The Twuth About Twitter
August 5th, 2009 by Bob Bly
Twitter is a red hot topic at Internet marketing conferences today — touted as the next big thing in social networking.
To me, that’s difficult to reconcile with the fact that, according to a Harris Interactive poll, nearly 7 out of 10 Web users have never even HEARD of Twitter!
The poll found that only 8% of advertisers think Twitter is a “very effective” promotion tool.
An article in eMarketing notes: “While marketers and the media have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, the average U.S. consumer has not. And without broader consumer acceptance — not to mention awareness — it can’t be considered an effective marketing tool.”
The article concludes that unless more Internet users know about and use Twitter, “all the tweets in the world won’t make much difference.”
Do you agree that Twitter is just another over-hyped marketing fad of the month?
Or do you think Twitter is the greatest thing to happen to marketing since the Internet?
And if the latter, can you point to positive ROI from your Twitter marketing?
And by positive ROI, I DON’T mean “I now have 1,200 new Twitter followers” or “my latest tweet drove 878 new subscribers to my blog” or other soft metric nonsense.
I mean “Twitter generated online sales of X dollars” or “Twitter got me a new account with a $3,500 monthly retainer.”
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 8:25 am and is filed under Online Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 5th, 2009 at 9:48 am
I must admit that my attempts at producing results on Twitter have drained my time.
Still, I occasionally watch how others embrace the program. There’s no telling if their tweets truly produce results. I have a feeling it doesn’t.
I meanwhile stay with the tried-and-true direct mail, case report distribution, and online newsletter publishing, all of which are firmly in my effective marketing category.
August 5th, 2009 at 9:50 am
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August 5th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Okay, a couple of things…
“8% of advertisers think Twitter is a “very effective” promotion tool.” Mhm, and Madison Avenue still thinks direct response is for lowbrow losers. If 92% of advertisers believe something, there’s a pretty good chance they’re wrong.
“eMarketing notes: “While marketers and the media have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, the average U.S. consumer has not…” So, then 44.5 million and an astonishing growth rate (reported yesterday) isn’t a market?
I get that big biz is having trouble finding the ROI in twitter and at least for now, they’ve got some good arguments. But, as I wrote in a post yesterday (click my name), the real ROI opportunity is not for big biz, but for smaller, local biz. It’s much easier to convert twitter time to money in the bank when you’re small or local.
One simple example - Naked Pizza, a New Orleans pizza place that does over $1M/yr, generates 20-30% of gross sales every day from twitter and has generated up to 69% of daily sales through when it runs twitter-based promos.
I also tapped twitter to help launch my last book, seeding a manifesto that caught fire on twitter, pushing the book to #1 in it’s category on amazon for the better part of a week (and around 1,500 overall)…two months before the book was even published.
So, yes, twitter conversations can be converted to ROI, but it’s easier when you’re small, local or develop a personal connection with your followers
August 5th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Hi Bob, my friend Amy Africa gave me the link to this post and your blog, and I’m glad she did.
Twitter is the current ’shiny object’ like Facebook was last year, YouTube the year before that, and MySpace before that. ‘We’ have a problem in the social media space of latching on to individual tools, instead of talking about WHAT makes those tools so exciting.
Twitter is exciting because it’s a tool that allows real-time communication. Big deal, teens have been doing this via texting on their phones for years. But Twitter gives people the ability to communicate in real-time to entire networks at once.
The value for marketers is they can not only communicate with networks in real-time, but track what networks are saying. I don’t think anyone can fully appreciate the potential of Twitter until they are tracking a live event or breaking news story via Twitter. If I am at a conference sitting in one session, I can instantly see what’s being discussed in the room next to me. Several months ago when there were the terrorist attacks on the hotel in Mumbai, someone had set up a feed of tweets from ONLY Twitter users within a 5-mile radius of that hotel. We were getting live, real-time information from people at the SCENE of a major breaking news event, hours before the mainstream media could get us any information on what had happened.
Is Twitter being overhyped? Probably, we in the social media space are extremely passionate about the tools we love, and tend to go overboard.
And yes, I can track business back directly to the contacts I have made on Twitter. I just started working with a client that I got via referral from a contact I made on Twitter. You’ve probably seen the article that everyone is passing around about Dell hitting 3 million in sales from Twitter.
August 5th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
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August 5th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
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August 5th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
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August 5th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
I’ve found it to be a good tool for connecting with early adopters and thought leaders. Useful for me when the alternative would have been picking up the phone and dialing…Twitter can be an effective way to connect with influencers.
That said, admit that we have no compelling ROI arguments…but as a startup, early adoption is a tough hurdle and not always something you can put an ROI to.
Imagine that Twitter will decrease in marketing importance as we grow.
August 5th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
I have no idea. I use it as a link in my Friend Feed along with Stumble, Facebook and Plaxo. I can say that I get some reads due to spreading these links around but I would not bet the farm on it.
