Website Magazine just published a article titled, So Long Twitter, Hello Facebook. Yes Facebook is a much bigger force than Twitter, but I think it is foolish to write off Twitter. As the report states, ” just 16.4 million US adults, or 9% of the adult Internet population used Twitter.” I am not sure about you, but I am not going to ignore 9% of the adult internet population that continues to grow. That is a lot of traffic. Twitter users are different than Facebook users and you need a different approach to your Twitter marketing. Don’t be a fool and write off Twitter just yet.
New estimates by eMarketer indicate that while growth continues to rise at Twitter, just 16.4 million US adults, or 9% of the adult Internet population used Twitter at least monthly in 2010.
“Twitter has continued to gain traction but at more moderate levels than we had expected,” Verna said. “Our updated figures put Twitter usage in a clearer perspective than published data showing hundreds of millions of Twitter accounts, or site traffic stats that include visitors who browse public tweets on Twitter.com but don’t actually use the microblogging service.”
I believe it important to note that eMarketer’s forecast represents a downward revision of its prediction made in April 2010.
When compared to Facebook, Twitter looks increasingly like a non-threat. eMarketer foreceasts that 132.5 million US web users will use the site monthly. According to the announcement, “That increase of 13.4% in the number of users means Facebook will reach almost nine in 10 social network users and 57.1% of internet users. By 2013, 62% of web users and almost half (47.6%) of the overall US population will be on Facebook.”
via So Long Twitter, Hello Facebook – Website Magazine – Website Magazine.
I’m actually having more fun on Twitter lately.
Bah. Write it off. It’s pretty sucky technology.
It’s not about if the technology is good or not, it’s if it can help you accomplish something. In this case generating inbound traffic and communicating. It does the job for both IMO. Anyone who has Twitter account that they want to give up on, just redirect all your followers to @michaelsb I would be happy to take them.
Same argument you made about AOL years ago Mike. And AOL sucked too. 🙂
It’s just a very shallow tool. Either its pure vanity, or pure marketing…either way I have enough commercials in my life.
FB is tolerable, only because the conversations are deeper and better organized, also I have better control on what, who and how I broadcast.
But I see your point…its a tool that helps you reach an end-goal. I just don’t share the goal…or…I won’t tolerate a sloppy, chaotic messaging service just to achieve it.
When it works for people’s needs, I understand it…but I am writing it off. I don’t see a future for it, unless it greatly enhances its functionality. Like AOL, once users get more sophisticated they’ll gravitate to better technology.
hashtags will become a trivia question – a anachronism, they are this decade’s “pet rock”. By 2020, lets pray we’ve found something better than Twitter to communicate with. 🙂
Sure, and at the time AOL was a great solution and it served a need and we used it. We didn’t know what would be better. But we did move on when something better showed up. Right now you have no idea what is coming around the bend, what tool some startup is working on, but until then Twitter is a tool that works. It also has numbers that are significant and for a business to ignore them, then they might as well also ignore all the mobile traffic coming to their site. Because I have seen sites that have 9% or more of their traffic from mobile devices. The point is, just because it is not Facebook or have Facebook numbers is not a valid reason to write it off. Twitter is a player and it does drive traffic.
I stopped using Twitter ages ago and actually started using it before a lot of people all jumped on the bandwagon. Honestly, Mike I think it was YOU that got me into it and really nobody was talking about Twitter at that time. Fast forward to now and I think I’m just a bit tired of FB sometimes and for whatever reason I got interested in Twitter again and started to enjoy it a bit more recently. You have to take both with a humongous grain of salt and milk them both for what you need to get out of them, IMO at least.
Yes, well stated, but it was correct to write AOL off. It had a niche, purely out of convenience and simplicity. As pure tech, it sucked, thus you knew its “shelf life” was limited. If you invested too much in AOL and not enough on your web site in those days, you made the wrong choice.
Similarly, if you have to choose between investing in tweeting and investing in other communication tools, I’d say make Twitter your last priority. It’s shelf life is limited. It’s too damn crude.
Can some business exploit Twitter into increase exposure? Probably, but you can still write Twitter off. It either needs to be greatly enhanced or improved…or it will die. Niches don’t last long…and the way you broaden your scope and function is by becoming more sophisticated.
Agree with Leanne in that FB isn’t moving forward fast enough either. What vital new feature has FB unveiled in the last two years?
You and I both realized AOL was a dodo…that it was destined to crash. You kept using it anyway to drive traffic…I fumbled with the thing and lamented how much it actually hurt my business. You used it correctly…I didn’t, but we both knew the damn thing sucked and couldn’t last.
But you make a good point in that I have the luxury of being a snob. I don’t survive off clicks, visibility or marketing. I don’t *need* Twitter, so I can kick it to the curb. So I judge these things differently than you do. I judge them merely as a recreational user. You judge them as a guru, as someone who advises how to exploit tech for $$$.
But I still maintain it is correct to write it off…because technology changes…and the tech that tends to die first are apps/solutions that provide only a very narrow range of function. And Twitter is about as narrow as it gets.
It’s a pet rock…cute…funny…it has a purpose, but the purpose is limited, narrow and it will eventually become a dodo.
And I’ll shut up now…let smarter, wiser heads prevail. I’ve always evangelized about the sophistication of users/customers. The idea that we as marketers actually set the bar too low…that we underestimate the intelligence of our customers. But I am more often wrong than right on that notion.
And I’m no business man, and you are right, Twitter can help a business out right now.
I just ran across this post via Twitter today 12.10-12. So now a year after this post went up it there is actually some perspective on it.
Today I find Twitter much more effective and vibrant than Facebook by a long shot. FB has grown much to large and has homogenized a lot of the content. Add in that FB is now a Pay to Play network where you have to Promote any posts that you want to see the light of day, and Twitter is looking better all the time.
Internet time is so rapid that I wouldn’t dare guess as to where Twitter will be in a year. But I hope it does not fall prey to the same fate that FB is currently suffering from.
I find Twitter much easier for finding fans, and just easier to use. Facebook is very focused on revenue so if you want to find fans you pretty much have to buy ads. FB is also very cluttered with so much going on, a simple status update can easily get lost.
Sure FB blew up faster and bigger, but I see way more fall-off on FB than Twitter. Possibly because Twitter doesn’t piss as many people off, or because they just keep it simple, but I know I vastly prefer it now.