I’ve been stalling on holding this Twitter Challenge as I know it’s going to be a huge commitment on my part as well as anyone else that chooses to take it on. But nonetheless, it’s here!
So why a Twitter Challenge?
I began to start seeing the benefits of using Twitter for business some time ago. I even created a Twitter Plan to help support my Twitter activity. However, I recently decided to take it up a notch and what better way to do so than to pose a challenge!
There are three schools of thought here:
- Some say using Twitter is a low leverage system and an extensive waste of time that takes you away from important business activities.
- Others say it’s a valuable social medium that if you used correctly for “building relationships” can ultimately provide high returns for your business.
- Still others say, they see the value in Twitter but just not sure if spending large amounts of time will be an effective marketing tactic for their business.
I say you don’t know what you don’t know. If you haven’t invested a substantial amount of time in it (and this goes with any social networking medium), how are you to know for sure?
I’m here to put it to the test.
However, I’m not one to go into things blindly so I decided to reach out to a network friend who does not only use Twitter extensively, but is also known as a Twitter Guru of sorts because of it, Scott Stratten.
I decided to reach out to Scott from UnMarketing (as I have done plenty times before 
) and ask him if he had any quick advice for me on doing this Twitter Challenge.
Here is how the conversation went:
75% Replies huh? OK, I can do this.
But as with anything there has to be a plan and here it is:
- Spend a minimum of 1 hour/day (live) on twitter. It would be ideal to break up the sessions into 15 minute intervals throughout the day.
- At an hour/day, 45 minutes will be spent on @replies and 15 minutes on sharing blog posts, quotes, giving advice and retweeting other posts. Note: RT’s are counted towards @replies IF the retweet contains a personalized message with it.
- Make it a point to connect with at least three new people per day. Note: this may or may not be Twitters users who are following you back.
- Pick one person a day in your network and #mustfollow them and give a reason why.
- The challenge will begin on Thursday, January 13th and end on Thursday February 10th (yes, one month!).
Did I not tell you it was a HUGE commitment? This challenge won’t be for everyone and I totally understand. If that’s the case, let my results be the determining factor on whether or not using Twitter extensively is worth the efforts.
Here are some stats at the present moment:
- Following: 1258
- Followers: 1525
- Automation System: none
- Most used words: (see image below)
As you can see I use the words ‘thanks’ and ‘rt’ quite a bit. 
I would be curious to see which words weighted more after this challenge.
Also as you may have noted, I don’t currently use an automated system. Nothing wrong with it; I did trial TweetAdder for a small amount of time. But this Twitter Challenge is about creating and building relationships and automation systems do little for this method.
If you currently use an automation system and would like to participate in this challenge, you can always stop using it for a month and decide whether or not to get back to it afterwards. Or you can still use the system and work the challenge on top of that.
Remember this is not a numbers game, although increasing your following may be a result of this challenge. This is about building relationships, making true connections with other Twitter users and evaluating the impact of that on your business.
By the way, you can make your own Tweet Cloud:
1. Go to TweetStats (free service).
2. Enter your Twitter username and click on ‘Graph My Tweets’.
3. Click on ‘Tweet Cloud’.
4. Scroll down a bit and click on ‘(no @’s)’ – next to the linked word ‘Wordle’.
Are you game? If so, leave your stats in the comment section below so we can track your efforts over time. Please also don’t forget to tweet or ‘like’ this post and share it with your friends. See you on Twitter.
Icon Credit: Icon Shock
I love your idea for a challenge. Just to say that Twitter is great, I found this post through Twitter
I am waiting for the stats as I write and in the mean time I wanna add a word or two.
I didn’t like Twitter and thought it isn’t worth it. Then I started using it about a month and so back, I mean really using it.
I spend most of the day on the computer (if I am at home) and my Tweetdeck is always open. So I am looking at the lists I follow (the Tweets I don’t want to miss) so I can catch up with great posts they tweet.
Also I am notified if someone mentions me so I reply as soon as I can.
I don’t use ANY automated tools. I unfollow people a lot if I see they tweet links only or they are in the niche I have no interest in what so ever (car tuning, for example).
I also don’t follow back automatically, and only do if the person communicates a lot.
At the moment I follow 508 people (with tendency to lower the number as I realize that some of them are not really people) and I have 617 followers (changes every day up and down due to bots).
