In the last 12 months, Twitter has gone from geek obsession to media obsession. The user-base has diversified from the original gathering of web 2.0 geeks, bloggers, and technology early adopters to include Ashton Kutcher, Shaq, Britney Spears, Oprah, the nice lady four cubicles down from you with 30 cats, and probably your aunt and mother. So what happens to the fastest growing social network when it turns the corner from early adopter to mass adoption?

Backlash. (See this….and this….)

One of the earliest negatives people expressed regarding Twitter was the mundanity of many tweets. It was common to hear detractors argue that they didn’t see the value in hearing that someone is watching Lost, or getting ready to dive into a big fat juicy burger, or the very common “I’m hung-over” tweet. But when your favorite blogger is sharing links to fantastic articles, providing insight and thought leadership, and occasionally mentioning that he has the worst gas ever, it’s kinda fun and humanizing. Early adopters liked this unfiltered access to people they liked and respected. People who were building up their brands online liked the ability to keep in contact with people more regularly without having to write an entire blog post. The mundanity was fun, because it was mixed in with valuable information and amusing stream of consciousness.

But as the user-base diversifies the ratio of interesting/valuable information to mundanity/stream-of-consciousness gets out of balance. I am not the only one who feels this way. For those who haven’t see it, out College Humor’s take on Twitter in real life: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1909386

I followed someone recently for a couple months before I realized, this person never says anything of value. In fact this morning I looked at his account and he tweeted 26 times in the last 12 hours and not once did he say anything remotely insightful, interesting, valuable, or engaging…just a crappy twitpic, a few @replies that were roughly 1 word or added no value, or ridiculously lame information about him and his family and their adventures of “driving to work”.

This is why there is a backlash brewing. It’s one thing to occasionally tweet about bad traffic or getting a flat tire or getting pulled over by the cops, when you balance that with links to interesting bloggers, new applications, the latest iPhone rumor, or…anything that might be of value to someone. Keep in mind, I’ve lobbied since day that for Twitter to survive and be successful it ultimately had to diversify and appeal to a broad audience. That means it has to be fun for people who aren’t creating content - just general consumers using it as a social network. That means the good with the bad. General consumers means a shift in the balance of the interesting/mundane.

So Twitter elitists - take a deep breath. This is just a growing pain and ultimately, it will elevate the early adopters as leaders. I’ve learned with media, eventually, quality wins. Broad adoption is not a threat to Twitter, it just might mean you have to be more careful about who you follow back. It means having personal AND professional accounts is likely to be important and apps like Tweetie and Nambu will be increasingly important.

Hold off on the backlash for now, and keep in mind that in order for Twitter to fulfill it’s destiny, it needs the kind of critical mass enjoyed by Facebook. There is a stark difference between using Twitter, and getting value out of Twitter and it’s up to early adopters to help new users find their way.

Now if only we could get Ashton Kutcher to switch to Myspace or something, that would be great.

Normally we reserve the blog for positive, thoughtful rhetoric about using Twitter for business. We’ve been excited watching Twitter’s explosive growth over the last year. Recent figures have 12 month growth at over 1000% - which is amazing by anyone’s standards. But with massive adoption comes users that may not be as accustomed to “interacting” with people directly - something that Twitter is designed for.

Recently Charlie Villanueva of the NBA received notoriety for tweeting during halftime of the Bucks vs. Celtics game. For Twitter geeks like us, that was a huge moment. Seriously - HE TWEETED AT HALFTIME. I immediately followed Mr. Villanueva and noticed something about his account: 5000+ followers, and he only follows 78 in return. So I did some more research:

Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) 388,300 followers, he follows 56.
Jimmy Fallon (@jimmyfallon) 359,449 followers, follows 63.
John Mayer (@johncmayer) 253,987 followers, follows 20
Julia Allison (@juliaallison) 8,534 followers, follows 39.
Shaq (@the_real_shaq) 337,000 followers, he follows 470. (Which is actually pretty good, nice job Shaq.)

I mean, Julia Allison is really only web famous (no offense Ms. Allison, I think you’re awesome) and she can’t bring herself to follow more people.

