Twitter is not that Social
admin | Aug 18, 2009 | Comments 2
Is Twitter a social media tool that allows people to connect with like minded friends, or the latest content aggregator from the few to the masses? Maybe Twitter is the new marketing vehicle that blends together interruptive marketing techniques with slightly interesting tweets in hopes the consumer will head out to the brand’s website?
A recent study by Nielsen (http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/twitter-quitters-post-roadblock-to-long-term-growth/) stated that though Twitter reports large numbers of followers, very few remain active. Harvard Business School (http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/06/new_twitter_research_men_follo.html) released findings that Twitter’s usage patterns are very different from a typical on-line social network in that a typical Twitter user contributes very rarely. This translates into over half of Twitter users, tweeting less than once every 74 days.
The Internet Advertising Bureau (http://riajournal.com/ria/index.php/2009/04/28/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-social-networks-and-not-annoy-users) out of the UK polled 2000 internet users were asked what they disliked the most about social networking. Over one third of the responders indicated the constant barrage of receiving invitations, followed by 16% responders complained about the irrelevant messaging. Amy Kean of the IAB said, “Despite [social networking's] popularity, respect for the user is just as important in social media. Users will not respond to spam or irrelevant advertising.”
So whats all the Tweeting about? The Harvard Study also indicated 10% of prolific Twitters accounted for an astounding 90% of the tweets. This clearly implies Twitter’s resembles a one-way, one-to-many publishing service vs. a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network. .
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I think the answer to the question in the headline is yes. From what I think I’ve learned twitter is a computer assisted town square, barber shop, local store and a place to find and be found.
The statistics of how many users produce how many of the tweets could probably be replicated in any study of the communication ecology of almost any community of interest. It’s easiest to visualize the physical community. A couple of people like to talk. Most people like to listen.
The paradox is that I don’t think twitter is best seen as a media. It might be more productive to see it as the natural evolution of the agora -the original marketplace in the west. Agora lead to cities lead to civilization.
A computer assisted agora follows the same principles. But it’s subject to a time shift and the elimination of space as a constraints.
Lee
I have read the reports you linked to and a host of articles and whitepapers that try to analyze the Twitter challenge. I think it’s like everything else that emerges in the world of marketing. It’s just one more tool that, if used appropriately and with dedication, can make a dent in maintaining customer communication.
Twitter won’t be as appropriate for some verticals — folks in the communication trades, news business, magazine and trade press folks… we’re all used to communication so we’re more likely to gravitate. But I am seeing an interesting trend — there are a lot of requests for information appearing in my Twitter stream — and that is another important point — Twitter will only be as good for you as your Twitter stream. It’s about who you follow as much as who follows you.
I am a news junkie so I follow news outlets and grab a lot of information that never makes it to my local news and might only make the crawl or flipper on a news channel.
I like Twitter.
Pat = @PatMcGrew at Twitter — I hope your readers will come follow me! Oh, and you!