Ok stats are in 41% replies and 25% RTs. I think that proves I communicate a lot. The rest goes to messages I think of in a spur of the moment and tweeting other people’s posts. I tweet mine very little.
I am subscribing to this posts comments to see how this will go.
All the best and hope we will see some improvement!
Love, love, love your comment Brankica. And so happy to hear you are ready to take on the challenge! I understand a month is a long time. I ran another business challenge several months ago and just around 3 weeks started losing some steam. Luckily I toughed it out and finished and was very happy with the results.
We shall see with this one … cross our fingers.
P.S. good to hear you are a good communicator… will help you with this for sure.
(Pulls up a chair and some popcorn to watch the experiment)
LOL … I’m sure it will be entertaining indeed Scott. Some laughing, some crying, some pulling of the hair …
Lovely to see you… thanks for stopping in and for being the inspiration behind this little “experiment”.
I’m with you on this statement Michele: “I say you don’t know what you don’t know”… simple but true.
Anyway, my take on Twitter is that it helps to bring in a little traffic and most importantly to build relationships. Business wise, although I am using it in several other “targeted” accounts (relevance), I can’t say that I am satisfied with the results. Maybe my Tweets are not compelling enough and have to work on that.
This challenge is really a good idea and under normal circumstances, I would jump right in, just like I did with Ed Dales’s 30 day challenge. Things is, I would very much love to participate, but the “lots of worthless excuses” I have, leads me to believe that I will fail
Nonetheless, like you said, it is a big commitment and while I will have to pass on this one, I will keep a close eye on how things evolve. Good luck to you and to all of those that will participate.
If I can help in any way, let me know
Don’t worry DiTesco, I won’t take it personal …boohoo
(just kidding, 
). But you are on for the next one!! Of course, if I survive this one. 
Good luck, that’s a really interesting challenge!
Hi Michele,
I am waiting to see how the challenge goes. Interestingly, Twitter has been my largest traffic source so probably thanks to all retweets by my blog mates.
It’s a big commitment on your part but i love to know the results. All the best for the challenge.
Lye
Thanks Lye. Will be sure to share results as time goes by. All the best.
Michele – even in looking at my personal blog stats I can see that social media can be a huge driver of traffic.
In my case Facebook has been a the largest contributor of referrals. I believe that’s because when people share links with their FB friends there is a relatively good degree of validation or trust.
Across one’s entire Twitter base, Twitter relationships are probably not as strong, as the number of relationships tends to be much higher than for any given facebook account.
However, you can build up some of those relationships in exactly the way you describe above. As people observe the discussion that also builds their trust in you without necessarily requiring direct interaction with you – so the potential could be even higher than through FB. FB is trying to do the same with the fan pages.
I here what you are saying about Facebook. And I think given the same focus this challenge would be just as beneficial with FB. However, in my own personal experience (and not sure if this is a product of my industry), I find that FB fan pages are a bit more challenging to develop relationships if you have under 100 followers, since the interaction is still mostly driven by you.
That being said, I’ve had some great conversations on it and probably will have a challenge with it in the future. I guess it boils down to your niche and what your target market uses. Mine uses both, although weighs a bit heavier towards Twitter.
Thanks for stopping in and your giving your awesome input!
Excellent information, this is exactly what I needed. Thanks. Keep up the good work!
I like the sound of this!
My stats:
Following: 74
Followers: 2225
Automation System: none
Hey David,
Welcome aboard and good luck with the challenge! Tweet me updates occasionally… let me know how things are going. Ciao!
Michele,
What a great challenge! I’m up for it. However, I do spend most of my time on twitter finding people who have WordPress related questions and answering them and hardly promote myself, so it might not be much of a challenge
Excited to see where this challenge takes us!
That’s awesome to hear Dustin! Sounds to me you are already doing it… cool! Well then, I guess you’ll have to take it up a notch.
Best of luck and keep in touch… interested to hear about any new developments.
Not this time around for multiple reasons, but I look forward to any updates and the final outcome.
Hi Michele
This a great feature on twitter.
I have been thinking about using it and had been looking to automate but after reading your post I think I will just do it manually.
Its about building relationships and keeping in touch and creating a following.
That only happens when people know you are real and get real feed back..not just out for the sell.
