Twitter’s Not For Everyone

Trent Reznor has always done his own thing.  We spoke about it around the time of his Digg Dialogg appearance here on the blog, and it’s something I’ve always admired about the man. He’s marched to his own beat for years - musically, business-wise, and in the world of social media.

After weeks of flirting with the idea, today the other shoe dropped and Trent left Twitter.  At presumably the height of media hysteria over the the latest and greatest social network, he closed his profile and walked away.  This is the same Trent Reznor known the world over as a marketing visionary and evangelist for direct-to-consumer communication via social media…ditching the internet’s rising star.

Somehow it didn’t come as a shock.  While we as an agency have been a part of the social media industry’s self-fulfilling prophecy of evangelizing Twitter, we’ve often discussed internally the stark reality.  Twitter’s not for everyone.

It’s for a lot of people. And it’s going to have an impact on everyone, whether they know it or not. #Iranelection put the nail in the coffin on that sentiment.  However, it isn’t nor likely won’t every be for everyone to use.

Twitter studies corroborate this even for those that have already signed up for Twitter.  The Harvard Review’s recent report on Twitter usage shows that ten percent of users make up 90% of the tweets. A recent Hubspot analysis states that 54.9 percent of users don’t ever tweet at all.  Millions of people are joining the network and either finding it too confusing or too time consuming to participate.  More likely even, too underwhelming in terms of the initial return on personal investment.  For a lot of folks, there isn’t much gratification in cutting down trees when noone’s out in the forest really listening.  For some, like Reznor, its likely that opening up too much in the public sphere invites too many unforseen complications.

Either way, it’s something we all in the social media industry need to be aware of, and unafraid to admit. Brands and personalities are never going to reach everyone via Twitter.  There’s a lot of interaction taking place and incredibly great opportunity to make connections, but Twitter will not be the single bullet in a marketing arsenal.  It will be a major component, but simply a component in the overall strategy for reaching your audience wherever they so choose to be found.