Lock – UNLOCK!

RE-TWEET IT!
Tweet

If you know me, you know I love to innovate and experiment.

And on Twitter, I run many different tests, try out multiple approaches and flaunt various ‘rules’ (proclaimed by the Twiterati)… all in the interest of finding what works.

Often, I share them on my blog, or in tweets, or with my email list – for free. But that doesn’t mean they are worthless. Any of them could sell as a $20 report, easily.

How can I say that? Let’s take one such example, a recent blog post where I shared my results from testing Twitter for direct response marketing.

That data will save the right person 2 hours in time. Even if your time is worth as little as $10 an hour, that’s $20 in value.

Or see it another way. To acquire this data, I had to waste 2 hours of my time – which makes the results worth much more than $20.

The point I’m making is that this kind of data is precious, has a real money value – so read it carefully and take heed of the lessons or message.

It applies to this data as well – which shares my results from testing ‘locking’ my Twitter account to permit only pre-approved people to follow me on Twitter.

Sound weird? Why would anyone want LESS followers?

Well, the hypothesis I was testing is that, since my Twitter ‘response rate’ was hovering around 1% on average, would pre-qualifying followers by placing an ‘entry barrier’ to their joining my tweet-stream ensure a more responsive network?

I thought it would, and proceeded to ‘lock’ my Twitter account in early January 2009. No one outside those following me could now read my updates. And no one could follow me without being pre-approved (they could only submit a request to follow).

For 6 weeks, I have been testing and measuring results from this ‘experiment’ – and quite to my surprise, the data suggests that there is hardly any difference between the two approaches.

My Twitter ‘follower’ growth has been the same, averaged over time (I approve new requests once a week, which makes the graph more spiky).

My Twitter response rate has NOT changed much.

A few people were curious about the ‘lock’ icon that shows up next to my tweets, but not much came about because of it.

When all is said and done, the decision to ‘lock’ my Twitter account did NOT create much measurable impact or improvement in my use of the service.

Yes, it was ‘different’ – but not meaningfully so.

So I’m switching back to the old way. I’m going to UNLOCK my Twitter account. (You can follow me now!)

But one of my biggest productivity enhancement devices for Twitter still remains – my “Twitter Rule of FORTY”. To see what it is, read this page.

And not all of my Twitter Profit tips are free – some of them are revealed only inside my ebook, “TWITTER PROFIT – How to tweet your way to riches!“ … you may want to read it too.