Tag: Twitter

My #TwitteratiChallenge blog post

Posted on May 18, 2015May 18, 2015 by Doug Belshaw

Last week, Tim Jefferis was kind enough to tag me in his #TwitteratiChallenge blog post. The rules and guidance for this can be found at the bottom of that post. I’m going to follow them in spirit rather than letter. 😉

1. @doctorow
Writer, blogger, activist. If you want a reply, use email. Blog suggestions here: http://www.boingboing.net/suggest.html 0BC4 700A 06E2 072D 3A77 F8E2 9026 DBBE 1FC2 37AF

I’m not into celebrities and fandom, but I must admit to being in awe of Cory Doctorow. His novels are deeply thought-provoking, he surfaces important stuff through BoingBoing and his Twitter feed, and (perhaps most importantly) inspires me to keep on fighting the good fight for free and open source technologies.

2. @audreywatters
writer @hackeducation (http://hackeducation.com ), ed-tech’s Cassandra, author of The Monsters of Education Technology. Elsewhere: http://aud.life

We need more people like Audrey Watters in the world. Indefatigable and unwavering in her critique of the excesses of edtech, she’s a beacon of light and source of strength for many in the community.

3. @leashless
Beyond good taste and evil. Global resilience guru. What do you do after it all goes wrong? And what about the poor, for whom it’s never yet been right?

My brain almost melts every time I get the chance to talk to Vinay Gupta or read his blog. He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met and gets me thinking about stuff I’d never even considered before.

4. @josiefraser
Social & Educational Technologist. Digital literacy, identity & community; staff & organisational development; open education; making change happen.

I’ve known Josie Fraser for around 10 years through shared interests in educational technology and digital literacies. She’s currently Digital Strategy Lead at Leicester City Council but has been involved in so much important work across Europe.

5. @oliverquinlan
Research tech in schools & write about learning futures. Opinions expressed mine alone. Book ‘The Thinking Teacher’ out now: http://bit.ly/thinkingteacher

Saying that Oliver Quinlan is one of the most reliable and dependable people in my network might sound like I’m damning him with faint praise but, given the level at which he works (Oliver is a multi-talented and award-winning, teacher, researcher, author, and thinker), it’s one of the highest recommendations I can give. His gentle and quiet facade hides a razor-sharp and questioning mind.

Want to join in? Consider yourself tagged! 🙂

My Twitter ads verdict: a waste of time and money

Posted on May 3, 2015May 4, 2015 by Doug Belshaw

Update: The excellent comments on this post have made me realise that I proved exactly nothing in this experiment due to the poor way I set it up. Thanks all! Will try to do better next time.

I mentioned on Friday that I was going to experiment with Twitter ads for my book The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies. I said I’d report back on my findings.

Well, it’s a pretty stark message: either I’m doing something fundamentally wrong, or they’re a complete waste of time and money.

Here’s my results after spending $50 on three promoted tweets:

As you can see, not exactly stellar results.

So how did that translate to sales? Remember, I said that, “After Gumroad’s commission and the 10% discount, I need less than 10 additional people to buy my ebook to break even.”

According to my Gumroad statistics, I didn’t even sell one additional copy:

As the person who bought my book yesterday bought it at the undiscounted rate, I’m chalking that up as an ‘organic’ sale (i.e. they didn’t purchase it as a result of the advertising).

Happily, sales are going reasonably well anyway. They fluctuate each week, but are never zero. I think I’ll just let things continue as they are and not throw good money after bad. 😉

Experimenting with Twitter ads for my ebook

Posted on May 1, 2015May 1, 2015 by Doug Belshaw

This morning a tweet from Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC technology correspondent, caught my eye:

Update – after spending £20 on Twitter ads (forgot it was £10 a day) @BBCTechTent promoted tweet had 56,273 impressions with 81 engagements

— Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) May 1, 2015

Looking back through his timeline took me to a Facebook page for the ‘BBC Tech Tent’ where Rory discussed the BBC team’s experiments with Facebook and Twitter ads.

That got me thinking.

I played around with Twitter analytics when it launched and found it pretty fascinating. However, I started to become a bit too obsessed with ‘engagement’ and put it to one side. At the end of the day, I’m not actually that bothered how many people follow me. It’s all about the exchange of ideas and having a rich information environment.

What this morning’s activity did do was give me a nudge down the path of trying out Twitter ads. I been considering it for a while and so decided to bite the bullet and set up three promoted tweets. They will show in people’s timelines over the weekend and all point towards my ebook, The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies:

As you can see, I’ve set up three different promoted tweets with the same image but slightly different text and calls to action (Learn / Order / View). I’ve put $50 in the pot – $25 split between Saturday and Sunday – and limited the target audience to English. Specifying areas/localities to target is mandatory, so I went with UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. For some reason I couldn’t specify India?

This is an experiment. Would I like more people to read my book? Absolutely. But it’s not just about that. The main thing here is playing with Twitter ads so I know how (if!) they work. After Gumroad’s commission and the 10% discount, I need less than 10 additional people to buy my ebook to break even. I’ll let you know the outcome. 🙂