Twitter.
Thats 12.4 visits per hour spent guest blogging. Scaling up to 30 days it would be 18.6 visitors per hour of work.
And that doesnt take into account the much more substantial search engine benefits from multiple dofollow links from major blogs in your niche.
Clearly guest blogging represents much more value for the amount of time you put in compared to Twitter for a new Tweeter.
Forum marketing Vs. Twitter
The same holds true for the results I get from my forum marketing efforts.
In the past 30 days I've spent 5.5 hours on traditional forum marketing. I can lead 115 visits back to those efforts.
Thats 20.9 visits per hour of forum marketing.
Again forum marketing overpowers guest blogging and Twitter, although the search engine benefit of forum marketing is certainly not as high as guest blogging.
But - I'm Not Giving Up On Twitter
Heres why:
- Results improve over time: over the last couple of weeks I have seen a spike in the number of people following me.
- Twitter is a great place to make connections and communicate with anybody in your field.
- A solid Twitter profile will get you noticed by powerful leaders in your niche.
Conclusion
Twitter fails as a marketing tactic for new Twitter marketer or anyone with a small number of followers.
As a new webmaster it is more efficient to use other link building and marketing strategies to promote your website. Those marketing strategies develop links, traffic and a following.
When you have developed a significant amount of traffic, give Twitter a try and see how it works for you.
About the Author: Mark Collier
