More on Those Things I Just Said about Microblogging

UPDATE: I still hate still hate twitter. And I'm going to get a tasty pumpkin latte... woo hoo.

Apparently I'm not alone at all in the universe of Twitter defectors or general micro-blogging haters. Even some SEO folks (who my gut intuition told me most love Twitter and more broader, everything in the 'Social Media' rubric) think it's mostly irrelevant.

The first great quote from this article follows:

"No matter how inane, publicity stunts can work. Once. Early adopters can benefit from being first - they are remarkable simply because they are first. But once the followers arrive, the stunt is no longer remarkable, and the technique is no longer repeatable. The medium was the message, but not for long."

Quite true. A lot of companies jumped on the Twitter bandwagon to build brand recognition and I think initially people were listening and they were getting good CTRs. Companies still are jumping on the bandwagon along with a new breed of consultants prodding them to do so. I'd like to see a graph of CTR over time from the initial hyping of Twitter to today. Dwindling? Probably. I say because most end users (the microblogging platform audience) are trying to leverage Twitter as means of following the limited circle of friends they know - which is becoming increasingly impossible as people ... errmmm ... won't shut up. The update overload effect is only reducing potential audience as people unfollow even the people they know in the flesh. Can a company expect the same defectors or half-hearted microblogging participants to want to follow their updates on new shampoos or discount e-coupons on tires? Probably not. It requires too many hours to wade through the data.

"Is it possible to have a conversation in Twitter or on Facebook?

"Perhaps, on a superficial level, but mostly it's quick blast of - and I use this phrase loosely - information.

"A lot of people who wrote some really interesting, deep, valuable stuff in forums and on blogs migrated to Twitter, used it a bit, then stopped. I think that happened because there was no value in it for the writer. Conversation didn't happen. Relationships weren't being built. "

Microblogging does not provide a means of conversation. If you want to start a conversation with me on Twitter or Facebook, please fucking don't. I will not engage you any bit. That is not the way human beings converse. Nor do I leave notes for people in the woods at some secret spot - oh, how neat and convenient. As a means of notifying or broadcasting events - Facebook and Twitter are valid technologies, but they do not in any mean enable a damn conversation. Also, in case you think it does, I need to inform you also that when the PA announces a firedrill in your office, that's not a conversation either. Sorry, doesn't count.

"People place a lot of importance on getting attention. They point to the number of followers as if that metric means something. It doesn't, of course. The important metric is how many of those followers are paying attention and then engaging in a way that contributes to the bottom line."

This echoes my general skepticism with metrics provided by FeedBurner and the likes. If you work in a bakery should you install a smart camera to count how many times people look at your signs when they walk by or track how many pamphlets you've given out? Isn't the metric of how many people go into your store something more worth your time to track, and more importantly the ratio of buyers to visitors or your Conversion Rate? Your branding success is already evident in your CTRs and Conversion Rates and you already know your sources in basic site analytics scenario. Recognition isn't shit if you're not optimizing keyword-driven organic traffic (which doesn't boil down to one or two mediums - Twitter or Facebook) or running effective ad campaigns. And what a wasted opportunity if you do become Twitter-famous or YouTube-famous accidentally and can only convert 0.0001% of your traffic. Absolutely pitiful unless you're selling yachts. Go buy the world a coke with all your shitty traffic.

"Find out how social media translates to your bottom line. If your social media guru can't demonstrate that, s/he is a waste of space. Social media must either increase sales, or cut costs, or both. If it doesn't, it's not business, it's just time wasting. If it can't be measured, then there's a good chance it isn't happening.

"Agree? Disagree?"

Oh, do I agree. There is no need to pay some blazer-over-CalvinKlein-t-shirt-wearing stubbly-chinned con artist to tell me how to put Twitter and RSS chicklets on my website. The best advice is just try every outlet or inlet and test (and there are tools like Posterous that make this incredibly easy). Your audience might be on Twitter. Lucky you. Just test and find out where your audience is then appreciate on those channels. I say "appreciate," not focus because focus always needs to on conversion strategy - that's the key contributing factor to the bottom-line.

UPDATE

Yet more appropriate microblogging-bashing from seo-book - man I love these guys.

Hmmm..."product"? Obviously something a bit smarter that [sic] simply providing raw indexing and display.

February 1, 2010 is Officialy "Stop Microblogging Forever Day"

This is a liberating experience. I'm typing. And I can keep typing and not worry about some stupid artificial 140 character limit or having to go back through my post and trim down urls so it all fits in this tidy little space of this hour's pithy little thought. It's also liberating knowing that what I type isn't going to pop up and distract a knowledge worker with their notification widget of choice.

The most liberating emotion of all though follows my uninstalling the last twitter client on my set of available computing machinery and knowing that I don't have to be distracted by hourly shouts for attention, nearly each like a 50s paper boy on the street corner with a minor twist: "Extra! Extra! Read all about it, I exist! Me! Me! Me!" Wait, was that 140 characters? Fuck it, even a goddamn paper-boy didn't have to worry about that kind of shit.

If you have no fucking idea what I'm talking about (likely not since the 5 or more people who read this blog are probably programmers), then all I have to say is: "Awesome, you're one of the lucky people who hasn't suffered keeping up with many horrible trends in communication. Let's have a beer sometime and communicate like real human beings do."

If you do know what talking about, then yes, Twitter or any microblogging platform in general - and I don't give a shit if it's open source, a bad idea coupled with a bad implementation is just bad. What does any self-respecting human being think when they hear words like: "tweet" or "twitterific." Our primordial fight or flight reactions should have told us that this is all so very "not cool" and any association with it will transmute into bad experiences of being picked on by the mean, fat bully during recess.

5 Years From Now No One Will Give a Shit About Twitter

I'm not profit, but I believe this with 90% certainty. The more amusing background this claim is that right now virtually no one gives a shit about Twitter. "Oh, but CNN uses Twitter!", you say as you watch the evening news and adore the little Twitter logo at the bottom of the screen, "Follow us on Twitter!" But before you grab the lotion and tissue to celebrate mainstream media's "embrasing" the microblogging platform please open your eyes to another reality. You know your other friends who don't work in the tech industry? You know, that big fat slice of the demographics pie whose only exposure to the Internet is for the usual shit: listening to music at work, catching up with people on facebook, shopping on craigslist, etc. Ask them the question: "What do you think about Twitter?" I can say 100% of the people I know in this category (and the majority of my friends are) fall into one of two response categories:

1. What is Twitter?
2. Eh, isn't that the same thing as Facebook status updates?

To your friends in category (1) you can describe Twitter and microblogging in general and they'll then say: "Eh, isn't that the same thing as Facebook status updates?" Or if they fall into category (2) immediately you can try to sell them on Twitter and the "less is more" philosophy, yada yada. And then they'll probably say something like: "Why not just write a normal blog, and when you feel like writing less, just write less."

So broadly speeking, virtually everyone falls into a higher-level category, or the "Don't give a shit" bucket. Over the next 5 years as Twitter tries to make money - god, I hope they don't - they'll be faced with this reality: people actually don't give a shit about microblogging. And Twitter really is just like "Facebook status upates" as your "technically illiterate" friends claim. The media will abandon of it's minor fling. (Let's describe this "fling" clearly: Twitter is basically the nerdy kid getting invited to the popular kid's table for a a few week before they find out he plays Dungeons and Dragons.)

In closing let met say: People like reading. People like reading more than 140 characters at a time, which shouldn't come as a surprise. Long live writing in it's natural form. People don't like being notified when you finished drinking a tasty pumpkin latte. If you use twitter, at least try providing links to content people might enjoy.