Twitter Reality-Check

Earlier this summer, HubSpot published a report containing eye-opening data about the meteoric growth of the Twittersphere. With all this talk about Twitter’s massive expansion (sign-ups increased 900% over the past year), HubSpot dugg a little bit deeper to unearth the truth beneath the gross sign-up numbers. The findings lead to an unmistakable conclusion: Twitter’s growth needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

Let me be clear: I am a firm believer in social media. They have already started playing, and will continue to play, an important role in the way companies brand themselves and market their products to end-users. There is no doubt that social media are here to stay and that they cannot be ignored as a marketing tool.

But presenting social media as the end-all-be-all of marketing would be as much of a mistake as ignoring them. HubSpot’s State of the Twittersphere report provides a great illustration of why this is true. The report shows that most of the people who sign up on Twitter are inactive and never really engage with the application. This indicates that most new members register primarily because they are curious about the trendy application but then quickly abandon it because they don't find value in it.

Here are some of the findings around the activity levels of Twitter accounts:

• 55.50% who sign up for Twitter don't follow anyone
• 54.88% have never tweeted
• 52.71% have zero followers


Image courtesy of Mashable.com

As a fervent Tweep, I know that Twitter is only half the fun when you don’t use some of the applications that have been built around it. TweetDeck, for instance, makes the Twitter experience a hundred times more meaningful by allowing users to manage their followers by groups, topics and searches. But many people never get to that point before abandoning Twitter.

What this means is clear: Twitter is not the end-all-be-all of marketing. Social media programs are most effective when they are part of an integrated marketing strategy—perhaps, as an extension of it. Results from social media efforts will be optimal if the content generated and shared is in line with a company’s over-arching communications messages and goals. Traditional marketing tools, like public relations and advertising, are excellent content generators that can help companies to fuel conversations and initiatives in the social media universe.

Therefore, before you pull a Skittles campaign on your company (or client) and turn over your entire website to social media, keep in mind that Twitter numbers must be taken with a grain of salt. Otherwise, you might end up with a bitter taste in your mouth.

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