Twitter Success Report: How much traffic did I get?

Twitter marketing can suck up a lot of your time (like many social media sites).  Is it worth it?  Wouldn't you like to know just how much traffic you can attract with a viral Twitter post? 

It’s a lot of work to constantly come up with more “clever-and-friendly-but-not-too-self-promotional” 140 character posts of Twitter bait.  So "how much time should I spend on Twitter?" is a question that many of us ask daily.

I was lucky enough this week to see first-hand the viral marketing potential of social media. Here are the traffic details, just for you.

"Behind the Curtains" of a Viral Twitter Post

I’ve been on Twitter on and off for about 1 year. That's longer than many folks but I’m more of an entrepreneur, podcaster, and author than a social media resident.  So on Twitter I’m not Pete Cashmore, Guy Kawasaki, or a member of the “Twitter 100”.

But earlier this week, I published a blog post called “4 Annoying Twitter Myths.” This post takes issue with many of the so-called “rules” for Twitter marketing. (Check out that post here and watch for the sequel, “Twitter Gurus Please Stop Whining”, next week!)

This post EXPLODED!  In just 48 hours it helped my E-Commerce Success blog clock personal records for web site traffic, new Twitter followers, Diggs, and blog comments!

Did I “Crack the Twitter Code”? (or just get lucky?)

Here’s the play by play for you to decide. Please tell me what you think in the Comments below.

Monday, March 9
- 11:56am PT: Posted “4 Annoying Twitter Myths” on my E-Commerce Success Blog. My RSS feed sent the blog post to my Twitter and my Facebook pages.
- 1:31pm – Friend @therichbrooks is first to retweet the posting to his followers.
So far, not much advance notice of the storm to come...

Tuesday, March 10
- 9:21am @wbw_Jeff retweets to his mailing list of small business owners
- 10:30am PT: I sent out my weekly free email newsletter (a compilation of the weekly E-Commerce Success blog posts) with “4 Annoying Twitter Myths” as the headline.
- 1:27pm PT: @mikecj retweets, followed throughout the afternoon by @AnissaW08, @SocialSammy, and @kathysena.
- Then @guykawasaki retweets – bang! Thanks, Guy!
- Big “twitterati” including @alexkaris and @twitter_tips soon RT to their lists, too.
- Other folks follow suit including @sugarfreecoach and @ifroggy. These folks lit the fuse and blog visitor traffic spikes in the afternoon and goes all night!

Overnight into Wednesday March 11
Retweets spread the “4 Annoying Twitter Myths” post virally worldwide among Twitter users.  Thanks to @kcinwpb, @robpickering, @georgehall, @dickieadams, @benjaminprice, @stacybrice, @ryanbarnholdt, and especially @lt_draper.

Thursday March 12
The post continues traveling the Twittersphere but velocity has peaked.  Thanks to re-tweets from @cymberly, @mandabell32, @Sirjohn_writer, @amacombooks, @calgreg, and more.  

Thanks to all of these folks for forwarding my post. (Sorry to anyone I missed, too. Tweet me to be added here if you’d like!)

By Thursday night, traffic at ScottFox.com and new followers to my Twitter account @scott_fox are back to normal levels.

And the Results Are…

So what did this viral "Twitterstorm" do for my web site traffic? The bottom line:

• 140+ new Twitter followers so far  (~15% growth in 2 days)
• 3,000 additional unique visitors to my blog at ScottFox.com in first 48 hours (plus many more as a long-tail post going forward)
• 27 new commenters
• 84 diggs on Digg.com
• A bunch of Stumble Upons, Biz Sugars, and deli.cio.us votes, too.

This means that the “4 Annoying Twitter Myths” post has set personal records for me as the biggest traffic attractor in all of these categories.

My Conclusion

Well, I don’t yet have the Twitter marketing reach of Chris Brogan, Jason Calacanis (or MC Hammer or Ellen DeGeneres!), but I’m pretty happy with this result.

As much as the traffic boost and the new followers, it feels really good to have my commentary post get such great feedback from the community of fellow Twitter users.

I have spent a decent amount of time learning Twitter and making friends there over the previous year. It’s nice to see it pay off once in a while.

Is this post helpful to you?

Social media offers such an unpredictable ROI that it’s often difficult to know how to prioritize it. Hopefully my sharing these details can help you benchmark your own Twitter marketing success and better manage ROI expectations for the time that you invest in social media efforts, too.

(Thanks to Darren at Problogger.net for showing me how sharing confidential operating details of a successful blog can create helpful blog posts like this.)

Please take a minute to Re-Tweet on Twitter, Stumble, Biz Sugar or Digg this post if it's helpful to you?

And watch for the sequel to the Twitter Myths post next week: “Twitter Gurus Please Stop Whining!”

Twitter bird icons courtesy of Gopal and Smashing Magazine.

[P.S. If you would like more info about Twitter, check out my recent fr-ee online marketing podcasts, too: Joel Comm on “Twitter Power” and Rich Brooks on Twitter marketing strategies.] 

And please follow me at twitter.com/scott_fox, too! 

What do you think about these results? Would you be surprised or disappointed at this amount of traffic?

And did I get lucky here or have I “cracked the code” for social media marketing traffic attraction?

Didn't you wonder how much web traffic a really popular Tweet could bring to your site?

Comments

[Mike CJ]

I think I'm reading that correctly and would like to take full credit for being the first of the illustrious re tweeters! That'll be a large beer you owe me Scott!

[Scott Fox]

Mike - would love to visit you in the Canary Islands and buy you that beer some time. Thanks for being first re-tweeter.