I use it primarily to find links to topics that interest me but I probably find fewer than 3 to 5 a day that I click.
My gut tells me we are a long way from figuring out the impact that social networking has on mainstream business.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
According to an article in the August 2009 issue of Internet retailer, Twitter gets a whopping 21 million unique monthly visits, up 1,928% year over year. Yet only one in five of the top Internet retailers has a corporate account on Twitter.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I think it’s a fad.
When you follow hundreds or thousands, there are little to no conversations taking place — just broadcast messages to the masses.
But to the people who enjoy it and the consulting crowd who found a way to make money hyping it…bravo. To each their own. Let’s see what’s next.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Bob:
I’m surprised that you use the Internet Retailer statistic of one in five as a basis for your argument that Twitter is not all that effective. If these are indeed the “top” Internet retailers, they’ll move more slowly, because though they have more to gain, they have more to lose if they make a mistake. Large organizations, Internet or otherwise, move more slowly than smaller organizations.
That said, one in five is a very large slice of the pie when you consider that Twitter has only been around since 2006.
August 5th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Lou: I disagree with your analysis. It takes 2 minutes and costs nothing to have a twitter account. Therefore, if Internet retailers thought it had value, the number would be almost 100%.
August 6th, 2009 at 4:44 am
Bob: I think Twitter is junk. Not only do people not know about it, some of us avoid it like the plague. However, I’m sure it’s user base includes a disproportionate number of well off individuals, so while the market might be small, but they’ve got money, hence the time to play with high tech toys and services like Twitter.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:53 am
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August 6th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Bob:
When I said that a large company has “much to lose,” I wasn’t necessarily referring to bricks-and-mortar costs. The costs for an Internet presence, as you rightly point out, are negligible to zip.
I was referring to the “cost” in market prestige or image if the company ultimately decides that Twitter is a blind alley for its size company.
August 6th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Other than a place to put links back to your own website or blog, I just don’t see how this works. Twitter is a toy.
August 6th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Lou: If Twitter does not generate results for a business, that does not hurt their image or lower their prestige; consumers don’t care one way or the other. All that is lost is the time and effort expended, which in Twitter’s case, is probably minimal.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Bob:
At the risk of turning your blog’s discussion of this one subject into a Socratic nightmare, I would encourage you to take a look at the following articles:
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/07/20/social-media-really-does-impact-the-bottom-line
http://247wallst.com/2009/05/26/the-ten-ways-twitter-will-permanently-change-american-business/
On the evidence of these thoughtful articles, you might want to consider whether you might underestimate the significance of Twitter. As a copywriter who works a lot with financial clients, I am particularly impressed by McIntire’s argument.
I emphasize “MIGHT underestimate,” since the entire social media landscape is a changing one. What’s currently right or wrong is anyone’s guess.
August 7th, 2009 at 3:50 am
I’ve actually gotten inquiries for my services through Twitter and a couple of those led to jobs. I suppose it all depends upon your intent. I find the biggest advantage of twitter is that if I “Tweet” what I’m doing it keeps me on task…
August 7th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I think twitter is here to stay.
“my latest tweet drove 878 new subscribers to my blog”
Boy… I’d love for that to happen :]
If you have a blog and you’re trying to grow it–ignoring twitter’s potential is foolish. It can prove to be a major avenue that helps you attain more and more subscribers to your blog.
Furthermore, though those additional subscribers may not provide you with any immediate income, more subscribers awards you more leverage when the time comes to sell something, anything.
So yeah, it’s an effective avenue to greater exposure. And the value of twitter really all comes down to what your goals are. But if you have a blog and gaining more subscribers and exposure is part of your business plan, you ought to use it.
August 7th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Bamboo: unless you can monetize the 878 new blog subscribers — who cares?
August 8th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
If you mean 878 new subscribers as in 878 people who now subscribe to your blog via RSS or e-mail, then a percentage of these people can be monetized. And just because that’s not happening right now, today, with someone’s blog by no means indicates it won’t be happening down the line.
Blogs monetize their subscriber base all of the time. It’s not easy, of course, but then… what is?
Furthermore, more subscribers equals more social proof, which leads to even more subscribers and more opportunity.
August 8th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Bamboo: I can tell you down to the penny the average dollar value per year in revenue for every subscriber on my e-newsletter subscriber list. Unless you can do the same for tweeting and blogging, you cannot PROVE ROI. You may ASSUME you are going to get it. And you may or may not be right. But you certainly cannot prove it.
August 8th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
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August 11th, 2009 at 8:23 am
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August 11th, 2009 at 9:16 am
I honestly didn’t stick with Twitter for this purpose. I like the “old-fashioned” way of connecting with potential clients through mail, phone, and personal visits.