This is the issue - Twitter is not going to work if it’s used as just another broadcast media. John Mayer is hilarious and down to earth (and geeky at times) so I enjoy reading his blog and following him on Twitter. But I like Twitter because I can have numerous ongoing conversations with people all over the world. Twitter works when I reply to someone’s tweet, then they follow me, and then a connection is formed. It’s not realistic to think someone can manage 300K followers and respond to everyone, but a 20 to 300K ration is not going to give anyone a breakthrough experience.

For Twitter to work for everyone long term, and not be relegated to some short term PR fad, it has to provide reciprocal benefit. Following John Mayer’s tweets, while occasionally enjoyable, does not offer me any benefit as a John Mayer fan. However, the occasion may come where I reply to John and he replies back and I will turn into a mush pile of gooey faced man crush. (*Note, I don’t have a man crush on John Mayer, just using it for the sake of example.)

If you want to get more out of Twitter - give more back. FOLLOW PEOPLE, and you will see the incredible viral capability of Twitter unleashed. You will earn fans for life. You will embolden relationships with people who buy your cds, watch your shows, go to your basketball games.

I hope to see some positive changes folks. We’re all in this together. As Twitter grows, we grow with it.

(*Note, I actually do have a man crush on John Mayer.)

Americans have innovated during each economic downturn in our nation’s history.  Some significant companies have spawned from the Great Depression such as Proctor and Gamble and our current movie studio system.  (There are plenty of blogs talking about this topic: Fast Company, Business Week, McKinsey.)

What we do here at Cherp is think about Twitter, and it dawned on me today that there is a perfect storm brewing that spells success for Twitter.  The economy will drive two specific activities that will help Twitter.

1. More people are going to have time on their hands and will turn to technology to help them network to find a job.  

2. Businesses will turn to new technology to find ways to acquire customers.  

Both of these will lead to greater numbers of people joining Twitter and networking, and no one else is better positioned (besides Linkedin.com, but it’s a closed network so it doesn’t foster accessibility the same way Twitter does.)  Think about it.  People refuse to give up their phones and their computers - they are essential to finding and applying for jobs, networking for interviews, marketing oneself, and in some cases, freelancing to try and pay the bills.  While they are there, it’s only natural to reach out more and more through social networks.

Additionally, companies will continue to look for new ways to market and in an economy like this they will be looking for less expensive methods than TV and Print.  Media is traditionally more expensive and requires a large distribution to provide a proper ROI.  Blogging has proven to have a phenomenal ROI for companies who do it right because it boosts SEO rankings, builds and fosters community with consumers, and provides a constant voice for the company in it’s respective market - and it does so inexpensively.  Twitter continues to show the potential to be more effective in some ways than blogging because it harnesses the viral loop methods of social networks better than blogs do.

Twitter has the momentum, it has the openness, it’s searchable, it’s easy, and the buzz just keeps growing for Twitter.

Every so often a new technology comes along and fascinates and excites businesses and consumers alike. Previously, e-commerce won our hearts. Then we all fell for search engines, and the world wide web was redefined. Now, that new technology is social networking and it’s an exciting place to be. New technology sprouts each week, creating interesting niche networking opportunities for anything you can think of. The world is becoming connected, and businesses are catching on this time a little earlier than they did with e-commerce and search engines.

So what’s the problem? These people are not built to be early adopters. Corporate America, listen up - stop creating your own social networks. You are missing the point entirely, and it’s going to create a backlash that could harm the real potential of social networking. Sears, just because you partnered with MTV, you are not suddenly cool and creating a stand alone social network around back-to-school shopping just isn’t the right thing to do. Let me explain what you are doing wrong, and why.

There are many social networks out there that have become a part of people’s lives. These web based networks are breaking down barriers and connecting people in ways that weren’t previously imaginable. With all this wonderful connectedness, it’s completely confusing why companies of any size would think that they had a product or corporate brand that was SO fascinating as to compete with the likes of Facebook and Myspace. Besides being blindly arrogant to the point of being comical, why does this matter? Because, the value in social media is creating networks and connecting people - not using disparate social networks to separate people. One of two things is going to occur. Either the site will be wildly successful and build a community of like minded people who worship that particular brand and reduce their interactions on other social networks, OR, an extremely small number of people will join your social network and your marketing team will be forced to say that “social media marketing” didn’t work for your company. Which sadly, will not be true at all.

