Built an Audience of 69k on Twitter. Help me convert them to My Website
I have spent the last 18 months building an audience in Twitter and, in parallel, building a platform to hopefully bring them all there. Putting all my eggs on one basket (i.e. Twitter) is my biggest single point of failure right now.
It doesn't seem like an easy mission as I initially imagined. So, I am trying to carefully plan for the website launch these days to my existing 69k followers and prepare a reasonable business model to monetize the platform.
The plan as of one today:
1- Audience niche: Commercial shops owners
2- Product value proposition: Connect to other owners and workers in the industry to share knowledge and build business partnerships.
3-Business model: - Job board, partnerships facilitation, subscription to quality content creator in the industry.
What do you think?
Any successful similar community models that you can direct me to?
Thanks all!
Do I understand the facts, correctly?
You have a Twitter following but the website is not ready yet.
At some point you'll invite your followers to the website and from there, hopefully activate them.
So....
Why are they following you? Are the followers your ideal customer and following you because you post about the pain points your business solves? In other words, is your follower count a vanity metric or number you can build from?
Assuming a certain percentage of your followers are qualified leads, what will they find when they arrive on your website after launch? What are your lead capture mechanisms? What is the Twitter follower's incentive to sign-up or provide another means of contact upon arriving at your website?
Assuming you get qualified leads to come from Twitter to your website and obtain their contact information, then what? Will you provide services immediately? Will you send a newsletter? How will you engage and activate these people to convert them to ongoing users of your tools?
It is much easier to get people to like and follow than it is to get them to part with their money. It is also easier to engage with people on a platform when they are there anyway versus getting them to come to your website on a regular basis.
You will need strategies that overcome these obstacles and still manage to attract and keep people's interests.
[It can be done. But you need a plan 🙂]
Hi @Parker_Content
Quote: "Why are they following you? Are the followers your ideal customer and following you because you post about the pain points your business solves? In other words, is your follower count a vanity metric or number you can build from?"
Response: They follow me because I post good content (e.g. summaries of videos & podcasts, good articles, ideas, trends,...etc). Some of the following count is a vanity metric but there is a good portion of it real shop owners and some of them are CEOs of multi-million businesses.
Quote: "Assuming a certain percentage of your followers are qualified leads, what will they find when they arrive on your website after launch? What are your lead capture mechanisms? What is the Twitter follower's incentive to sign-up or provide another means of contact upon arriving at your website?"
Response: " I have built the website with 2 sections: "Discussion"& "Job Board". I have tested the discussion section but it seems that the experts who engage in answering the questions in my Twitter account are not motivated to answer them in the website! I am not sure why. So, I added the job board to hopefully increase engagement. My lead capture mechanisms: I am trying to get as many people as possible to the website by posting twitter content there, Then, after some time will add new sections for verified/vetted members only (i.e. shop owners).
Quote: "Assuming you get qualified leads to come from Twitter to your website and obtain their contact information, then what? Will you provide services immediately? Will you send a newsletter? How will you engage and activate these people to convert them to ongoing users of your tools?"
Response: At the moment, there is no plan for using the contact info (136 signups so far but little engagement). The Job board is the only section with monetization potential for now. I am also contacting some bloggers to write exclusive content in exchange for exposure in Twitter. Will see how that goes.
Quote: "It is much easier to get people to like and follow than it is to get them to part with their money. It is also easier to engage with people on a platform when they are there anyway versus getting them to come to your website on a regular basis."
Response: Absolutely. I am researching similar platforms' strategies to learn how they done it and apply them (e.g. Indie Hackes & Product Hunt)
Thanks for your comment, @Parker_Content
I think it is the effort to go elsewhere. This is a little bit "switching costs" and a little bit cost vs reward.
If they post on Twitter, the audience is built in and they already have an account. No costs, little risk of being posting into the void.
If they post on your platform, they have to expend effort to set up their account (I assume) and there's a high risk that no one will see the content.
So, the question is, if I'm contemplating coming to your site, "What's in it for me?"
I think nearly every networks effects business faces this struggle to gain traction. If you build it, they won't come unless they see someone else there first. LOL
Hey Ali,
Suggest building your community around a belief system rather than a generic idea of "learning from your peers".
This kind of idea is nice, but you're not going to build the passionate and engaged community that I imagine you're hoping to build.
Take CrossFit for example.
It didn't build a thriving community around the world because it sold the generic idea of getting fit.
Instead, it sold an entire new belief system (a type of belief system that I call a BLUNT belief) about fitness. This turned its followers into a passionate community who is obsessed with the brand and pays a lot of money to further engage with it.
Obviously CrossFit is slightly different from what you're planning to do, but the principles remain the same.
You can check out this website (www.thebluntmethod.com) for an entire explanation complete with case studies of this approach.
Good luck!
Best
Chris
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the interesting advice!
I will add "CrossFit" to my research list and will checkout http://www.thebluntmethod.com/
Ali
You're welcome :-)