According to an article on CNN today, Twitter’s incredible 1300% growth in the last month has caused tweeting bottlenecks, traffic jams and grumbling among the site’s early adopters. But can Twitter’s rapid growth actually be harmful to your business or should you look at this onslaught of new, fresh faces as more opportunities to connect with like-minded people?
On one side, with massive growth comes the more difficult task of getting your tweets heard among the public. Much like the early years of blogging, where a few blogs spread to the point where nearly everyone and his dog has one, Twitter is quickly becoming yet another marketing, collaboration and conversation tool in our never-ending quest to reach out from behind the screen.
Then there’s the more optimistic view that more Tweeters means more followers (and followees), more exposure and more chances to exchange ideas. Your business can only benefit from Twitter’s growth as you stretch out your social network. Sure, there’s the inevitable “fail whale” from too much Twitter traffic, not to mention the underbelly of scammers and spammers looking to make a quick buck, but hasn’t the internet always had its share of that? You can spot it as far back as the first few emails were being transmitted across university campuses.
Every new tool is going to see its share of early adoption, growth and peaking to where tweeting will be no different than sending a text message – just another communication tool. It’s how effectively you use it that will determine whether Twitter is a drain on your productivity or boosts your sales. I’ve used Twitter almost daily since 2007, and one thing I’ve learned in the process is that you don’t tweet something that you wouldn’t want proudly displayed on a billboard with your business name under it.
That said, people who stand to profit the most from Twitter aren’t the glut of scammers and profiteers. It’s the people who use it intelligently like every other internet communication and collaboration tool. Take time to work with Twitter and Twitter will make time to work with you.
Helpful Twitter Productivity Tools
If it’s productivity on Twitter that’s harming your business (Twitter seems to expand to fill whatever time you give it!) you’ll want to check out my post on TwiTip that details 10 Twitter Tools that help you work smarter which also spawned a sequel post of 10 more helpful tools.
Tags: cnn, twitter growth, twitter marketing, twitter tools
It is a very informative post and very well said. I am new to this and it has made me understand even more. Thanks!
Twitter is really the next big evolution in social media. The rapid response/connect mechanisms are very powerful, and a huge reason on why it is growing as much as we see.
Businesses I think can and should capitalize on this vs. being hurt. That being said, it really takes a well thought out strategy for integration to make it work. I think your article is spot on that you don’t neccisarily want to use it as a scrolling bulletin board.
One of the best approaches I have seen, if for customer service. Ex. If you are a natural gas company, you can tweet when service might go down or when their is a grid failure. It can proactively get the message out, and make it available for customers.