Last week, I got 3,000 visitors from just a SINGLE tweet by a power user. Wow, can you imagine the power of that single tweet?
Here’s how it happened
I woke up one morning to check my statistics… WHAT? I got 3000 visitors in one day? Cool!
I then hurriedly scanned my analytics to find out what was causing the huge spike in traffic.
I discovered that a twitter power user, Jon Winokur @AdvicetoWriters, tweeted my blog post called 9 Confusing Confusions in English Grammar, which I published back in November 2010.
When Jon tweeted my blog post, the snowball effect happened. His followers saw his tweet and retweeted it, and their followers saw their retweets and retweeted too; ultimately his tweet reached his followers’ followers’ followers. Get it? 😛
I checked my stats again to analyze the visitors three days since the tweet.
I checked how long these visitors spent on my page. Wow, the average time they spent reading my post was about 7:00 minutes! Not bad! 🙂
What we can learn from this
i. Targeted content
Now, it wasn’t just some power user who tweeted that post. It was a power user who solely focuses on writing advice—Jon (@AdvicetoWriters).
ii. Real followers
Jon has more than 60,000 followers (and has been listed over 4,000 times), and he is only following about 800 people!—which means his followers don’t auto-reciprocate or something, but they genuinely follow him because he gives top-notch advice for writers.
Maybe that’s why his tweets get a lot of attention and he is very influential.
iii. Some numbers
Seeing the stats of his bit.ly link, Jon’s link was retweeted 68 times, and it received 3,154 clicks! That means that tweet to his 60,000 followers resulted in about 3,000 clicks, about 5%.
That’s not bad actually. Not everyone who has 100,000’s of followers can achieve that! One time a person with more than 100,000 followers tweeted a good post of one of my friends, but he told me nothing much happened.
iv. Quality content
That post I wrote about confusions in English grammar was not easy to write.
It took me like a whole week to write, revise, proofread, and repeat. And 3 months to learn about grammar in school. But ultimately, quality content brings a lot of benefit to your blog, so it’s worth the hard work writing it. 🙂
And THAT’s how much a tweet from a power user is worth! It’s always nice to occasionally get a spike in traffic (thanks a lot, Jon @AdvicetoWriters; I appreciate it!).
Have you had any experiences like this before? Please share it in the comments below. 🙂
Congrats on that! I’ve experienced something similar, so I can relate. In 2007 I awoke and checked my stats to see 18-thousand hits???????? I had accidentally posted about someone and something two months earlier – the story then suddenly made national news, and I was the only thing on the internet (for about 5 hours) that had anything on topic!
Nice feeling. Rare occurance! It would be nice if we had magic dust we could sprinkle on our keyboards and make everything
Hi Dave,
Woooow, your story made national news? That’s AWESOME! 😀 It must be a really happy experience for you. But the thing is there is no magic dust. 😛
Cheers,
Gloson
That’s pretty amazing, really. Btw: the “resposne” was way better that what you suggest: it’s 5%, not 0.05%. Just sayin’..
Hi Dave.
Thanks, you attentive mathematical whiz! Corrected. I must have forgotten to convert the decimal into percentage, and ended up percentagizing the decimal. Thanks for the math lesson. =)
cheers,
Gloson
Gloson , To be a good blogger one has to face different situations. Some time traffic is high and some time its low. But good knowledge of handling traffic can increase your blog popularity with a little effort. Few months ago one of my post got discovered by StumbleUpon user , the traffic was 3k-4k per day for around 5-7 days. Then the traffic started decreasing then I thought I have to implement some experience , So placed widgets of blog networks traffic exchange. Which doubled m traffic and got the same post popular on an another social bookmarking site.
Hi! Wow, thanks for sharing your experience. 3k-4k per day? You serious? That means in about a week you’ve received approx. 21,000 visitors. That’s amazing! 🙂
Cheers,
Gloson
Yea ! I got around 41k stumbles on my post “Top 10 Internet Fails” and then it was discovered by a Jeomonster user. But Stumbleupon increases the bounce rate and are not good for adsense.
This is a great achievement, stumbleupon is really cool way to get awesome traffic to your blog. Thanks for this tips 🙂
Wow! That is amazing, good for your man! Not everyone have this chance.
Yes Gloson, its only the quality that matters. I checked your that article long back and I must say, this is one of the best article and that is the reason jon (@AdvicetoWriters) tweeted on his quality twitter account which resulted in very heavy traffic.