I will have to sign up with twitter and see what I can achieve in the next month…possibly Zero to Hero
Regards
Zahid
Good luck with Twitter Zahid. Let me know if you need anything.
P.S. I do think Twitter Adder has it’s function and can be a valuable tool for many people, depending on your intentions with Twitter. I’ve just personally chosen not to go that route at the moment, since my focus in more on connections and not numbers.
Michele, aloha. Even though I am a couple of days late for the official start–I’m in. What a great idea.
Following: 1096
Followers: 1165
Automation: None
Off to set up my tweetstats.
Did I miss seeing a # in your post as I would love to keep track of and work with other participants. How about if we #twitterchallenge? Aloha. Janet
Great! Welcome to the challenge and good luck! I think #twitterchallenge is a great hashtag to use…will definitely take that on.
Thanks for your input and I’ll be looking out for you Twitterland.
Wish I could realistically commit to this challenge, I think it’s a great idea. Twitter is my preferred social network. I too hear some say it is a waste of time however I have found it to be a very effective for meeting people, building relationship, and learning.
Other social sites have more of a learning curve, in my opinion. I could not agree more with your response to papalogic, “I find that FB fan pages are a bit more challenging to develop relationships.”
BTW – Just finished reading your ebook. WOW lots of new information; perfect for someone like myself. Thank you.
Eagerly awaiting the challenge results
Hi Kathy,
Well I can say it’s only been a few days and I’ve already notice huge results; not only in increased numbers, but mostly in connections and real conversations I’ve had. Truly enjoying the process!
Thanks for stopping by. Hope to hear again from you soon.
Hey michele,
Thanks for the awesome article!
I realized by doing a little research that the people who benefit the most from Twitter are the ones that do more @ replying than anything else. Doing that easily builds conversation between you and that person. You make relationships quick and him/her might just help you out even more by retweeting your tweets!
Twitter is awesome I love it!
Thanks again!
God bless,
William Veasley
Twitter is awesome! It took me a while to learn that, but better late than never.
It’s interesting after doing this challenge. I tend to gravitate towards users who are looking to connect and build relationships, not just tweet out links all day. Funny how that works.
Thanks for stopping in William. Always a pleasure to hear from you.
I’m late to the challenge, but I’ll give it a go. Made my pretty graphs, and figures are @replies 60.18% and RT’s 1.34% and just 8.1 tweets per day.
I’m following 79 tweeps and am followed by 64. No automation here, although I have scheduled tweets for later into the evening because I’m usually well past my best by 7pm!
Like Brankica I’m at my computer all day, with either Hootsuite open or Rockmelt, but I don’t actually say that much really. Finding the 3 new people a day could be tricky.
Hi Ryah,
Welcome to the challenge! You are never too late.
Finding 3 new people is easy. Just use http://search.twitter.com or Twellow and start connecting with people in your related niche.
Good luck and it’s a pleasure to meet you!
Hi Michele,
You might want to check out @PeerIndex and @Klout. Both have some very interesting numbers you could benchmark and then see what effect your Twitter Challenge has on your numbers (and the number of others who participate).
I just updated the links at the bottom of the TwtPoll post I put in CommentLuv in this comment with very useful information your readers can use to improve their Tweeting.
I also added a link to my post with lists of influential bloggers on Twitter and if time allows I will publish a list of influential Twitter users with ~10,00+ followers on Friday.
Following and interacting with the people on these lists will greatly increase your visibility and reach on Twitter, improve all your numbers and most importantly you will know awesome people and learn a ton!
@Gail Gardner,
Hi Gail,
Thanks for the wonderful feedback! You always provide such useful and valuable information. You are a force to be reckoned with.
Will check out those suggestions.
Great to hear from you as always!
@Michele Welch,
Always glad to drop by here and see what new HUGE project you’re launching! One of these days we are both going to have a patron who covers our overhead so we can spend all our time doing what needs doing!
Did you know that Andy from @CommentLuv has a Twitter plugin?
That is the one that is installed at GrowMap. It is really beneficial to have your commentators share their Twitter usernames. It makes it easier to connect with them and when they ask a question I tweet the link to their comment and my answer to them on Twitter.
Eventually Andy will incorporate that into CommentLuv but for now it is a separate plugin. Some bloggers suggest commentators add their username at the end of their comments but even if you put that in your comment policy most people will miss it. If you and your regulars started adding @username in their comments though others might follow their example.
