Today, I am going to discuss the pros and cons of Twitter. The third largest (and growing) social media website is definitely a marketing powerhouse to be discussed further. As stated before, these critiques are only looking at the business capabilities of the site.
First off, we need some stats to view the Twitter phenomenon properly. I am using facts reported on the Wikipedia site about Twitter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
Twitter is estimated to have over 200 million users, just after its 5th birthday. There are 65 million messages or 'tweets' a day generated. The tweets themselves are not allowed to be any longer than 140 characters long.
Pear Analytics a market research firm investigated Twitter in 2009 and reported some numbers as to the content of the tweets. 40% are pointless babble, 38% are conversational, 9% have pass along value, 6% are self promotion, 4% are news and spam. We will discuss these numbers a bit more later in this article.
As I mentioned before in this blog, Twitter can only boast a retention rate of 40% because most users leave after a month. So the website may only reach 10% of internet users. (Neilson Online, 2009)
In the U.S., 53% of Twitter users are women. 63% of all users are under the age of 35. Also 5% of all users make up 75% of all use! (Sysomos, 2009) 60% are Caucasian, 16% are African-American and 11% are Hispanic. And at last, 58% of all users come from a household that makes an average of $60,000 a year. (Quancast)
Twitter is a powerful marketing tool, because of it's amount of users and the fact that it forces users to create short and concise messages. The short messages can contain precise information to market your business or product. It is a fast and efficient way to advertise, as well as it is free. These short messages are perfect for a world that survives on mobile devices. Additionally, users are can provide feedback quickly and easily to aid in the marketing of your company.
However after looking at the numbers, I would not consider it as powerful of a marketing tool, as Facebook. The low retention rate means that your information may be falling on deaf ears. However, do not be discouraged, the more that businesses use Twitter for marketing, the more effective of a marketing tool it becomes. Also it is still fairly new and it may take the users a while longer to stop generating 'senseless babble'.
Twitter still holds a lot of water, when it comes to marketing to a large mass market...this is good for businesses that rely on mail order or online businesses, as Twitter can push people towards their site.
When coupled with couponing sites (the newest rage-I will talk about later in this blog), Twitter can also push people to your coupons.
Twitter also connects well with other media sites, such as MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. This is good when you want to create a good flow between all of your media outlet sites. Twitter also allows for good Twitter stats pages so you can monitor your marketing campaign with Twitter.
Twitter has been developing better video and photo integration technologies. As well, Twitter is currently updating it's homepage, however, as of March 5th, 2011, they were having problems with their new look. Generally Twitter has an uptime rate of 95%, which is fairly good.
Some drawbacks of Twitter are that your message may be lost in the wave of senseless babble, as well your message may be perceived as spam, if not implemented properly. Hard core pitches, over tweeting, bad word choice and auto-generated responses may create a spam image for your business. If you use a professional, this should not be a problem.
Other issues are that your followers are harder to pin-point, unlike Facebook. It is hard to find out who, what and where your followers are. This is not good when you want to market your business close to home.
Overall Twitter is an excellent addition to any social media arsenal. It is just good to know who want to reach and what you want from your campaign before you proceed.
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