Why Twitter isn’t as Completely Useless as You Thought
How many people do you follow on Twitter?
a) What’s Twitter?
b) None
c) I don’t know, about 20
d) More than about 20
If you answered a, you won’t be interested in this post. Stop reading and go do something useful with your afternoon. If you answered b, well done. I wish I was more like you, but I’m a social media marketing strategist and I’d look dangerously ignorant (or arrogant) if I wasn’t using Twitter. If you answered c, you’re like me, that ain’t so bad, but you still need to get a life. If you answered d, you were either teased a lot in high school and are trying to compensate somehow, or you’re a politician. Either way, you’re being silly.
As a communication tool, Twitter is next to useless, as my friend Kate points out quite succinctly. No one really gives a flying fuck about what you are doing every second of the day, not even your mum. Tell your mum what Twitter is, explain the stupid shit you talk about and then enquire politely if she’d be interested in following you. She won’t. She’ll tell you you’re stupid. Go home from work this afternoon and tell your girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife/partner/dog/teddy bear/flatmate/secret friend/pet rock as much about your day as you told the 200 random nobodys who follow you on Twitter and they’ll be reaching for the TV remote before you can say “mmm, morning coffee, how good is caffeine” or “yay, friday… finishing up report for accounts dept. then I’m outta here, woo-hoo”.
Twitter is a stupid, useless, annoying fad and I wish it would die, BUT. As a zeitgeist of brand sentiment - as a snapshot of the dialogue taking place around your brand, Twitter Search is the greatest thing since Google Trends. It is a direct line into the mundane, mind-numbing every-day subconscious of your customers. Corporations and Politicians should forget about trying to use it to communicate - you can’t build lasting, meaningful relationships with Twitter, but you can use it to tap into the bubbling brook that feeds the underground water table of social conversation (at least at the tech-savvy, early-adopter end of town).
If only it was this good…
Tags: Twitter
Leon
October 30th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
#
As much as I agree with the above, doesn’t the quality or expertise of the people you follow somehow factor into the equation?
I follow about 40 (or so), sure there are a few people there who I could stop following, about 1/3rd are pretty much inactive, but I find the people who are active are often baring really useful information.
I think my next thought would be the actually amount of focus you bare on those you’re following. Sure you may follow a lot, but barely take notice of what’s being said - casting your eyes quickly over in case there’s something useful being mentioned.
Anyway, to completely support your post - here’s me, who’s spending important time replying to this because of you Twitter prompt. How valuable is this to yours or my day? probably not very.
Matt Granfield
October 30th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
#
Jeez, that didn’t take long
Of course there are interesting people saying interesting things on Twitter, I wouldn’t be following them if they weren’t. I’m just being inflammatory! I still think Twitter is mostly useless though. Now, get back to work…
Nick
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:48 am
#
Hi Matt,
I know of a few great companies which I love to follow on twitter. It all depends on how its used. I think a company having a twitter feed is a good thing for reaching customers or potential customers. Just look at Freshbooks, Transmission Films, ModX etc. They post events, competitions, deals, updates to software and more.
I agree that knowing what your friend is doing every minute of the day is useless but that just comes with the territory of any type social media, you get the general public thinking people care. It’s just like the updates part on facebook. Completely useless but people continue to use it.
People can argue that famous people that have twitter feeds are interesting to follow but in the end they are just Brands as they are marketed by their name not by what they are doing.
What people do care about is events and larger things that get twittered about and that is where some companies can use twitter to their advantage.
Greg
April 4th, 2009 at 11:18 am
#
Twitter is one of those free treats life throws to marketing strategists. While it will later cost them a fortune, at the moment, you can milk society for anything you need to know about how to rip them off. Watch the feeds roll in about what people want. You’ll see just how many are asking to be sold something…
As for the users of Twitter… I wish I was so easily amused. Did anyone notice this pass time is a solid waste of energy? Like the article above states, nobody cares. Nobody wants to hear about your subtle, casual thoughts. Those that have an interest have probably lost something more important in their lives they don’t yet know is missing. Replaced by someone’s stupid idea marketed into a media blitzed stroke of genius. It is far from.
I don’t like sites like Myspace or Facebook either, but at least those I have seen some accidental purpose for. While they’re all wastes of life, none have mastered the art of being so devoid of real, societal purpose as Twitter.
The concept of a micro blog is not bad, I suppose. I don’t really care much for reading people’s blogs, but I might if they were limited to 140 characters. So why is twitter so awful then? Because I don’t want to read 140 character blogs ALL DAY LONG! It’s like the cry wolf tale. Your twitter feed is loaded with a whole bunch of nothing for even one day and nobody will look back except the market analysis guys, who can’t believe you’re willing to give up such valuable marketing information for free. So basically, you have the swarm of simple minded, tech happy idiots in society plugging away on twitter all day long, nobody reading except the even dumber crowd that’s fixated on what John Mayer is up to, and a 55 million dollar data parser in the background sweeping your conversations for anything they can use to map the trends, desires, dislikes, emotional standing, and routines of everyone in the world. You know, marketing agencies used to have to pay people for their opinions. Looks like the days of focus groups is dying off.
Maybe I am biased because I’m an internet programmer and I’m just pissed I didn’t come up with it. Who knows?
But I’ll never fall into this trap. Twitter is a supplement to life, not a staple. It is over hyped and has thus far not even proven to their funders how it will officially make money. When I’m with my friends, it pisses me off when they drop out of REAL conversations every 15 minutes to post on their twitter feed what “Mike” just said that made us all laugh. I’m about to break his phone in half.
Why don’t we just skip the middle man and just kill REAL social interactivity all together? I don’t know about you, but I have no real problems finding friends and having a good time without all these internet distractions. At least in the real world, you can determine who is worth knowing before you fly them down from england to find out they’re not who their profile outlined.
And yes, this is still relevant to Twitter. While it may be a stretch, Twitter is just one step closer to turning us all into lazy swine who will no longer knock on a friend’s door or call their parents. Larger and fatter… Hail the mighty consumers of this ridiculous country.
Hey Hey, I got an idea! How about a micro micro blog?! See, all you do is text an emoticon to your profile and people can just get an idea of how you’re feeling! If anyone will just give me $40,000,000 I can have it done in 2 weeks!
… idiots…