I use social networking to increase traffic and find good story ideas.
Last week my Twitter account passed 10,000 followers. I thought I’d use the occasion to discuss how I use Twitter and Facebook in conjunction with Domain Name Wire.
I have about 10,000 followers on Domain Name Wire, and I follow about 200 people.
Why only 200? It’s because I use Twitter to find new and interesting stories, and I’ve found that following too many people makes it difficult to find these good nuggets. If your feed is full of thousands of voices, not all of them relevant, it’s hard for the interesting stuff to stand out.
In addition to monitoring the couple hundred Twitter users throughout the day, I also monitor search terms such as “domain” to see if any interesting news is percolating up. There’s a lot of junk you have to sort through on a search like this, but sometimes I’ve found really interesting stories.
In addition to tracking and gathering news, Twitter is a a big source of traffic to Domain Name Wire. It typically represents the second biggest source of traffic behind Google.
With even a modest 10,000 followers, the second I post a story link on Twitter I can count on targeted traffic to start flowing in. Traffic jumps if even a few influential people retweet it.
You can follow Domain Name Wire @domainnamewire. If you’re reading a story on Domain Name Wire and want to share it with your followers, just click the Tweet icon below the story.
I don’t find Facebook as useful for DNW compared to Twitter. It could be because I have fewer than 1,000 “likes” on Facebook, but I think it comes down to the issue of Facebook automagically deciding both what I see and who sees stuff I publish.
Twitter is unfiltered. If I tweet something and you follow me, it will be in your feed in chronological order.
On Facebook, what I publish may or may not show up in your feed in some strange order even if you’ve liked the page. The same goes for collecting news. You might post something really interesting and Facebook decides I’d rather see a picture of someone’s cat at the top of my feed instead.
One plus for Facebook is that it’s easier for people to comment and “pull people in” for a topic than on Twitter.
You can “Like” Domain Name Wire on Facebook here.
Google+ and LinkedIn
I haven’t used Google+ and LinkedIn much to promote DNW. I know some people autopost blog entries to Google+ and LinkedIn, and I’m curious how this performs for them.
Google+ is challenging because it always wants you to tie in your personal identity rather than your brand. As for LinkedIn, I don’t want all of the people who are connected with me – many of whom are outside the domain industry – to feel like they’re getting a deluge of irrelevant content.
Domain Buyer Broker says
Agree, Twitter is great.
Google+ is junk as far as I know. Linked In is like facebook for people with jobs but I don’t see any use for either.
I run an active Cuba information website and post new articles to Twitter, Facebook and Linked In all at once via Bufferapp.com (I am not associated with that company in any way) and it works great to post one thing to three networks.
craig says
honestly, they all scare me.
stu walker says
As you said if theres too many voices good stuff gets lost in the cloud of noise. Thats what FB is, a cloud of noise . Twitter is where the more discerning shall we say hang out .
Linkedin is not really any good IMO
Randall Cooper (@NamePhase) says
Wordpress Jetpack is what i use to run my twitter, linkedin, Facebook, and g+ feed its the only tool you wlil need.
Andrew Allemann says
I use that for Twitter and Facebook. I see it has LinkedIn, but I don’t see G+?
Frank Michlick says
You do know that Google+ has business pages? It’s just much harder to automate posting to Google+, but managing a company page has improved over the course of this year.
Andrew Allemann says
Thanks Frank.
Michele Neylon says
Andrew
The Google+ business pages are completely separate from your personal profile and there are several tools available to help cross-post content from a blog to it.
In terms of engagement etc., the numbers with G+ are lower in our experience, but I wouldn’t ignore it entirely.
The same is true of LinkedIn business pages
Michele
Andrew Allemann says
Thanks Michele. I’ll play around with it a bit more. I had trouble when they forced me to change my YouTube page from DomainNameWire to my personal account.
Frank Michlick says
@Michele: Which tools do you use/recommend for Google+? I only know that Buffer announced some sort of support, not sure what else is out there though.
Michele Neylon says
Frank
Several tools support G+. We’re using Buffer, Hootsuite and others 🙂
Michele
Lance says
The fact that Facebook determines what appears in my News Feed (and what is excluded) based on what they think I want to see is maddening. I like pages like DNW because I want to see what you post. Unfortunately, many of your posts never show up in my feed. This isn’t just happening with “fan pages” — it is also happening with friends posts, also. Facebook decides which of your friends’ posts you see and don’t see. At least with Twitter and Instagram, we know that everything will appear chronologically.
John says
I see your stuff on FaceBook. I like tons of pages for the main reason of having another News Feed, which for me works great.