In November I set out to assess the value of Twitter in both my professional and personal life. While the relevance of connections and immediacy of information were promising, I was left mostly underwhelmed.
I opined that Twitter had the most value for people with something to sell. Unfortunately, they fueled their agenda by sending out absurd amounts of spam and created too much noise. That noise undermined the true value of Twitter – connecting like minded people and information…in real time.
However, over the last few months three key Twitter developments have completely changed the game:
1. Follow limits (which I think are still too high):
- 1000 follows (or unfollows) a day
- 1000 direct messages
- 2000 total follows at any one time
Limit the number of people an account can follow and you curb lazy, spam-based marketing. Its much harder to add the value necessary to convince people to follow you. The kind of value that Twitter must cultivate in order to thrive.
2. Twitter Search: In April this year, Twitter Search was launched inside the application. Want to know what people are saying about your product? About you? About topics you care about? Now you can. These real-time face-to-face opportunities with customers are brilliant opportunities to turn frustration into delight, to relate and to connect. Meet your customers here – as a real person – and you give them a reason to tell the world.
3. Critical Mass: Twitter is the kind of application that’s value correlates directly with popularity. The growth curve below shows that Twitter has finally moved beyond early adopters – surpassing the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal.
This explosive growth has led to the development of an incredible amount of really great Twitter Applications that make the app far more accessible.
Twitter is here – and its not going away. For marketers, sitting on the fence is no longer an option. My advice? Start by listening…listening hard. Then dive in.