I don’t see it as something that you can get a definite ROI amount from. I see it as a means to announce to people when you post a new article, a new blog post, bring out a new product, or anything of that nature.
The true benefit in my niches for Twitter has been the ability to ‘talk shop’ with those in my area of work. For me, that’s worth something because I don’t have anyone close to me to meet with. Also, many of the more experienced writers I follow post useful links to learn from.
That being said, I did have a few people find me via Twitter. They were partners, a publisher wanting to put my series in their line up, and mentors who allowed me to further my work in ways I didn’t realize.
August 12th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Twitter was originally conceived of as SMS for the web. The question is, who NEEDS SMS on the web? SMS is constrained to 140 characters to keep the technology affordable. Twitter is similarly constrained to be cute. Who needs that cute?
Twitter now serves as nothing more than a pointer to blogs and/or websites, and it is completely untargeted making it useless to real marketers. “SEO” expert “marketers” like the people Mike Steltzner insists on glorifying measure success in clicks and hits. My clients measure results in new incremental revenue.
Any revenue that anyone has realized from Twitter have been happy accidents. Real social media sites, like Facebook and LinkedIn, are a useful COMPONENT of a more complete marketing plan but let’s stop spinning this hula hoop. Twitter is a fad, like the yo-you, that has come and will soon go.
August 12th, 2009 at 11:46 am
OH, and as regards the “stats” let’s see if anyone can get Twitter to tell anyone what percentage of new subscribers abandon their accounts within the first 30 days, the first six months, the first year, etc.. I suspect you’ll find that the 44.5 Million users quoted earlier in this response trail PLUMMETS to maybe a few million.
So Twitter goes bye-bye either when everyone realizes how few people are sticking with it for any other reason than because they believe everyone else is, or when Twitter runs out of funding. They have no way of generating revenue for themselves, and won’t.
August 12th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I use Twitter myself but don’t get as many clicks on tweeted links as I would like to. I use the bit.ly tracker to keep track of the clicks and it’s not always encouraging to see 4-5 clicks here or 10 clicks there. The tweets bounce so quickly down the page so a single tweet can be lost in a matter of minutes. All successful tweets depend on the subject matter of the tweet and the reader’s interests at the moment. Case in point: I found your blog post on Twitter and was interested, so I clicked.
August 13th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Hey Howard;
Not sure why you think I am into clicks and hits. Twitter is much more than that.
You may want to take a look at the Social Media Marketing Industry Report to see how marketers are benefiting from tools like Twitter.
See http://www.whitepapersource.com/socialmediamarketing/report/
Bob, according to a report just put out by ComScore, Twitter had 45 million unique visitors in July alone. This does not count the many millions who are coming into Twitter using hundreds of third party apps.
When you see Google just announce they have integrated Twitter into their blog reader, maybe it’s time to pay attention.
Mike
August 13th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Mike: Seth Godin doesn’t think it’s time to pay attention to Twitter. I have no doubt you will have a rebuttal:
http://www.igottatellyou.com/blog/social-media-bs-seth-godin-arrogant-accurate-imho/
August 13th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
I was attributing about $10,000 a month to Twitter for a while, but to be honest it was a bit more labor intensive then I like. So instead I decided to just keep surfing and posting silly tweets. It still makes me some money, but I’m a bit too lazy to know exactly how much.
August 13th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Bob;
Seth owns his own social media service called Squidoo. So he has a bit of conflict of interest. He is one of the few big marketers who is not even trying Facebook or Twitter.
Mike
August 15th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
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August 16th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Twitter is not much of a social communication device. It’s actually ridiculous. One sentence to communicate what, may I ask? MySpace and Facebook are more in tune with functioning as communication and, therefore, social platforms.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:09 am
Riya: one sentence to point followers toward something else of yours online — an article, report, landing page, web site, etc.
August 26th, 2009 at 2:54 am
Hi there, very nice site, i can see you have put a lot of work into it, i have being reading your posts about Internet marketing conferences. I can see how this benefits everyone
September 1st, 2009 at 8:46 pm
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September 12th, 2009 at 2:54 am
Nice post and thanks for sharing with us. Thanks for the back link. Many advertisers believe that twitter is very effective to attain ROI opportunity for business. But I think it can?t be measured as successful marketing tool.
September 12th, 2009 at 8:01 am
I have really received Exploration for my services by Twitter and a couple of those led to jobs. I think it all based on your intent. I can find the biggest benifit of twitter is that if I “Tweet” what I’m doing it keeps me on task…
September 12th, 2009 at 11:13 am
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September 18th, 2009 at 3:42 am
Nice post regarding “The Twuth About Twitter”. It’s an effective avenue to greater exposure. And the value of twitter really all comes down to what your goals are. But if you have a blog and gaining more subscribers and exposure is part of your business plan, you ought to use it. Thanks for sharing back links.
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