Before I started this blog, Generation – Y Startup was a completely offline venture. I simply spread the word about what I did by word of mouth, flyers, handing out business cards e.t.c. I had promised myself that I wasn’t going to get into blogging just for the sake of it. I wanted to make sure I was equipped enough on the topics I was going to be talking about. I now own two companies (still very young and growing), I have met with several angel investors and VCs, pitched my ideas on exactly 9 elevators, 15 car parks and about 23 times at the end of several startup events. It was only after all these that I decided it was time to move my venture online. I figured I had real understanding of what I will be saying; I now know the pain and joy of building a startup from nothing.
I started genystartup.com a few days after I had completed a test social networking website (I was testing out dolphin by boonex software). It is barely a month old but I have been lucky enough to gain a few followers already. I have posted some worth-while articles (so I have been told, I don’t blow my own horn) and I am proud of how things are getting on with Generation – Y Startup. It might be my first blog, but I am always surrounded by bloggers and have spoken to so many to realize that a blog needs a lot of time to grow, several months they said before you get at least 100 uniques/day. Somehow after my first two posts, I was already averaging 100 uniques. Now for a lot of people, this might be very, very small, but for me…It was quite a number. I live in Maryland and I can’t brag of knowing Chris Sacca, Guy Kawasaki or a friend at techcrunch who at the click of their mouse can channel tones of readers to my blog, so I do appreciate those 100, thanks you. I refused to create ads to promote my website, not because of cost but because I am always striving to convince myself that a venture truly can become legendary without really spending money.
I totally understand the power of social media, and while I and some of my friends (working for me) use it and other means (SEO, link creation e.t.c.) to grow our clients’ status online, I don’t ever really try to use it for Generation – Y Startup. I want my readers to really be new entrepreneurs willing to learn from my mistakes and right-deeds, from my failures and successes, not just anyone who barely cares about my topic of discussion because I want to drive my traffic so high. But back to my reason for this post, I believe the power of twitter is truly remarkable and while I was about to lay in bed to one night (as I have just finished writing ‘Business Plan 101 – Your first business plan’ ), I thought of the several reasons why I needed to share with my few followers the power of social media and especially twitter, as per what I had noticed 2 nights before.
It was just another Friday in twitter world and if you are an avid twitterer, you know that means only one thing: followfriday! It was 3a.m. eastern time and I had just read an article about a company called startup2startup (@startup2startup) and the effect it was having on new entrepreneurs. Since this is my niche, I decided to follow the company and its founder, Dave McClure (@davemcclure). I was getting set for bed so I decided I’ld put up some people who have influenced me that week and I included @davemcclure on my followfriday list. I woke up the next morning, read my emails, checked out the Liverpool football club website and smiled at the news Fernando Torres had signed a new deal…awesome! And then I pulled up my tweetdeck. Few minutes later I realized Dave McClure had decided to follow me back. I went about my business and completed my tasks for a client when I just decided to get back on and re-read this post I had just put up (Have you got what it takes to be an entrepreneur?), just to make sure again there were no spelling errors and what not. I realized the post had been re-tweeted 15 times. That was strange as I only usually averaged 3 re-tweets per post, so I looked on tweetdeck and realized @davemcclure had retweeted the post and the traffic that came pouring in after that was ridiculous.
The point of this post is for no other reason but to point out that the traffic that came in was not just traffic, but real readers. They were followers of @davemcclure and so were in my niche, and just like I wanted, they were people whose real interest fall into the category I covered.
Moral lesson: Twitter is a powerful platform and the retweet tool is one that not just brings traffic, but unlike other sources of traffic it brings in targeted readers, hence followers.
Special thanks for Dave McClure and everyone who found that article worthwhile!
