Here's a question: When was the last time you went to a meeting, read an article on marketing, or attended an industry event that didn't feature the ubiquitous t-word -- Twitter?
Twitter is everywhere. And everyday, there are new and even greater resources on how to exploit this emerging tool. Look here, here, and here for a quick sample, and you'll get an idea of how keen marketers are to find out what Twitter can do for their brands.
So, what's wrong with Twitter? Is this one of those "Twitter-bashing" articles? Have the haters finally caught up with microblogging?
Well, before you punch out a 140-character alert and a TinyURL link to this article, consider this (hopefully) rather obvious point: Twitter is not the only game in town when it comes to disseminating your brand's message.
There. I said it. There's more to marketing than Twitter. For all its promise, Twitter is a tool, not a strategy. So before you shift the bulk of your budget to Twitter or cancel your latest campaign, take heed of the platform's limitations. The marketing professionals we spoke with do exactly that on a daily basis. And while many identify themselves as huge believers in the power of Twitter, none are so foolhardy as to insist that microblogging is a panacea.
Audience
When clients ask Anna Banks, Organic's group director, for strategies on bringing Twitter into their marketing mix, she responds with two basic questions: Is your audience on Twitter, and if so, are they active on the platform?
"Despite social mania in the Gen Y audience, relatively few use Twitter," Banks explains. "Ninety-nine percent of Gen Y (18-24) have an active profile on at least one social network, yet per comScore, Gen Ys make up less than 11 percent of Twitter users. And for the younger group who venture to Twitter, usage patterns are even more sparse. While the 35- to 44-year-old group spend nearly 20 minutes microblogging per visit, 18-24s spend only about five minutes [per visit]."
And what about those early adopting teens?
"We keep finding that, despite its viral capacity, teen adaptation of Twitter is still low, as are teens' propensity to follow brands once they're on Twitter," says Paul Soupiset, creative director at Toolbox Studios. "Twitter is a worthwhile tool to have in your marketing mix, but it is just one channel in a larger communications strategy."
Translation: Twitter may not be right for all demos. Not yet anyway.
But even more to the point, Twitter might not be a reach play now -- or ever -- when you consider its total strength against behemoths like Facebook.
"Twitter's growth alone makes it a priority for any marketer to pay attention and get involved," says John Keehler, director of interactive strategy at Click Here. "However, for our clients, it's important that we provide them with a holistic view of the social media landscape. It's with this perspective that we can see how large an audience Facebook commands. ComScore's measurement of unique monthly U.S. visitors in May reported Facebook with just over 70 million, while Twitter attracted only a quarter of the amount of visitors, with under 18 million uniques. What this means for our clients is that any social networking strategy cannot consider Twitter alone."
And then there's the debate over participation. The perception is that Twitter users are active, passionate, tech-savvy people. But that may be jumping the gun a little. Citing a recent study on how many of Twitter's members are actually tweeting, Mike Schneider, VP at Allen & Gerritsen, says that he worries about getting an accurate pulse of the community.
"A recent Harvard study says that 10 percent of users generate 90 percent of content, which is troublesome because content is how we target audiences, but we also know that many spectators are consuming content and passing it on to other social spaces like their blogs, Digg, and Facebook," Schneider explains.
Next page >>