Hi Pritam,
Thank you very much Pritam. I’m glad you enjoyed that post I wrote about grammar. 🙂 Yeah, I agree with what you said which is quality matters.
Cheers,
Gloson
Hi Gloson, thanks for sharing this awesome tips. I have also experience a traffic spikes before and I know how I feel when the traffic went back to the normal rate and even went lower than how it was before.
This is super Epic!
Congrats for getting 3000 visitors for a single article. Twitter is an easy to use social site and if effectively used can do wonders for your blog.
Hi Gloson, first time commenting on the blog. I am absolutely taken back by how well you write for such a young man. It’s incredibly impressive. And that is one nice traffic spike 🙂
I once had something re-tweeted by someone with influence on twitter and its awesome. The domino effect is pretty cool where people re-tweet the power users tweet.
Anyway, great post. Hopefully i will comment some more on the blog in the future.
Congratulations For getting 3000 visitors from only single tweet.
This is really inspirational for many blogger.
I hope you will keep writing good posts.
A really interesting case study. I’ve just been reading Malcolm Gladwells work on “the power of the maven” and this is his principle in practice.
Find the key influencers in any market is a great way to switch on visibility. A lesson for us all, that working hard at developing one contact – the right contact can be a million times (or 3000 times!) more effective than a scattergun approach!
Congratulations on having 3,000+ pageviews. I haven’t experience of being re-tweeted by other twitter account. I just hope that some people could re-tweet my tweets too. Anyway, I realize how much a re-tweet could contribute so much in increasing page views.
Hi Evelyn,
Thanks a lot! Don’t worry. You can get retweeted too. I find that the best way to get retweets to retweet people first, agree? 🙂
Cheers,
Gloson
Gloson,
First, congratulations on the spike in traffic! While the tweet helped drive traffic to your site, what really was at the heart of your success was the quality and relevance of your article — and your persistence. Hard work pays dividends!
Thank you very much Dana! It was really worth it =)
Wow, that’s very awesome, Gloson. I’m already speechless here. You just beat the adult blogger guys. Well done, kid. 🙂
Hi Gloson!
Congrats on the Twitter success! Every once in a while we luck out when a power-user shares our content socially, but something you mentioned shows that it’s not *really* luck at all. You worked really hard on that post and polished it as much as you could, and invested quality time making it really solid. That counts for a lot, because as you said, power-users are influential because they only share content that’s worthwhile. Their reputations and social klout depend on it.
So good job!
Delena
Hi Delena,
Thanks, and totally agree! Yeah, power user frequently tweets quality content. So if you want more chances of getting retweeted by a power user, first step is to write quality content. =)
Cheers,
Gloson
Congratulations! That’s amazing… this is how viral information spreads on the internet, it’s a perfect example of this effect. I liked your chart by the way!
Fred
Hello Gloson, this is the first time I am visiting your blog. While looking through the side bar I understood that you are a great young talent 🙂
This is another example which shows that great content will always get rewarded. You have wrote a great piece of content and the reward came in the form of a tweet from a popular person.
Hello Rojish,
Thank you so much. Yeah, it’s all thanks to @AdvicetoWriters =). By the way, I’ve just visited your blog and it looks like a great blog! =D
Good work,little man.I agree quality content always gets respect not only from search engines,but also from visitors
Pretty Amazing … It shows that quality content pays off !! Anyways Congrats !!
Hello,
I totally agree, Twitter, but not only, the social networks generally speaking are extraordinarly good. I remember, I posted a thing on a Facebook page and it brought me a lot of visitors, comments and likes. I didn’t got way too far with Twitter because I don’t got the hang of it already but, I will read a lot and learn about Twitter because I noticed it is a very strong tool. Thanks for sharing!
George
Hi George,
Agreed. Any social network can bring you lots of traffic if it is utilized and used well. Congratulations on your facebook success! Which was your popular article? =)
Cheers,
Gloson
Wow! That’s a great success on Twitter Gloson! 3000 visitors is unbelievable! But the graphs just showed it did happen! I really learned a lot from this very inspiring share and I hope I could also apply this to my business. But of course, I must learn to master Twitter first! Haha!
Haha, thank you very much Charlene! Yeah, twitter might be a very good addition to your business. =)
Did you get any increased number of readers of your blog? Or did they just read that article and never came back?
