If you were to type “Twitter” into Google – you would be presented with 687, 000,000 results. That’s more than you get from typing “Michael Jackson” in, and the guy died just couple of weeks ago… Fascinating!
Twitter has become outrageously popular during the last couple of month. Every major brand got one: CNN, Premier League, NBA, Oprah, Manchester United, Snickers, Vogue…The list goes on and on… My grandma even got one, for crying out loud!
But are 140 characters really enough? Heaps of people are struggling to get a point across in this insanely small amount of symbols. Many are forced to send out couple of tweets instantaneously in order to convey an opinion which results in useless spamming of the feed.
Whoever has got more than 500 followers experiences insane inconvenience at every log in. Twitter is supposed to be simple, but how simple is it to follow more than 2,000 people and manage to interact with all of them or at least with most? IMPOSSIBLE!
It is impossible to monetize Twitter without an application. It is simply impossible to cope with thousands of followers using the home page as the tweet source. But how bad must a social network be in order to demand an application to use it? Why make it so complicated? Why make life harder than it already is?
Sure, there are internet marketers like Perry Belcher who miraculously manages to get more than 2,000 hits a day using Twitter, but how realistic is that for a newbie marketer who hasn’t got a huge personal brand yet?
Getting consistent traffic from Twitter just became 10 times harder than it used to be 2 month ago. Now everyone is trying to do that. Everyone is spamming their affiliate links, blog posts (guilty) and YouTube videos all over the place. Twitter has become a link posting chaos and monetizing that monster is harder than ever.
How about Facebook? How did Twitter manage to leave it in its own shadow while being 41.67 times smaller in size and much less efficient?! How did Twitter manage to compete against Mafia Wars and WIN?
Twitter owes the majority of its popularity to its simplicity. But to me, simplicity is hardly enough to build relationships. I gave Twitter my best shot during the past couple of month: I tried to spark conversations, get to know people and just interact with no real agenda – but it’s useless. Twitter really let me down this time.
I will keep trying to crack the code on Twitter Interaction as I move forward, but I will always look back on this day as the day I realized that 140 characters are NOT enough.
What Do You Recon? Can Twitter Be Highly Overrated Or Is It Just Me Procrastinating? Leave A Comment!
{ 7 trackbacks }
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
agreed – while there are people using Twitter and getting results with it, I don’t see it’s potential for the majority. If someone is following thousands of people, what is the likelihood they’re really going to be looking at what you’re typing out, unless you want to be updating every 30 seconds?
granted, it may have its benefits, though I feel it’s too impersonal. At least with Facebook, you can really dive into what a person’s about on their profile – much better vehicle for connection.
will Twitter survive? only time will tell…
Facebook is definitely much more personal and convinient.
Videos, pictures, static HTML boxes, fan pages – everything tops twitter.
~Igor
Lol Igor! While I agree with you, I also suspect you and I are getting really old. Here we have 28 character nano-blogging out to sweep the market… gs yng ppl no hw 2 gt msg acrs
Sandeep´s last blog ..The time for human consciousness
Nano blogging?
Jeez… 28 characters? My website alone is 33 characters,
how am I gonna nano tweet?
~Igor
Very interesting perspective.
I don’t think that Twitter is overrated.
I think it is very powerful if you know how to use it right.
Regards,
Ryan Bessling
“Twitter owes the majority of its popularity to its simplicity. But to me, simplicity is hardly enough to build relationships. I gave Twitter my best shot during the past couple of month: I tried to spark conversations, get to know people and just interact with no real agenda – but it’s useless. Twitter really let me down this time.”
Exactly my friend exactly. It is too simplistic to actually develop an understanding with your readership. The problem is, why would someone even want to read your Twitter, when they can read your blog?
As a tool for personal use, Facebook is better, as a tool for business use, a blog is better. So where does twitter lie?
A humourous, and mocking article is here: http://www.fuckingmanly.com/articles/twitter-not-manly/
Although it is meant to be funny, it highlights a very valid point – Twitter is so full of nonsense and rubbish, it is increasingly difficult to use it to market something.
Great post. Nice blog design also, troubling to see your RSS feed though :S
You have a link under each post in addition to an image in the header and sidebar.
Igor