Twitter vs. Bill O’Reilly: Results?

Can Twitter really attract new customers? How do social media really stack up versus traditional media for attracting visitors to your web site? Those are basic question all online marketers want to answer today, aren’t they?

Thanks to recent PR efforts here at ScottFox.com, I actually have an answer to these questions! Would you believe that one Tweet can attract more web site traffic than appearing on a major nationally-syndicated radio show? Would you believe that Twitter beat Bill O’Reilly’s national radio show in sending traffic to ScottFox.com?

Twitter Beats Major Media (at least this time!)
The publicity dream of most entrepreneurs is to get positive coverage on a major media outlet. Most of us expect that a national radio appearance would bring tons of free traffic and dwarf the results from most social media activities. Apparently this is not true!

Twitter rocks! Rare Twitter vs. Radio Comparison
I recently had a rare opportunity to measure an “apples-to-apples” comparison of social media marketing versus traditional press coverage. I’m going to share with you details of the traffic attraction success of my recent blog post “4 Annoying Myths About Twitter” versus my appearance on the nationally-syndicated radio program, The Radio Factor with Bill O’Reilly.

Hopefully this can help you evaluate where to direct promotional efforts for your business, too.

My Big Time "Radio Factor" Appearance
I was recently a call-in guest on Bill O’Reilly’s final radio show. This was a major media hit for me and my blog because The Radio Factor was carried by 400+ radio stations nationally (until that final show anyway). (I was the Executive Producer of the original BillOReilly.com, so Bill and I have a longstanding (non-political) relationship.)

What’s more, Bill had me on the air and said some VERY nice things about me and my books. (You can hear my radio conversation with Bill O'Reilly here. Thanks again, Bill.)

Not surprisingly, traffic to ScottFox.com spiked! 1500 new unique visitors showed up in the following 24 hours. I got lots of signups for my free email newsletters, too. I was pleased with this national radio appearance. Enter Twitter!

A Rare Peek Behind the Twitter Curtains…
Then, just 2 weeks later, I posted a short commentary on ScottFox.com titled “4 Annoying Twitter Myths.” This post combats several negative “myths” that many Twitter “gurus” spread to newbies. (You can check it out my whole Twitter series here. Be sure to read the many insightful comments from fellow readers, too.)

Here’s where it gets interesting: The traffic generated by this blog post’s appearance on Twitter generated more than DOUBLE the traffic as my appearance on The Radio Factor!

The choice of timely content (anything Twitter related is hot these days apparently), a decent analysis of the situation, and a catchy headline soon caught readers’ attention.

I Stirred Up a Tweetstorm!
Before I knew it, the ScottFox.com servers were straining from new visitors. People were buzzing about my “Twitter Myths” across the web, and commenting on my blog, too.

Then @guykawasaki retweeted my post! Stumble Upon kicked in and so did Digg, too. Big “twitterati” like @twitter_tips, @therichbrooks, @alexkaris, @lt_draper retweeted it, too. Wham, bam.

Overnight the unique visitors to ScottFox.com were double those attributable to the nationally-syndicated radio appearance, and I added 100+ new Twitter followers just in the first several hours and have added hundreds more since then.

Ironic But Successful Publicity via Social Media
The funny part? All this Twitter love was for a post that specifically says “I won’t follow you back unless I know you!” LOL.

It’s not often we can find an “apples-to-apples” comparison of new vs. old media, but since I had one, I wanted to share it with you.

I hope that this insight into radio vs. Twitter might helpful to all the online marketers that read me and PR pros, too.

My Conclusion for You? 
Social media may be more powerful today than those mainstream press opportunities that you’ve been pursuing!  So, please take this example as proof that social media can work for you, too.

I’m not a “Top 100” Tweeter, nor do I follow 10,000 people on Twitter. I just wrote a decent post and the social media community rewarded that effort.

You can do this, too.

Thanks to the many re-tweeters and all of my new Twitter followers, too. Check out “4 Annoying Twitter Myths” here.  And the followup post “How to Get More Followers at the Twitter Party”- to see my list of people I recommend following on Twitter, too.

[Tough Twitter bird courtesy of Monkeyworks.]

How about you?  Is your business finding success using Twitter?

Comments

[David Peters]

Scott,
That is honestly mind blowing. Bill O'Reilly is an enormous celebrity, gives you a glowing testimonial (I heard the broadcast) and you get more traffic from Twitter? If that does not tell everyone out there to spend some serious time improving their social media marketing skills (or at least recognize its importance) I'm not sure what else will. Next test... call Oprah, get on her show to discuss the new book, and then see how much traffic you get :) What's funny is that within a short period of time I think the end results are going to be the same regardless of what traditional marketing medium you are receiving PR. Nice job, great post.