Think about the missed opportunity when a company decides to forgo participation in the greater social community to instead create their own closed network.
1. They are forcing customers to divide their time among networks. (Bad idea)
2. Consumers who choose to participate in the network are connecting with other people already passionate about the product or brand, with no ability to spread the network virally among their other friends online who might not know about the brand.

They lose the benefit of network effects generated by being able to connect to various people with different interests all over the world. These companies who start their own social networks are saying, “I’m happy just serving our existing customers.” It’s terrible, and it’s a total misuse of the technology.

What should they be doing?

Build on your loyal fanbase within existing networks and social media sites to better leverage the network effects of these larger communities. Build affinity groups within Facebook and Myspace, use Twitter to build a network virally, start or join a group on Linkedin…there are so many different ways to creatively use social networking to BUILD a network that will provide much better results than creating your own closed network. FUJIFILM cameras wouldn’t decide to start their own tv channel because tv advertising was all the rage, so it’s not obvious to me why companies like Fuji are creating their own separate social networks because that’s the hottest new technology to hit the business magazine rack.

Can you list some examples of large brands/companies that ARE doing social media well?

Jeremiah Owyang is very well respected as an analyst and has valid, thoughtful commentary on social networking for business. I’ve typically agreed with him enough not to be able to add a lot to his discussions (despite the fact that commenting on his blog might be good for business.) His recent post, List of Enterprise Microblogging Tools: Twitter for the Intranet caused me to think about the value of tools like Yammer versus using Twitter in a more transparent way, or even using Twitters privacy control to keep things closed off. I know some things need to be internal, but I worry that Jeremiah’s post won’t motivate Enterprise organizations to see the opportunity in opening their doors a bit.

Missed Opportunity for Enterprises

Shouldn’t any Enterprise want an opportunity to create searchable discussions about their brand? Isn’t this a great brand marketing and SEO opportunity for the Enterprise? According to Oracle, who just announced the launch of “OraTweet”, their internal microblog platform, that an internal microblog platform “allows us to broadcast messages safely in our own microcosm”. To be clear, ALL businesses have the need for non-public discussions that have nothing to do with marketing.

Missed Opportunity for Twitter

So why hasn’t Twitter added deeper functionality, possibly as a paid option to Enterprises? Maybe the best bet for these organizations is to use one system for internal discussions - and Twitter for discussions that should be accessible to the public. I think there are going to be a number of organizations, and Enterprises, that can use Twitter for internal discussions in a more transparent way and gain marketing/branding value from it. But is this something Twitter cares about? It certainly raises the question about how Twitter plans to monetize.

I’ve long held that Twitter, or even microblogging as a platform has the potential to replace forums, intranets, help desk systems and more. We’ll see if this new wave of Enterprise Microblogging leads organizations to see the broad capabilities of such a platform.

If you are trying to promote your blog, there are already numerous posts about how to use Twitter. But for marketers, Twitter might still be a difficult story to tell (or sell.) One of our first tasks at Cherp was to begin doing research specifically about Twitter to help build the case for our clients and future clients for why Twitter deserves it’s own attention in the marketing strategy. However there are a number of really helpful documents out there to help you define your strategy, sell Twitter/social networking internally or to clients, and probably how to better leverage it yourself.

1. Sapient - Survey…Top 10 Wish List for Agencies of the Future. Great document if you are working on strategy for your agency and you need to know how much energy to put into social networks. #7,8 and 9 are personal favorites of mine.

2. Emarketer - Sign up here to get their email newsletter. Every week there is data related to social network usage or social network advertising spending. It’s very helpful to monitor marketing trends and help with strategy definition.

3. Business Week - Various articles over the last few months have focused on Twitter, but I think the article about “How Companies use Twitter to Bolster Their Brands” is particularly good.

4. Inc Magazine - “Business Uses for Twitter” is a more general look at Twitter use for business, but in my experience when you are trying to make the case articles like this help.

5. New York Times - Brave New World of Digital Intimacy offers an important perspective on this topic and is a must read.

I also recommend Crunchbase for additional statistics about Twitter, although, the most important ones don’t seem to be disclosed anywhere (we’re working on that though, so stay tuned.)

Tags: Cherp, facebook, quantcast, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking, twitter business, twitter data, Twitter Marketing, twitter media, twitter research, twitter statistics
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