Stella Pop: Are You Twitter Tired?
Are You Twitter Tired?
The Tweeting End is Nearer than You Think.
Watch For Flying Feathers! Blue Feathers.
I know, it’s really cool right now to be involved with the world-o-tweets and everybody including my grandmother has a twitter account. My grandmother is tweeting away about her favorite denture cleaner, how to cheat better at bridge and Reader Digest’s
’s latest diagnosis of her imagined medical conditions.
Now, I love my grandmother but that’s just plain scary.
This article is two things:
- It’s a whole bunch of questions that each marketing director, company, organization and individual professional will have to answer for themselves - Is twitter a tool or plain old impression based advertising?
- Observations on Twitter from a trained and curious eye, taking it for what you want but the writing is on the wall.
OK, it’s time to find out the truth and what the future has in store for Twitter. Better order a Venti Latte for this read, connect the power cord to your laptop and mute TweetDeck!
Clear indicators signaling the beginning of the end for Twitter’s popularity or at least some nasty future downtrending:
- Google and Bing are now indexing tweets by subject and popularity. What does this mean? It means, watch out because we’re about to see a massive jump in the number of tweets mostly for search engine optimization purposes. Massive and meaningless tweets - how perfect.
- It’s time to look closely and honestly at other dead or dying trends and you’ll see that Twitter is slowly developing the classic signs of exit trending as a fad. What is the exit trend? Phase one early adopters are done and the second phase begins the joining of a trend by everyone else and I mean everyone, remember my grandmother.
- This means one thing. The shine is off and the trend known as Twitter is moving in only one direction - down. This doesn’t mean pull the cord and jump out now. It means make the most of what’s left of the trend but do it carefully and thoughtfully.
Allow me to explain.
Millions of us (including myself - my computer screen is blushing because of this fact) are mindlessly tweeting away. We are a tweet-aholic nation with each of us thinking that our followers are hanging on every bit of twitter chatter. Oh please, get real! Sorry for my contempt but I believe we’re wearing out the Twitter welcome as a messaging vehicle and the last forty years of impression based TV advertising proves it.
How you ask?
The proof lies in the historical viewer data behind TV commercials and how people are using every possible method to avoid viewing: Tivo,DVR, Hulu, iTunes and YouTube. Twitter has become the latest, greatest and momentary best impression advertising vehicle available. We just don’t know it yet or care to consider the consequences. If you care about your organization’s message you better make good use of the audience you’ve earned by not wearing out your welcome with massive amounts of mindless tweeting and outside linking from within all those tweets.
What does it mean?
Meaning you have become an… impression based tweeter.
How long can it last before Twitter gets tuned it out too?
Think about this.
And please don’t say!
My tweets are different, my followers love me and our massive number of messages everyday. Long term research has proven the connection is not as strong as you think and it’s a relationship that you’re probably slowly wrecking. Why would you do that? They joined your tribe on their own, they trust you and gave you permission to send them something occasionally. Don’t go and wreck it!
Check out even more evidence.
All those companies and people sending out 5, 10 & 20 plus tweets a day. Most of these tweets have a link to an outside site with no connecting reference to the originating site or to the original subject matter. Why do this? Because it’s not a connection, it’s advertising. Twitter’s interaction factor is peaking and boredom is building. It’s all down hill from here because human beings can only process so many meaningless messages before they tune it out and then turn it off all together. It may take a year or a few years but the writing is on the wall. It’s plain and simple human nature - the more messages you send, the more your audience tunes you out. Look at blast email. Can you say delete without opening?
Creative and Thoughtful Content = Long Relationships
Here’s what your followers are saying as you send the tenth tweet of the day:
NO! Please, don’t send me any more and then link me away.
Out there, online alone! Without protection and my connection with your organization.
After all, I’m your loyal follower.
And I’m a true blue believer, advocate and we’re hard find. Remember me, when I first found your site? I loved it and it engaged me and now you’re sending me away without any explanation, linking via that tiny little URL to something you dug up in the online dirt pile.
Please, I’m begging you, “make me” something remarkable and creative like when we first met online. So I can fall in love all over again with you and your content. Your breaking my heart.
This conversation is imaginary.
But I bet this is what your followers are saying quietly and secretly as they pay less attention to you and your content. Beware, breaking up is hard to do and it is a silent process too. Silent and deadly. You’ll look up one day and they’ll be walking down the hall, hand and hand with their new love just like in the hallways of high schools all over the land. They’ll be social network dating the newest, shiniest and coolest thing to hit the internet and you’ll never know they’re gone.
And you’ll be saying, “but you’re still listed as a follower?”
Sorry, they’ve already found a new love and they won’t bother to tell you. Having checked out long ago on that carefully built relationship. The one they gave you permission to develop. The one you’re laying waste to as I write this article by texting, emailing, tweeting, snail mailing, newslettering and maybe even cold calling way to much. Wearing out your welcome. If this was a healthy relationship, respect would exist from the beginning and care would be taken; however, most of us have become the equivalent of “messaging stalkers.”
Don’t all you social butterflies worry.
The next big social networking hit is right around the corner. In the mean time, while you’re waiting for the next big hit, start creating some new, creative and relevant content to go along with all those flipping tweets. Here are a few rules to follow:
- Create a plan.
- Make the plan simple.
- Stick with it.
- Be consistent.
- Connect back to your site with those tweets.
- Work to make the connection with your content.
- Tell the tribe why you’re giving links and information.
- If you don’t have the time to make this connection, then don’t tweet it.
- Please, no tweeting personal things like: haircut, auto repair, dinner w/ kids, etc.
- Why?
- Get serious - no one cares and you’re not Lance Armstrong or Usher.
- That includes you too - Donnie Deutsch!
- The golden rule - do less tweeting. Less is the new more.
It’s a gift.
I usually can smell the end of a trend from a mile away! My last piece of evidence for all you non-believers. 25 examples of deceased popular culture trends and companies who probably used to much impression based messaging. One day we’ll be listing Twitter in the top 25 of irrelevant social networking sites like MySpace.
Click through our gallery of the top 25 most memorable companies that have VANISHED.
Stella says,
It’s simple - less is more especially in life, love, marketing, advertising and branding. That includes all you tweet-a-holics! 10 a day is way much! How about three great tweets a day? And please stop acting as an aggregator, we’ve got plenty of those already.
Try Google Alerts.
