The wonderful promise that once was Twitter has faded in recent months for many businesses. There are several causes for this and only one reason why businesses who are abandoning the site are not really thinking it through.
For starters, Twitter has been overrun by spam. Despite their best efforts, there is a good chance that a link posted on Twitter is spam. Users realize this and are clicking less. There was a time when I could Tweet something and get thousands, even tens of thousands of visitors to the link. Those days are well behind us and even prominent Twitter accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers are lucky to break 1000 views to a link (other than breaking news, of course).
The noise levels continue to rise. There are Twitter accounts that post dozens, even hundreds of times a day filling people’s feeds. Of course, they can be unfollowed, but every time an account falls victim to following one of these accounts inadvertently, they are overwhelmed by the bulk of noise coming from one abusively active person (bot?). It brings cynicism towards the site and makes people less interested in returning.
Intent is another concern. Right now, businesses want to use Twitter and other social media sites as broadcasting tools. It amazes me that as we approach 2012 so few are using it as an engagement and/or listening tool (which fits it much better for business), but that still seems to be the case. Create-an-account-and-start-talking-about-my-business is still the dominant strategy used by businesses on Twitter.
Finally, there’s the buzz. At the Driving Sales Executive Summit in Vegas, I spoke to many business people. They were all hip on Facebook and interested in the future of Google+ but most viewed Twitter as “been there, done that” or “everyone in my 20-group says Twitter has no value to us.” When the businesses within a niche start heading towards a site, others follow. When they leave, the same thing happens.
Why This is Silly
There’s a bottom line about Twitter. Return on investment. ROI. The money and time spent on can be minimal. A business today can have an active and extremely effective Twitter account by monitoring and managing it for less than 10 minutes a day. In the time it takes to grab a cup of coffee from the break room, a social media person at a business can check Twitter, reply to people, post something interesting, and move on until the next day. It could be done literally while they’re walking to the break room by using their mobile device (as long as they don’t run into things or people on the way).
Twitter has a ton to offer businesses as a communication tool. A proper Twitter strategy takes more than 10 minutes a day as it requires searching, pro-active engagement, and properly-planned initiatives, but those who do not want to put in that kind of time shouldn’t abandon the site altogether. The 10-minute-a-day approach will yield greater results than 10 minutes spent on nearly any other activity.
About JD Rucker
Great great post JD
Indeed it’s hard to manage relationships over time, with a biz goal in mind on Twitter…
Biz lack the tools to define leads, cultivate them over them, identify their high – value relationships, know who to follow and who not to follow etc.
ROI on Twitter is not about # of followers, or statuses, it’s about the people that matter to me, it’s about cultivating more supporters to share your word, more engaged members to become your loyal tribe more influencers to engage with etc…
The main issue that is missing is a platform for SMBs to achieve all of the above… hopefully more and more companies will try to solve this issue in an affordable & easy to use platform.
Thanks for this post,
Sharel
JD,
I am a student in a Social Media class at Syracuse University (#NewhouseSM4). We are constantly discussing the importance of twitter and how it and other social media platforms will shape our future as we look for jobs.
One thing we had not discussed as a class was how businesses are growing tired of twitter. Like you, I think this is silly. Twitter can be a cheap and easy way to increase attention for a brand.
Do you think that in the next few years we will see the decline of twitter, with this partly as the cause? Will Facebook change enough to replace what twitter is?
Thank you,
Amy
Thoughful post JD. Really hope twitter does not fade into obscurity. Why? because for a novice like me, I find it easy to use, easy to read, and a great way to interact. Yeah I am using it for business purposes, but I really enjoy the social interaction too. My main concern is making my tweets interesting. I try to ask questions, highlight news topics, but not been retweeted as yet
– still early days! The ‘obvious’ noise is a nuisance though, and I would never contribute to that as it stops the social engagement I so long to achieve.
To me, Facebook is the dinosaur, the outdated, outmoded, irritating, intrusive version of social media that’s probably put more people off social media than Twitter’s even had users. As you say above, Twitter is easy to manage in just a few minutes a day.
Personally, (as a small business and as an individual) i’ve been experimenting with Facebook and Twitter (and others) and am about to give Facebook up to focus just on Twitter – Twitter gives better relationships, period. Doesn’t matter if you’re looking for business relationships or the personal kind – Twitter will give you both, something Facebook seems to fail at.
‘Twitter gives better relationships, period. Doesn’t matter if you’re looking for business relationships or the personal kind – Twitter will give you both, something Facebook seems to fail at.’
What makes you say this Sheila?
In my experience Facebook is much better for communicating with other people. Getting multiple people involved in a Twitter conversation is just messy. And even a two way conversation is difficult thanks to the character limit.
I don’t see Twitter as being any sort of relationship building tool; it’s seems very one way to me.
Hope no-one minds if I link to an article I wrote recently on just this issue: http://www.searchmarketingstandard.com/the-trouble-with-twitter
As you can see, I don’t see what’s supposedly so great about Twitter at all. Would like to hear more about why others like it so much though…
I think that’s the problem- people see Twitter more as a place to advertise and Facebook as more of a community. If you start thinking about Twitter as a community it will drastically change the approach. Respond directly to people and cater a message specifically to them, not just to the masses.
I do think that Twitter has got some things still to give to SMB’s, it is a question of putting some work in to get returns- which I hope to do.
Some smarter apps would help, to allow for better direction and removing some of the noise that is talked about.
We are at @HIEHamilton and would be glad to hear from others about your views
Mark
B Culture Media can help you build your twitter community!
Check us out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o_pv9Eh_YY
At first I look at twitter as a social media tool for celebrities. It’s a median for them to express themselves without getting a press conference or attention of the media or paparazzi. But then when I studied twitter, little did I know that these blue birds are very powerful tool for business. I must agree with you JD, Twitter is very practical for us who have serious online business; we spend only an hour a day but get significant marketing result for our business.
Thank you for this great post. Very interesting comments also on Facebook and Twitter, hope you can have another article about those two popular social media sites.