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18 August 2009

Twitter to reach ambassadors

This tool is obviously the talk of the town. For some it’s a real gem and for others, it remains a complete mystery. That’s why we’ve decided to launch a Twitter debate this month with a series of articles. I’m a fan of Twitter so I say “yay”, but for a more-balanced view on the matter, I do recommend you read the article by Simon Lamarche who plays devil’s advocate.

Who’s on Twitter and what are they up to?

One of the arguments put forth by Twitter critics is that only 5% of the population is active on this microblogging network. My argument is that although only a small minority, the population involved is mainly comprised of ambassadors and messengers.

For example, you’ll find some very devoted consumers who discuss their shopping experiences on a regular basis. Many businesses have caught on to this and are listening carefully to what’s being said about their brand and reacting when needed, much to the amazement, and appreciation, of the Twitter community. Also, these users share the good news with their network.

Many articles talk about the few users that are really active on Twitter; they say that 5% of Twitter users generate 75% of activity [1]. The same goes for all social networks in general: 1 to 10% of users create content that benefits all users. What many don’t talk about is the actual meaning of “active”. Should a user who only reads the tweets of the more active twitterers and clicks on suggested links be considered inactive? I don’t think so. The increase in Twitter’s traffic is almost 4 times that of Facebook with around 20 million visitors each month. That’s an awful lot of eyes on Twitter, be they active or not.

Hubspot conducted a survey among 4.5 million Twitter users who have used the Twitter Grader application and isolated users qualified as “serious” [2]. They found that those who stay updated their status 0.97 times per day for approximately 119 updates on average. I consider that to be very committed behavior.

The skeptics also say there’s a lot of "noise" (trivial conversations) on Twitter. An article by the BBC even went so far as to say that only 8.7% of the content actually represented an added value. I think that’s perfectly normal and I love Twitter in the same way I love real life and tolerate those who talk about nothing but the weather...

The 5% of Twitter’s most active users discuss the following topics directly in their bio: Internet marketing, music lover, web designer, video games and husband/father. They all come from major industrialized countries and almost 5% of them are Canadian [3].

Many Twitter critics argue that a large portion of accounts are inactive. Once again, I don’t consider a user who never tweets to be inactive. Also, as is the case for domain names, one must consider that certain users want to reserve their name. In 2007, 35% of domain names were simply purchased and not used, and that’s not including a large portion that host fake websites [4].

It is also interesting to note that among the Fortune 100 companies, there are more present on Twitter (54%) than on Facebook (32%) or with their own blog (29%) [5].

Twitter users are also fairly evenly distributed by age and I was surprised by the presence of individuals from the baby-boomer generation and older [6]:

Why are people choosing Twitter? 3 main reasons [7]:

• To stay in touch with friends
• To publish their status
• To keep up with the latest news

Twitter users are the biggest buyers of many products: they buy more books, clothing and shoes, coffee, cosmetics, food, movies, music and jewelry than Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace users. However, they buy fewer less airline tickets and electronics [8]. Interesting, no?

Why is Twitter a succes?

Twitter’s success can be attributed to the simplicity of the concept, but the latter is also an obstacle. The platform is quite daunting until you actually start following other users. However, the fact that you can follow almost any user without accessing his or her family photos and other very private information has also contributed to the outbreak of Twitter. Now you can listen to what Oprah, Guy Kawasaki or Cœur de Pirate has to say and it’s probably as close as you’ll come to speaking to them personally.

The launch of Twitter’s API, which led to the development of thousands of applications, is also part of its success particularly in terms of the platform’s mobility. Users can update their status regularly from anywhere (via SMS or using other available applications). Imagine what that means in terms of customer service.

The Retweet concept that allows users to transfer a Twitter status to someone in their network is also very popular and may well become a new indicator of the importance of a particular status or user. It’s actually the next service to be overhauled by Twitter.

Speaking of indicators, this is actually one of Twitter’s strengths. The importance of a twitterer (ratio of followers vs. friends) and the impact of Twitter on sales figures can be measured using one of many tools.

Many successful cases have also led to the service’s popularity, particularly that of Dell and its millions of dollars generated solely by Twitter updates according to The New York Times...

Finally, Twitter really brings traffic to a website, provided the site’s content is of good quality. Here is the percentage of traffic generated for our recent blog posts via Twitter:

We can see that Twitter generates quite a bit of traffic for this type of content and that the impact lessens over time. Conclusion: Twitter excels at generating traffic immediately or following the publication of an article. Google and its organic results take over from there as a leading source of traffic.

Why should a business be active on Twitter?

I totally agree that not all businesses, individuals and situations require a Twitter presence; it’s something that’s needs to be examined on a case-by-case basis. However, here is a summary of what a business can do with Twitter:

• Read the outstanding article on Twitter users written by my colleague, Jean-Sebastien
• Reach out to ambassadors and have them spread the word
• Listen (and sometimes react) to what’s being said about your brand, products, employees, competitors thanks to Twitter’s amazing real-time search feature
• Replace or supplement your emailing with a solution that allows the user to manage his or her subscriptions via an opt-in/ opt-out.
• Send messages and start conversations
• Be found by new people
• Follow in the footsteps of Starbucks and Dell and generate significant revenues directly via Twitter
• Follow in Netvibes’ footsteps and publicly assist users who complain via Twitter. In other words, invest in your customer service activities
• Read the opposing view of my colleague, Simon Lamarche so that you can make a well-informed decision.

And what do you think? Do you agree with me or Simon? Join the discussion here.

Tags:  Web Analytics   Internet Marketing   Internet Strategy   Community   Performance indicators   Customer service   Trafic   Twitter  

 

[1] Sysomos

[2] Uniquement les utilisateurs qui ont plus de 10 followers et qui ont mis leur statut à jour plus de 10 fois

[3] http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/mostactiveusers

[4] The Domain Name Industry Brief, Verisign, 2007

[5] Social Media Use by Fortune 100 Companies, Burson-Marsteller, 4 août 2009

[6] Social Network Service AU Profiler, Anderson Analytics, 13 juillet 2009

[7] Consumer Internet Barometer : Second Quarter 2009, TNS and the Conference Board, 16 juin 2009

[8] Social Network Service AU Profiler, Anderson Analytics, 13 juillet 2009