12 June 2009
In Defense of Twitter
Posted by robgraham under: Engagement marketing; Media Musings .
I think it was Roseanne Arnold who once said “it’s true; you do see the same people on the way down that you saw the way up”.
It seems that one of the national pastimes of this country is watching celebrities, large companies and anybody else who seems to pull ahead of the pack, to fall from grace. During the past few months Twitter has emerged as a ‘cutting edge social media’ tool. During this time, Twitter has been hyped, been part of major news stories, and has entered the consciousness of millions of people. The main challenge for Twitter has been to live up to all that hype.
Recently, news has been emerging that Twitter has a huge churn rate. While the rate of sign-ups may be impressively high (over 2000% in the past year) it’s starting to appear that the majority of those who sign up for Twitter poke around for a few days and then disappear. This news is also often followed by gloom and doom prognosticators who claim that this is indicative of Twitter’s inability to be an effective marketing tool.
I think it’s important to keep in mind that much of what establishes any growth in any industry is based upon two factors: 1) a perceived need for that product or service in the market, and 2) curiosity on the part of consumers to learn more about those products and services. In the case of Twitter, with so much hype surrounding its use (largely brought on by people like Oprah and Ashton Kutcher) many people just wanted to check it out to see what it was. This is all perfectly acceptable.
However, just because you check something out doesn’t mean that it’s something you want or need. We’ve all watched the random infomercial for a product that we never bought. It may have engaged us and even held our attention for a full half-hour and made us think of ourselves “wow, if I bought that product I can have washboard abs!” But there’s a difference between those things that pique our interest, and those that motivate us to take action. In the case of Twitter, just because you logged in and looked around doesn’t mean it’s something you need.
For years I have been a fan of master carpenter Norm Abrams and his show “The New Yankee Workshop“. I sometimes watch with fascination at the ease in which he creates these complex pieces of furniture. But I also realize that if I were to try to create the same project, odds are good that it will look like it was put together by vandals. The bottom line is that even if I went out and bought all of these great tools, that doesn’t make me a master carpenter. That moniker comes with a good understanding of how to use those tools to accomplish my goals.
I feel the same holds true for Twitter. To claim that Twitter can’t live up to its promise to be good marketing tool has nothing to do with Twitter itself, but with how it is used. Anybody who believes that the path to marketing success when using Twitter is simply throwing up a random tweet once in a while is using pretty much the same logic as a person who believes that buying a hammer and saw will magically turn them into a craftsman.
It’s not a question of whether Twitter can be used effectively as a marketing tool. There are way too many cases of people who’ve used it as an effective way of communicating with other people who really want to hear what they have to say. But like any mode of communication, it is not a magic bullet that will suddenly grab the attention of everybody and bring them to your doorstep. Instead, it is only a tool that can allow marketers and other people to create a targeted list of other people who might be interested in what they have to share. And that itself is pretty damn impressive.
One Comment so far...
Peter Zale Says:
13 June 2009 at 2:24 am.
Rob:
On Facebook I see tweets from comic writer Brian Bendis about new titles that are out that he’s written and how they are being reacted to. He has thousands of followers and I really think he’s doing a good job of marketing with this tactic. Also he’s having fun which sells, too.
Pete