TO: High-Level Business Executives
FROM: The Executive Whisper
We’d just like to go on record that the Twitter-as-a-Business-World-Savior phenomenon has officially gotten out of control and, in fact, the micro-blogging tool will soon occupy the same space as pet rocks and the Macarena.
Why? Everything that’s reported and opined is all based on anecdotes and gee-whiz thinking – and frankly, crap that doesn’t make any sense.
To wit: TIME magazine’s June 15, 2009, cover story predicts Twitter “will increasingly become a place where companies build brands, do research, send information to customers, conduct e-commerce and create communities for their users.” It explains the wonderful conversations people are having on Twitter to deliver “ambient awareness.” And the article actually states “hearing about what your friends had for breakfast is actually more interesting than it sounds.” No, it’s not.
Further, this is all great in theory. Unfortunately, it’s not supported by the data. In fact, the article reports no numbers or research. And it conveniently ignores recent data revealing how Twitter’s traffic has flatlined and that basically no one tweets. Oh, and it’s lower on the social media interaction scale than Wikipedia. (Twitter’s resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network.) But besides that, TIME’s reporter, Steven Johnson, was at a conference where Twitter was used. And, well, it was kinda cool.
There’s more. Jack and Suzy Welch’s recent, usually insightful, column in BusinessWeek proclaim (no lie) “[W]e certainly get its incipient power. Indeed, if Twitter continues to expand at its current rate, it may well become a high-value way for companies to help brand themselves and microtarget consumer groups, as well as another tool for managers to interact with their people, and vice versa.” And to support this claim? They like it. They really, really like it. No supporting data or real analysis need be given.
Holy crap. And that’s where the trouble lies. No real analysis. Hello? Will the grownups please report to work? Can you imagine what Jack Welch would have done if an employee provided a similar report to him while he was running GE? “Gee, that’s interesting, Bob. You’re fired.”
Yes, we’ve all read the incredible success stories how Zappos and Dell tweating their way to fame and fortune. And how Intuit and Comcast use Twitter to assist customer service. But those are anecdotes.
In short, Twitter is an interesting technological answer in search of a problem. But the problem is not what you’re virtual friend had for breakfast.
It’s this kind of Luddite understanding of the technology that limits how quickly it is consumed by the masses. Certainly the adoption rate has moved past the “early adopters”, and from my own anecdotal use there are three kinds of users: Businesses who are trying to figure out how to listen to or to get in touch with their market, People like me who don’t microblog their breakfast but create interesting content and relationships, and People who don’t “get it” and probably won’t use it much when the shine wears off. Whether or not you “get it”, I’m surprised that you didn’t dig deeper and do the research yourself, and figure out why it is so successful for companies like Zappos (great customer service) and Dell (over $1 million in sales from Twitter leads).
Do you think that it needs a MafiaWars application in order to be useful? Say it ain’t so.
Thanks, Matt. You make a lot of good points. Time will certainly tell. My only point of clarification would be that we’ve done considerable digging at Zappos and Dell, and while these are great examples, they are part of the few anecdotal success stories repeated ad nauseum in the press. Realistically, there aren’t a great number of similar successes, and certainly not strategies that can be replicated. Tony is pretty unique. I feel like pointing to him and the folks at Dell is kind of like pointing to the same lottery winners and saying buying lottery tickets is a good investment. The odds of success are about the same. But you may be right, and maybe I just don’t get it. But boy, it sure feels like it’s headed for the cliff.
Pardon my vitriol. I also hate the “here’s what I just ate” posts… they minimize my experience. I also have unfollowed most of the pop-culture icons that i originally followed. They are not interested in the interaction, just getting their message out.
And I think that’s where the secret is — for individuals and for businesses, find a way to interact with those around you and make it a truly social media.
Twitter is basically a free social networking website where it allows members to send and also read messages that are called tweets. The tweets are accessible for a person’s follow to view, but the fantastic thing about twitter is that you can as well restrict the messages to particular groups or friends to see. And because of the fact that twitter is free and comfortable to use, a lot of people use them. People today are immediately taking advantage of Twitter by advertising their products or to promote their businesses. You can even use Twitter to promote your web page or website in order for you to get targeted traffic flowing into your site and start earning much money.