ATLANTA, GA - I read somewhere that a great blogger will never start a post by making excuses for why he hasn't been blogging. Good thing I'm not a great blogger.
As discussed last month, I have started devoting considerable time and attention to Twitter. My reasoning is basically this: Nearly 90% of my blog's traffic comes from Google, so once you have arrived at this page, statistically speaking, you are most likely to read one post and then call me, email me, or subscribe to my newsletter.
I'm simplifying things, but that's what happens 90% of the time.
And usually, once that happens, you become a "fan." At that point you usually subscribe to my Twitter feed. All of this is part of a marketing process designed to escort each new candidate or client (I can never tell which) though the process of Awareness ... to Interest ... to Desire ... to Action. Like so:
The old AIDA model. Works every time, especially in B2B.
Now clearly, not every visitor becomes a fan. But that doesn't matter very much, because I'm only concerned with those who do. No one is universally loved. What's pop to some is soda to others, and there's no accounting for taste. At the end of the day, I'm in the emotional bond business. That's what personal branding is all about.
But I digress.
My point is that I have discovered that it is FAR more productive for me to use Twitter to stoke my fans' Interest, Desire, and Action than it is to blog in an attempt to raise Awareness. I mean, once you have found me on Google, the work of my blog is done. Sure, you can read more than one post if you need convincing of my "thought leadership" before you subscribe to my searches. But statistically speaking, you won't. My analytics package says you won't, and there's nothing as devastating to an opinion as a number. Besides, my fans pay my bills.
No offense to you newcomers.
Think of it this way: Assume that you could financially afford to only make 10,000 impressions on your market this year. Would you rather make one impression on 10,000 strangers, or 10 impressions on 1,000 friends? Exactly. And since I'm self employed and time is money, there's no point spending a ton of time on a low payoff activity. My blog is about raising Awareness through SERPs. It's about being ... found. Twitter is about contributing something meaningful to the market's conversation.
It took me a while to understand that.
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