Good question! Looking at the stats, the visitors came and read the article for several minutes. Some of them stayed to read other posts.
that was a heck of visitors from just one tweet..this proves the power of twitter..and you get really targeted visitors..I was under impression that twitter is useless as most of the people just follow the people for the numbers.. it proves people actually use twitter to get real information..
better head over to twitter and get some real followers
Wow ! That’s wow and wow and wow. That’s very lucky of you Gloson. Actually, the largest traffic to my blog from Twitter is only 4.. LOL I haven’t been using Twitter that much though.
Hi Argie!
Haha, thank you very much! Actually, your visitors from twitter are more than that. Most of twitter visitors are direct traffic because they come from apps, clients, etc. Only the ones that come from web show up as visitors from twitter.com. =)
Cheers,
Gloson
Yup . You’re right with it Gloson. Actually I do receive some comments from Hotsuite, some twitter apps and on mobile as well.
I’m curious the quality of your visitors. I’ve never been able to get quality visitors to my site from twitter. Mostly bots and scrapers. Congrats on the traffic spike though. Very impressive
Thanks a lot. The visitors, from the stats, mainly read the post for several minutes, and then some went on to other parts of my blog. =)
Wow it cool in just one day being able to have a 3000 visitors. I’ve never had that spike of traffic on my sites before for just one day maybe someday I hope…LOL:-)
Hi Kyle,
Haha, thanks. It is possible if you try. Good luck to you! =)
Cheers,
Gloson
I have a wikileaks blog and one follower always tweets my stuff but not on the same level. I have had large spikes from reddit before, those reddit users are fanatics.
Regardless of who ReTweets your posts, your point is good about targeted followers. I am convinced my 3500 followers are far more valuable than a 50,000 followers because mine is 99% targeted.
Hi Ivin,
In that case, that’s very good! 🙂 How do you know your followers are 99% targeted?
I monitor them and my strategy I use to get followers ensures they are targeted. I can share some links with you on how I did it.
Sounds cool! How are your targeted followers benefiting you? =)
Well, I guess the most important part is that they care what you have to say, offer and love your content.
Hey Jason I’m 14 years old(you can check my age in fb.com/paulsantosh) and I started blogging in August 2009(at the age of 12 proof:http://www.blogger.com/profile/00945291649459381341) Now I’m blogging in http://www.paulsantosh.com, I also create tools(http://www.paulsantosh.com/p/tools_10.html) What do you say?
Hi Paul,
That’s great! I don’t even know how to create tools like yours. Haha. 😛
By the way, I can’t find your about-me page. I think your blogs needs an about-me page, because people who like your blog are probably wondering who wrote the posts. =)
Cheers,
Gloson
P.S. My name is Gloson, not Jason. 😛
Hi Gloson
What a nice surprise to wake up to all those visitors 🙂 I have had a couple of spikes in visitors, but they came from stumbleupon not from tweets. And people didn’t stay on my site for 7 minutes either.
I remember that post and it was very well written. As English is my only language, I do tend to notice grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in posts. However, if the person has English as a second language it is understandable. No excuse for us English speakers though!
Hope the schoolwork is going well. Have a great weekend Gloson. As always, an enjoyable read. Thanks for sharing with us. Much appreciated.
Patricia Perth Australia
Hi Patricia, Very nice of you to drop by! 😀 Thanks for the comment! Yeah, if the person has English as a second language it is excusable, but it’s still important to improve! =) Have a great weekend too Patricia! =)
Cheers,
Gloson
I’ve Stumbled this article to get more followers but it resulted in 114 views instead 🙂 :’(
LOL Paul. Stumbling an article doesn’t get you more followers; it only helps. 😛
Wow, that’s quite incredible. It really a case of being in the right place at the right time though and there’s not much that one can do to ensure that it happens, but I guess you need to be sure to capitalise on it if and when that does happen by going the extra mile to respond to everyone and making everyone feel welcome.
Amazing. Twitter is often underestimated. I actually use it only as marketing tool, but there are really people out there reading all the tweets 😉
Hi Glosson,
I believe the headline is really interesting. I would have visited the link if I ever saw that in twitter. 🙂 Trivias like this can really attract a lot of visitors.
Hey Gloson,
This story is totally awesome! I haven’t been around your blog very much, but everytime I come you always seem to hit me with a really good article! That’s only telling me that I’m doing something wrong, and that’s not taking a little more time to see whats going on here. 3,000 visit from a single tweet! This pretty amazing, and I can’t wait till the day I wake up to a big traffic spike like that.
