twitter, time waster or value adder
DESCRIPTION
A presentation I gave at the Online Information exhibition, Olympia, 3 December 2009. I outlined why people think Twitter is a 'time waster' and followed up with five reasons why it isn't. Short explanatory blog post at http://bit.ly/8yZuc7TRANSCRIPT
Twitter - Time waster or value adder?
Dirk Singer (twitter @dirkthecow)
“Do we really need to know that you just put your pants on, just brushed your teeth, just ordered a hamburger, just finished dinner, just walked out of the bathroom.”(A Twitter detractor on USA Today)
About meSocial media specialist (not really an expert) at Cow Digital...and Twitter is a good place to make me seem smarter than I really am!
The case against Remember this place?
“Twitter and Second Life were hailed as the next big thing - until someone pointed out they weren’t actually
big”(Greg Verdino)
Second Life and Twitter
Second Life1 - No one will shut up about it
2 - Perception that it’s for people with too much time on
their hands3 - A lot of hype but the numbers don’t stack up
4 - Media back-lash against it 5- Very quickly vanished from public eye, became a minority
or hobbyist pursuit
Twitter1 - No one will shut up about it
2 - Perception that it’s for people with too much time on their hands3 - A lot of hype but the numbers
don’t stack up4 - No media back lash yet, but signs
it could happen 5- Due to vanish from the public
eye, to become a minority or hobbyist pursuit?
What did you have for lunch today?
“I know we think we’re normal people, but we’re not”
(Greg Verdino)
In the words of an eminent psychologist
“Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It’s a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity....
“...I would guess that the typical profile of a ‘follower’ is someone who is young and who feels marginalised, empty and pointless. They don’t have an inner life.”
Oliver James
Is this what ‘experts’ talk about online?
• In October, traffic to the Twitter site dropped by between 2% (Compete) and 28% (Nielsen)
• Twitter’s active - core - user base is actually very small. Sysomos found that 5% of ‘power users’ account for 75% of tweets. That would mean that Twitter has 275k really active users (out of 5.5 million registrations) - less than the circulation of most national newspapers
• Twitter’s rate of churn is very high - up to 60% according to Nielsen. Just like Second Life, most people register but don’t participate
Does anyone actually use it?
So what is Twitter good for? Five things
1 - The numbers are in many ways irrelevant. It has an influence out of proportion to its numbers
Who are Twitter ‘power users’?• The common words in biogs according
to Sysomos:
• Web designer, internet marketing, business marketing, graphic designer, video games, software developer...people who know how to make things happen online
• Also bloggers and journalists - both are more likely to be active on Twitter. Sky now has its own Twitter correspondent
• The common misconception - Twitter is often a bridge to other media. Conversations start there, move elsewhere
2 - Twitter shapes news events in real time
The four hour news cycle on Twitter
• Thursday afternoon - blogger Jonathan MacDonald spots an LU staff member called Ian abusing an elderly passenger
• Goes home and posts it on his blog
• Friday morning it hits Twitter
• Friday afternoon makes the front page of the Evening Standard
• How many customer facing organisations would even know this happened to them?
3 - Twitter builds relationships• It doesn’t wreck real world
relationships, it strengthens existing ones and builds new ones
• It’s a myth that we talk exclusively to strangers online - a US University study found that in virtual worlds, people 10km from each other were 5x more likely to be connected than ones 100km from each other
• A look through Twitter lists will show that often they are grouped by industry and region
4 - People like sharing their experiences of brands and companies online...maybe even yours
20% of tweets are about brands (Penn
State)The 2nd most popular word on Twitter is “I”
“Over the course of my unemployment, my Twitter account grew from roughly 2000 followers to 5000 and it was undoubtedly these impressive numbers and a demonstrated knowledge of the power of social media that played a role in my hiring and differentiated me from others with similar skills.”
“It took being unemployed to really understand how Twitter could be used to foster community and relationships…for me, Twitter will always be both a guardian angel and one kick-ass job placement board.”
Journalist and blogger Mark Luckie who used Twitter after being made redundant
5 - Twitter can help you personally
So what can you / your organisation do to get the most out of Twitter?
At the very minimum - monitor!Even if you use free tools - a
column on Tweetdeck / Seesimic and
backtweets.com At the very minimum - register!Claiming an ID back takes time
What can you / your organisation do to get the most out of Twitter?
Use Twitter lists to build and
monitor professional
contacts
Use it to give your company a human face / personality
Creative commons credits (flickr)
GrahambonesRafeejewellmoe_sTenSafeFrogsL.MariedecjrdulhunkSankarshanDavid FraitzMangakaMaidenMetro Centric