Twittering Away
To every fad there is a season … churn, churn, churn!
Marketing maven Seth Godin seems to think Twitter has a short shelf life, citing this report from Nielsen Online that the churn rate on the service is 60% … as in, six-in-ten Twitter users in a given month fail to return the following month.
How much energy do you want to invest in a venue with a 40% retention rate?
On the other hand, here’s a Business Week piece on the "Ashton Kutcher Effect" — that is, there’s no question that celebrities, from Oprah Winfrey to Shaquille O’Neal can indeed drive traffic to social net sites, including Twitter. For celebs, Twitter, Facebook etc are the new fan magazines on steroids.
However, I suspect that both articles reflect reality … sure it’s cool to follow Oprah’s every move, for awhile. Then the novelty wears off and boredom sets in.
And then there’s the issue of following the daily sneezes of "normal" people … the kind most of us know. How long do you expect to follow the Tweets of your nonprofit’s executive director?!
And that’s the best case. If your presence on a social net site is your institution, I’ll wager you’re dead in the water. In these venues, people want to engage with other people … not brands and not organizations.
So if Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie is the spokesperson for your cause, maybe you can ride their Twitter-tails to a brief period of online stardom. Otherwise, don’t get your hopes up.
I’m with Godin on this one. As he says, stamps are underrated.
Tom
2 responses to “Twittering Away”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
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Thank you, Seth. More is less, less is more.
Hi Tom,
Twitter is FUN! Fast, engaging and I love that I can build my own community of peeps. I’m enthusiastically there because I’m curious professionally and personally.
It is however important when thinking about spending precious organizational time and resource to make sure you can:
a: sustain it
b: integrate with other programs
c: make money.
Frankly my organization isn’t there because I’m not convinced of these three areas.
Odd though that I have read about five blogs about this very thing…just this week. Including mine! Although not as well written as you and Seth of course.
Cheers
k
PS but follow me anyway on twitter – @kimberleycanada 🙂