Comments on: So Is Twitter Any Good For Affiliates?

By: That's Seventies

That's Seventies — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:44:03 +0000

I have tried my best to find it useful and have persisted because it seems like something we are all supposed to use. But these days I’m just waiting for the kid in the crowd to point out that the Emperor is actually naked. I don’t see what extra it bring to the party. All the so called “advantages” were all possible through existing ideas. An email newsletter, blogs, comments. Except that stuff comes to you. With Twitter you have to go looking for it. I just don’t find I get enough from it for the time invested. Although I did get slightly excited when I read Holly Willoughby was in the shower.

But good luck to those that do like it

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:20:01 +0000

@WayneH “Unless of course your visitors are Pompey fans and see you cheering on the Saints every week!” – Us Saints fans don’t get much to cheer about so we have to make the most of it! )

@Naomi – “Is also important to have conversations with people, and not just use Twitter to push information out” – I agree, it makes a brand/person more accessible. Some of the celebs on Twitter are very much of the one way conversation – which is why I’ve unfollowed a lot of them now )

By: Naomi

Naomi — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:15:08 +0000

Thanks for the mention of @firebox- glad you’ve found it useful!

From our perspective, its really quick to put a tweet up about a new product, so although we like to make sure we don’t just go for the sales pitch with our feed we will tweet if its interesting for our followers. For affiliates, its obviously a lot quicker than waiting for me to put it in an e-mail

Wayne is spot on, the key with brand feeds is to keep the balance between the more personal (we will tweet with interesting stuff that happens in the office, fun links we’ve found etc), and the brand (new products, offers, site news). Its also important to have conversations with people, and not just use Twitter to push information out- its a two-way process.

I find it really useful too- one of my new joys is watching how sending our newsletter influences mentions of our brand- yesterday I watched a group of friends have a whole conversation in mockney because of our Mug! product.

Remains to be seen if it works commercially. Hitwise put at us #19 in retailers visited by uk traffic from Twitter, below some massive brands like Amazon. I credit our feed with that.

By: WayneH

WayneH — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:09:03 +0000

Like yourself, I have been experimenting with Twitter for a while now. I have a mix of people I follow, from the celebs, friends, clients, affiliates and users of our website. It is useful in gathering opinions, ideas and industry news. It also helps put a personality behind the owner of a website.

Sometimes it’s difficult to quantify the usefulness of Twitter from a business point of view, but what I like to think is this. If your visitors / members can see that it is a real person behind the scenes, who cares passionately about what they’re doing, it can only help build your brand. Unless of course your visitors are Pompey fans and see you cheering on the Saints every week!

Some ‘tweeters’ tweet too much in my opinion, and being flooded with their tweets every day only persuades me to unfollow them. I think one or two tweets per day, with a good balance of personal life and site news is a good balance to have.

Whether Twitter can add anything to the bottom line is still up for debate, but I am a dedicated Tweeter and will continue to do so as long as there are followers.