@GrowMap
Hi Gail,
I do know about the Twitter Plugin. I tried putting in on my site about a month ago and had some technical issues. I will actually be upgrading my template this weekend, so I am hoping the upgrade things will go smoother.
Thanks for the reminder! Have to add that to my to-do list.
I’m looking to expand my reach on Twitter, but somehow, I’m not able to put my finger on it perfectly. Maybe it’s because of my lack of social activity there (I’m a noob when it comes to RTs and recommendations), or maybe I’m just following the wrong bunch of people.
The ones I follow are quite closed, have their own groups and converse within themselves. I need to break out of these shackles.. let’s see how your points help!
Many thanks!
I can understand the difficulty of breaking into conversation with some of these circles. But the key I think it to be persistent (not pesky
) and to continue to offer value. Once people start seeing how awesome and authentic you are, then things will shift.
Good luck!
I have a good feeling about this challenge. Thanks for putting it out there for us. Even though I am starting this late I am still excited to see where I will be at the end of it. (Thanks to Janet Callaway for bringing it to my attention.)
Hi Gidget,
Welcome to the Challenge! Better late than never.
That’s the wonderful thing about this, there are really no set rules… you just taking action and start connecting. I think you’ll find that you’ll have some amazing results. I’ve connected with some really cool people in the last few days (one being Janet of course 
).
Good luck and let me know if I can help in any way.
Following 842
Followers 302
No automation used.
I’ve been meaning to get more focussed on tweeting with a purpose this year, but hadn’t done it. This challenge is great and will keep me focussed on what’s important. Thanks for issuing it.
My current stats are:
2.6 tweets per day
19 tweets per month
Replies To 10.53%
Who You ReTweet 27.53%
@Connie McKnight,
I didn’t include the following:
949 Following
691 Followers
Welcome Connie! Glad to have you on board.
The more the merrier. Looking forward to hearing your amazing results.
Best of luck and let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.
Hi Michele,
your twitter challenge helped me see the potential of Twitter one more time. It has convinced me to resurrect my about-to-die Twitter account and put it on fire!
Hi Matthew,
Good to hear you are resurrecting your Twitter account.
I think at the very least give it a solid month and see where it takes you. Twitter may not be your best venue, maybe it’s Facebook. But you never know until you become fully invested in it.
Good luck!
P.S. Come back and drop your Twitter username if you like. I couldn’t find it on your site.
I like the way you’re going about this challenge. It’s not a numbers game, but a relationship game. You’re absolutely right!
If you’re going to spend time trying to build relationships with Twitter by carrying on a live conversation then you may want to consider letting people know ahead of time when you will be on. I see that working for several people who employ this strategy.
I look forward to connecting with you more on Twitter. Good luck with your Twitter Challenge.
Hi Brad,
I like that idea … “you may want to consider letting people know ahead of time when you will be on.” Although I have to say currently I go on periodically throughout the day because of the challenge so there’s no set time or structure. Which in a way works for me as I’m a bit ADD (OK, not literally) and I get bored quickly; Twitter has been a great way for me to take a “break” and shoot the breeze.
We shall see how this progresses as the challenge continues.
Look forward to connecting with you too…just followed you back. Happy Tweeting!
Here are my stats for posterity
As of 1/26/11 @dino_dogan has
* 15,994 Tweets
* 6,396 Following
* 6,474 Followers
* 450 Listed
Hi Dino,
Sorry for the late response. You somehow ended up in my spam folder! Luckily I check every few days. Well, almost 16K tweets…holy crap! LOL I thought I talked a lot. My guess is you already are and have been on the Twitter Challenge. That’s pretty awesome.
I dont mean to brag, it had nothing to do with me I swear, but I woke up this morning with 6,533 Followers. (sounds like a blues song?)
One of my followers wrote a really nice post about me (and few other tweeps worthy of following) and as a result I ended up with 60 new followers. Sweet
Woohoo! That rocks, Dino! Funny how that works. I tend to go in spurts like that do and it’s almost always connected to something someone wrote or tweeted.
I have started a blog and I now want to market it. Does Facebook and Twitter allow me to market my website, and if so, how?Best Ways of Marketing on Twitter and Facebook?Thanks.