Twitter is growing currently at the phenomenal rate of almost 1000%. However, there is a disturbing twin figure to that 1000% growth rate: a dismal retention of only 30%. By contrast, Facebook retains around 70% of its users, a similar figure to some other social networking sites. This disconnect between rapid adoption rates and bad retention rates invites the question: Is Twitter Worthless as a direct marketing tool?
I see Twitter’s low retention rates impacting non-targeted tweet campaigns primarily. For those who build twitter profiles that zero in on particular demographics or use twitter to maintain an ongoing conversation with people looking for specific content, retention is not a problem. I run quite a few mainstream blog accounts on twitter (my main twitter account http://twitter.com/websitewriters is not one of my blog accounts) and let me tell you–less is more. Sounds very Zen, right? I focus on a lower number of users for my own blogs’ twitter pages but feed them the info they need. In terms of monetization success, I run Adsense on these blogs and we’re looking at many $3 clicks, sometimes higher. Per click. Targeting is key. Also, since the person is following you and listening to you, as long as you satisfy their content preferences and you do it strategically (sending out updates that have high relevance but also high PPC value), your effort is rewarded.
Variation in Twitter marketing results
Other marketers’ results will vary of course. Variation results from niche (is your target market looking for info or are they impulse buyers?), how you find and target people to follow/recruit, how active you are in sending @ and if the @ messages also have relevance to people looking at your tweet feed or the tweet feed of the people responding to your @ I can’t say it’s a consistent cash cow right now but it is a source of income that can be a nice component in your overall multi-traffic/multi-revenue stream overall strategy.
Thanks for the Twitter image: IconTexto Webdev Social Bookmark
I use twitter and think it is worth it.
Alistair’s last blog post..Taylor’s Donating Prom Dress
Firstly, great site. I totally agree with you on this topic, Twitter in my opinion is being played by many, and that detracts from the value of the system for all. I also feel that those of us who choose to use it responsibly and as it was intended can and will benefit from it, those who spam and think having 20,000 followers will make them rich.. well, they will figure it out.
Eventually everyone will have 20,000 followers and the only people that will get listened to are those with something to say that contains substance or holds a particular value to those who read it.. As with everything else in marketing, relevance of content and knowing your audience is and always will be the key.
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I feel it is useful enough. twitter is one of the superb tool out there.
I agree Twitter is useful. I have approximate 500 followers on my Twitter and I get 5-7 UV from Twitter account.
My content is not updated frequently, but still it is good for advertising using Twitter.
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Well i use twitter and i don’t have thousands of followers. But those 200 followers do check and comment on whatever i post on twitter and its a good resource for advertising, traffic and shouting at the world that you EXIST
So i think its useful. Everything has its pros and cons though.
I think twitter is only useful for celebrities.
Otherwise you are better off using Facebook. It also has status updates plus a whole lot of other features.
Great for celebs, not so much for marketing! Hats off to Evan Williams though, he has done a great job there.:D