Twitter – Is the Honeymoon Over
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I don’t know about you, but I’m a little over the Twitter fad, I haven’t yet found it a successful advertising or promotion medium and it pails into insignificance when you compare it to Stumbleupon for promotion of blog posts and actually driving readers to your blog or web site.
There are those that will say it works really well for them, but in the last few months I’ve been tracking all the referrers of traffic to this blog and Twitter does not even rate, so either there are a lot of passive followers or as new research indicates very few advertisers think it an effective promotion tool. The survey carried out last month by linkedin Research network/Harris Polls found out of advertisers surveyed only 8% thought it effective.
The study also found that advertisers are more likely than consumers to know about Twitter and are more likely to believe in the microblogging tool’s future power to help promote products and services.
The research, which included surveys of both advertisers and the US public at large, revealed that just less than half of advertisers (45%) think Twitter is in its infancy and its use will grow significantly over the next few years. In contrast, 21% believe Twitter will not move into the mainstream and it will remain something mostly young people and the media will use.
Among consumers, the study found a different picture, especially in terms of awareness. A large majority (69%) say they do not know enough about Twitter to have an opinion about it, 12% think it’s in its infancy, 12% say it is just something that young people and the media use and 8% say it is already over.
Consumer Research Twitter
Effectiveness of Twitter
Among those who have an opinion about Twitter, feelings about the effectiveness of it for promoting products and ideas are lukewarm among both consumers and advertisers:
Among advertisers, just 8% say Twitter is very effective for promoting products and ideas while half (50%) say it is somewhat effective. One-third (34%) of advertisers say it is not that effective and 8% believe it is not at all effective for promoting products and ideas.
Only 8% of consumers say Twitter is very effective for promoting ideas and products and 42% believe it is just somewhat effective. Three in ten (31%) consumers say Twitter is not that effective and 19% feel it is not at all effective for promoting products and ideas.
I’d be interested in your thoughts on this survey either from a Twitter user or follower, just leave me a comment.
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. I have 3 Twitter accounts,.. one for my primary blog, one in my own name, and another just started for my real estate “e-focus” blog RealtyVibes.com.
Collectively I have just under 1,000 followers and I have noticed the same things you spoke of. It appears that I get about 1% of followers responding to tracked URL’s (that’s probably quite a high percentage of those that actually see the tweets). I follow about 60 people on one of my accounts and even with such a lowly number I find I can’t keep up with the endless tweet-stream (apart from DM’s & @replies). The other account I follow 630 people and there’s just NO WAY I can account for even 10% of what’s streaming through (again DM’s & @’s excepted). How then can anyone realistically follow 10,000 to 50,000? Impossible. I follow one guy who follows over 36,000 but to his credit I always get responses to DM’s and @replies when I send to him (evidently the only way he sees them).
Consistent Tweeting takes quite a bit of effort and planning I find,.. even though I do have Twitter Tools installed on my blogs,..that just allows me to remain active (if not effective). I’ve concluded that unless one has at least 10,000 to 30,000 followers (as some do) and an an ability to present as an almost irresistible kind of “Rock star” or guru persona, then the likelihood of generating any kind of worthwhile income or attentive traffic from Twitter is probably (if not definitely) going to elude the vast majority of people.
I’ve come to a preliminary conclusion that Twitter is on a parallel with the parody “The King’s new clothes” in as much as everyone’s hyping it up for their own gain or vanity, but few are willing to shout out “hey the King is naked!”
For now I’m happy to have my profiles present on Twitter, but like you, I’m beginning to carefully assess the amount of time and effort invested in that medium.
OK Mike,.. cheers, & keep up the good work!
Russell
@realtyvibes (Twitter)