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Twitter has been around for a couple of years, and is now starting to creep into the “main stream”.  There are regular mentions of it on TV programs like The Daily Show.  And now the CEO, Evan Williams, has been interviewed by Charlie Rose. 

This must mean something, but what?

Outside of the “web world” and the fringes of many demographic groupings (politics, technology, weather, physics, games, real-estate investment, you name it!) it is still looked upon with great puzzlement.  Many veteran executives that I run into either haven’t heard of it, or briefly wonder what it is.  Others are more recently dabbling in the technology with an open mind wondering how it can be leveraged as an effective communication tool.

So, what is it?

Essentially I describe it as “broadcast SMS messaging”.  Or you could think of it as a network of people with walkie-talkies….with everyone on the same frequency.

Well, it’s not quite “everyone”, it’s only those people you “follow” (think “tag” or “connect”).  So it is manageable at that level.  But other than that - that’s just about it.  There really is no magic to it.

You search for people or run across them, and “follow” them if you think they’re interesting.  Then you start receiving their messages (”Tweets”) in your Twitter feed reader.

There’s not much you can say within the 140 word limit, so there’s not going to be blinding insight delivered through this mechanism.  So what’s all the fuss?

There are potentially two aspects of Twitter that are attractive - immediacy and its egalitarian nature.  Specifically, as soon as the people you follow enter a message into the system it appears in your feed (well almost immediately most of the time).  And you can follow anyone - Barack Obama, Guy Kawasaki, Richard Branson…if they’re on, you can follow them.  So, when Richard Branson enters “Back in London having gone around the world for the first time on Virgin. It was great. Come fly with us and try it yourself” (he did) you can reply to him, (which I did.)

Real or not, and quite counter intuitively, the combination of these two aspects of the tool gives the user a sense of intimacy.  And there is its power as a marketing tool.

Why Should I Care?

There are lots of anecdotes of people that have twittered things like they needed a mac power cord (Guy Kawasaki) and he got one delivered to his door in an hour.  And they heard about a layoff before their manager did.  But as a marketing professional, why should you care?

The allure of intimacy is very powerful.  To be able to build a rapport with your market through high-frequency small messages that are essentially free is attractive. 

To write a thought provoking blog post can take time (I’ve spent a while working on this not counting the time thinking about it ).  Jotting out 140 characters or less takes a few seconds.  And because it’s so short it’s not really open to interpretation.  It’s clear, concise, and therefore open communication.

Because of this, the communication tends to be trusted.  Which again lends itself to building loyalty that can enhance your brand.

The Draw Backs

There are many reasons why I’m still not completely enamored with Twitter.  Mostly due to efficiency and focus.

Once you’re following over a couple of dozen people it’s hard to see the wood for the trees.  And you need to follow a lot of people before you start getting people to follow you.  (There are maybe half a dozen people I’ve come across that have more followers than people they are following.  It usually works reciprocally.)

There are some people that will insist on telling you they have “just got up”, but that’s down to you choosing who you follow.  (Don’t follow blindly, but look at the quality, frequency and type of tweets they post before you follow them.  It’s quality over quantity in my book.  However, how do you get people to follow you if you don’t follow them?  How do they know you exist?  There are methods, but that’s a different topic.)

This brings me to another drawback - if you’re only following interesting people, all of a sudden your tweet stream becomes quite a distraction.  You add into the mix the blog posts that people point to within tweets and you can be distracted very quickly.

The tweet “cache” is very small.  Meaning, your Twitter feed isn’t really an “inbox” that you can effectively scroll through and search.  If you missed something that was twittered while you slept… you’ve probably missed it.

Finally, filtering and search capabilities need to be enhanced to really make it effective.  But that’s just a matter of time.

Having said all that though, I need two things to really integrate it into my work day.  A process: a disciplined approach to its use.  A tool: something that can better draw upon this global stream-of-consciousness and harness it efficiently.  Sound familiar?

Conclusion

Twitter shows great potential as a means of mass communication and building intimacy within a community.  But as with all new social media technologies, it takes a different approach and different tools to make effective use of it.

It was only recently that “to blog” became a “normal” thing to do, even though it had been around for years.  The rate of change is increasing.

Posted under business, industry, marketing