Top quality content does the trick right?
God bless,
William Veasley
Hi William Tha Great! =D
Haha, thank you very much! I’m really happy you liked my post. Yup, I think the time I spent writing it and the research I did ultimately resulted in the power user tweeting my post. It was truly worth it. 😀
Cheers,
Gloson
Its really an shocking news i mean i can’t believe one tweet can flow 3k visit to anyone’s blog. But when i read the whole article i got to know this – Twitter can really make it.
-Irfan
Hi Irfan,
It’s true indeed. Twitter can do amazing things. Imagine what a tweet from @Mashable would do. 😀 Haha
Gloson
four thumbs up, good job. Mine still poor in traffic. Well, something awesome I can learn from you, even you are younger than me….
Hi aming. Four thumbs up? Never heard that one before. Thanks :). Cheers, Gloson
This is really great Glosson. I’ll tell you not everybody comes across such magnificent opportunity like this. I’m really happy for you.
Ayodeji
Congrats Gloson. Its amazing that a single tweet from a power user got you so much traffic. I hardly get any traffic from Twitter, but after reading your post I would definitely going to use Twitter more often.
This is a lesson is not about twitter or tweeting, it’s about writing good content. With all of the social media sites out there, getting a continues spike in traffic is a realistic goal. Keep writing content and it will spread. Keep up the good work.
What I learned from this is you have to make your content worth tweeting. A Twitter power user might stumble on your blog and if found something of his interest then you might end up like our young friend Gloson. Cool post, thanks for sharing 🙂
Exactly, Jill. Making your content worth tweeting is what ultimately brings you the traffic!=)
Hi Gloson,
Congrats. Its a very inspiring story. It would have been so nice to have become a star overnight. It teaches us that quality work does get you rewards one day. So, never compromise with quality.
Superb Gloson. Its amazing that a single tweet from your user, got you so much traffic. I did not get any traffic from tweeter. I was hopeless but right reading your post I would definitely going to use Twitter more often.I am regular reader of your blog even though you did not approve my comment. But i will continuously visit your blog. Thanks
-Sara
Hi Sara,
Yeah, Twitter can be a very good source of traffic, but if only you use the right methods and ways. Glad to hear you’re choosing Twitter! 🙂
So sorry for being late in approving your last comment. Approved now! 😀 And thanks for the continuous support! I appreciate it! =)
Cheers,
Gloson
Hi Gloson,
Thanks for approving my comment, last time i was anger with you thats why i make a aggressive comment. I am very glad to hear from your side thanks for replying. My prayer are with you. God bless you.
_Sara
Hi Sara,
Thank you very much, and I apologize again. You’re welcome, and I really appreciate all the comments you’ve made. Thanks a lot! =)
Cheers,
Gloson
Congratulation to your success! That is the fruit of your own labor and now you are starting to harvest it, thanks to twitter which is i also use in promoting. Cheers men!
Hello Glosson,that was a very article on English grammar,That you got the recognition for it.twitter is a very good source of traffic if you use it effectively.
Hi Nipon, Thank you very much. I’m glad you liked that article! Yep, Twitter is indeed a great way of driving traffic. =)
Unbelievable! I made some Twitter and Facebook campaigns myself, but I can tell you I never got such a huge traffic just because of one single post.
I agree with you about having quality content, real and targeted followers, but I also think there’s some pure luck that made all the things rollin’
Anyway congratulations for your achievement! Hope I’ll get traffic like that sometimes too:D
Hi Gloson!
Wow! Congrats! Really interesting story! Didn’t think that Twitter is so powerful. Thank you for a real example that shows the importance of Twitter.
Best,
Eric Lenhard
Gloson,
Congratulations. The power of the internet/Twitter is amazing. Keep up the good work.
That is some amazing power that one user can have. Big grats to you, content is always king
The best thing about having a power user tweet your content is that those guys have real followers, people who are interested (they click and read) in what that power user tweets. Good Job !
Nice analytic skills for a 13 year old. Don’t mean to sound condescending, it’s just that few can digg up information and understand stats like you do at your age.
Oh, yeah, and the post deserved to be retweeted by a power users. Keep it up with posting quality articles and I’m sure more power users will tweet your posts.
Great. Twitter is such a wonderful invention. I’m now looking for a person who have many loyal followers and willing to retweet my post. lol
But congrats to your site! 😀