What the hell is a tweet and why on earth do we need it?
That simple statement sums up most everybody’s first impressions of Twitter and it’s strict 140 characters or less status’s or updates. What can I say to all my friends and followers that I don’t already say on Facebook. And why would anyone want to follow me anyway? Come to think of it why would I want to follow any of my friends?
Unless you happen to be friends with Nelson Mandela or Richard Branson there doesn’t seem to be much point checking what all your friends are up to every minute of the day. But this is where people’s opinion of Twitter starts to change, because it’s not only setup for you to follow friends, but more importantly for you to follow the individuals or organisations you find most interesting. It’s a mini news service from the people you actually care about getting your news from. By adding these respected and interesting people to your feed you can create a network that includes whomever you would like to include. How exciting…
The twitter platform, created by Jack Dorsey is now considered the SMS of the internet. By limiting posts to 140 characters it solves one of the largest problems with the internet. People’s limited attention span. With a huge amount of content on the web people’s attention spans are at an all time low and quick bites have become the way to grab your share of this attention. An average tweet only takes a few seconds to read and can therefore be readily consumed by busy internet users. By learning to say what you need to convey in under 140 characters the potential amount of people the message can reach will multiply.
Now with easy access to Twitter from mobile devices the platform has become the world’s largest platform for sharing real time data. This could be in the form of business information, sports scores or emergency procedures during natural disasters. With businesses taking advantage of this and building large followings branding through Twitter is now one of the premier communication channels for marketing.
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As Twitter continues to mature a fine line is beginning to be drawn between what is acceptable and what is too much advertising or self-promoting. The backlash of the latter can be brutal and damaging to an already established brand.
So as you setup your twitter account and choose who to follow, just remember that these big and popular feeds are being followed by millions and therefore the people on the other end are very careful and methodical about how they use the 140 characters. Takes a bit of the fun away, but it’s a far cry from everyone’s first impressions of sending each other tweets about that mornings flavour of oatmeal, or whinging about the guy next to you on the train.
McIntyre, D 2009, 'The Future Of Twitter', Time, 29 May, viewed 9 December 2012, <http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1901188_1901207,00.html>
Its interesting that twitter's 140 character limit works with peoples limited attention span, makes me wonder if our dependence on short messaging has given us all the attention span of a goldfish. where once dialect and conversation was encouraged will the future see us also speaking only in short bursts.
ReplyDeleteI hope not, Although people do split their attention between the conversation at hand and the conversations taking place on their devices.
DeleteI like your take on Twitter as a marketing tool - it certainly seems to be the way things are going with all forms of social media. The organization I work for uses Twitter to get the message out there about projects we're working on, events we have coming up, etc. But as a non-profit organization our use of social media is not for any commercial purpose, but rather to draw attention to our goals and activities that try to better the lives of others.
ReplyDeleteTwitter can be great for non-profits, provides a platform for the incredible stories that often come out of these organisations.
DeleteAnother interesting post Matt. I like you thoughts of "It’s a mini news service from the people you actually care about getting your news from" I believe this is how a lot of people view the twitter platform.
ReplyDeleteNews may circulate, though it may be of more interest to us to read the opinions of our favourite 'twitterers', being those with a viewpoint we relate to in some way.
It seems that twitter works great from a business and industry perspective. I believe that 'infotainment' is another popular aspect. I read somewhere that it will become a sink or swim situation, as only the strongest will survive on twitter. This may mean that twitter subscribers who post trivial information may fade out? If this is so, it may become a very powerful business and media tool indeed.
Yes, it's very similar to blogs in that fashion. As these accounts are so easy to setup and run I think information overload will mean users will filter out most content and only pay attention to the very best... So if you want to be popular on Twitter... be the best at something! (even if it's any of these... 10 of the Weirdest Hobbies>)
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