What Are You Doing? Grow Traffic To Your Blog With Twitter

Have you noticed a new trend in social networking? A quick-blog tool called Twitter calls the phenomenon of sharing what you are doing "twitting", which refers to the online social phenomenon of answering the question "What are you doing?"

Through Twitter, you can grow traffic to your blog, on top of inform followers what you're doing. Many bloggers, journalists, and individuals are using Twitter to share updates, ranging from eating coffee, walking the dog, watching a movie, or working on a new project.

What does TWITTER look like? Here's a screen shot that shares a few ideas about Twitter:


I, myself, use Twitter. While it is possible to post updates in the "What are you doing?" field, I don't use Twitter for that purpose. I use Twitter purely to share my blog feeds? Why? Heck, it's another way people can connect with me and know what's going on with the blogs, why not!? Notice the "Want to follow someone" comment I wrote by the "find and follow" menu option? When people sign-in to follow my twit feeds Twitter offers a way for them to know, instantly, when I've posted something new they care about. Some of these followers DON'T subscribe to blogs, so in my opinion, twitting, to the blogger, is a way of expanding your audience.



Notice the screen shot (above) from Facebook? I circled the question there "What are you doing right now?" provided by Facebook. You see, the "twitting" phenomenon has spread beyond twitter. The more common and easier to use function of twitting, to me, is through other established social networks, such as Facebook, MySpace, and Plaxo. I'll show you each of them. I've had many people respond to these TWITS when they follow me and various posts I make to my social networks.

I'm currently giving an answer to the question "What Are You Doing" on Facebook (below):


See how I answered Scott Andrews "is writing a post about twitter on the ARRiiVE blog (http://arriive.blogspot.com)? Cool, huh?! People are now directed from Facebook to my blog at ARRiiVE. Now, I'm using the power of twitting and social networking to use as a passive marketing tool (although I consciously made the effort). Sweet, isn't it?

I do the same thing with my band, BODY. MySpace uses things called "Status" and "Mood" to enable you to twit about your latest feelings and what you're doing. It's great for bands and I recommend you use it for business, too. Here's an example of one I posted for http://www.myspace.com/body last night:

You'll see under the status and mood menu my update there, "Body gets excited when people scream. Mood: rejuvenated" for kicks and giggles.

Now, as much as I'd ALSO like to update you on my Plaxo social network, for some reason Plaxo is having browser problems that offer up an unexplained error. While I've tried resolving this with their customer service for the past two months, you can imagine the frustration I felt when I tried to show you my Plaxo update:

Oh well. So Web 2.0 isn't perfect! I contacted Plaxo and their support team said the problem was my browser. I switched browsers to FireFox and still get their error. They say it is because I'm in too many groups. I thought that was the whole point of Plaxo Pulse! Oh well. So Web 2.0 isn't perfect! Perhaps, that's why they call their social networking site "beta" software, huh?

Anyway, if you want to maximize gaining quick following, use Twitter. Use the twit functions on social networks, too. I've found that people are interested in what I'm doing and they often read the stuff I put in there and comment on it. Make sure, too, to publish your blog's RSS feed through the social networks and twit feeds as it will grow your blog visitors and help you increase exposure that way, too.
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