Quite a while back, I wrote a few Twitterbots to post Media UK’s jobs and news to Twitter. The site already has daily email alerts, but adding Twitter support was quick and fairly simple to do. I even wrote some code to shorten links with bit.ly as part of the work. The result can be seen at @mediaukjobs, and the three news services @mediaukradio, @mediauktv and @mediaukpress. (You can pause at this point to follow some or all of those accounts.)

More recently, I added Google Analytics tracking codes to the URLs: because I was curious how many people are using these alerts, and whether it’s getting me any more traffic. Media UK also sends out email alert newsletters, so I added tracking to these email alerts, and also did the same to the iGoogle widgets I’ve been promoting for many years.

First – iGoogle. Don’t bother with it for traffic. It’s not a realistic traffic generator. Media UK’s news widget gets negligible use: its installation base is high, but it gets fewer clickthroughs per day than I have fingers. It’s probably a good brand reinforcer, but for traffic? No.

So, what about Twitter and Email?

The obvious-if-you-think-about-it news is that Twitter is significantly better at getting you brand new visits – 43% of traffic to Media UK from its Twitterbots was what Google Analytics call “new visits”, compared to just over 10% for email.

Obvious, of course – you have to come to Media UK to sign up for the free emails, whereas it’s possible to find the Twitterbots using other means – but I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be four times as good at getting brand new traffic.

And the other, obvious-if-you-think-about-it, thing: Twitter delivers more visits per person – 1.18 per ‘follower’, rather than 0.72 per email subscriber.

So – adding separate Twitter alert accounts is fairly quick and simple to do; and have can have a surprising effect on traffic if you promote them well.

The full figures are here:

Twitter
5,053 followers*
6,009 visits (1.18 per follower)
2.7 pages/visit
43% new visits

Email
13,288 subscribers*
9,602 visits (0.72 per follower)
3.21 pages/visit
11.4% new visits

* Because Media UK runs more than one email newsletter and twitter feed, these figures will be an over-estimate.

Screengrabbed by Beth Kanter. Her screengrab used under licence.

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