Getting a Drink Out of a Fire Hose

I am really getting tired of writing about Twitter and I am sure you probably are just as tired of reading about it.

However, several of my clients are asking about Twitter’s value which brings up some great conversations and outstanding points on Twitter’s questionable worthiness as an effective Social Media and Marketing tool.

Are There Actually Real People Using Twitter?

There is absolutely no doubt there are millions or trillions of people, places and things on Twitter.  Anyone can test that count by going to the Twitter Timeline and taking a look.

But…be warned if you do.  The volumes of posts to read will blur your vision for life.  There is such a volume of information data statements facts gossip humor remarks words hitting the screen that it is like attempting to get a drink out of a fire hose.  No, that is not an original description but so far is the most visually graphic to how the information is delivered, next to the photo I used here in this blog.

Why Are People Using Twitter?

The next question I am faced with during these conversations is why do the people who are on Twitter feel having more followers and follow more people than they can physically effectively communicate with is effective Social Media?  As one of my clients asked….

“What’s up with these people who have 50,000 peeps they are following and just about as many followers and then they only have a few updates?  Since there are so many of these people who feel they have to be popular to feel whole, is Twitter where the High School Cheerleaders go when they graduate? These people (I assume they are people) who have large numbers of followers give me the impression they are only on Twitter for themselves. They seem to not give a crap about the truckloads of stuff they post on Twitter in an effort to get their entire Fellowship to Look At Them.”

That is another accurate observation from a newbie to Twitter.

It doesn’t take new Twitter but about ten minutes for them to start seeing the people who use the Fire Hose method of social media…the peeps who unload constant @replying to followers with sugary perky remarks and unbelievable sentences structured around 140 characters.  All done in hopes it lures in the peeps who happen to read their post in the mainstream timeline of Twitter..one right after another for what could be for hours.

Then throw in the thousands of businesses who post what they think are clever statements with a url link they hope people will open.

The incredible volume of promotional post filled with Hashtags is a full out  3 inch 20 BAR Pressure hose FULL of unusable information that hits you straight to the face.  Yaw, baby…that will teach you to use Twitter without a filter like TweetDeck.

Low Value Social Media

With that said, the question now becomes, what is the value of being on Twitter if your Social Media efforts are going to be totally lost in the zillions of other posts being made all at once?

Answer: The value is 0 and in most cases goes to negative numbers quickly since it becomes a complete waste of time unless you use filters to slow down the stream. This makes the needs for trillions of followers and following MOOT.

In visiting with many of my friends in the digital marketing field I found some feel playing the number game builds up an audience of people to market info to.  Then there are several who have since had their 25th birthday and now have changed that thinking to a much lower number than the 50k following goal many Tweets are trying to get to.

Then there are the Social Media experts who deal with reality, which there now many, agree that the time for playing the number game has changed with the new President the USA.  Having more followers than can be managed is now seen as obscene and very anti-productive to any real effort to market any REAL type of product or service.

The term Target Marketing has been used a lot over the past ten years but now social interaction is the best method of advertising or marketing today.  And this cannot be done using Twitter.

Social Media Has to Change

Gone is the thinking that if millions of eyes see something they are bound to want to buy that ‘something’.  The ‘I need to be popular’ thinking went out with the Roadside Billboards that lined the highways of America…and still do.

Its time to move on to reality, build tools to get to the people in the market that are your customers and do what capital fund investors are going to have to do with the bad investments they made over the years which is to WALK AWAY quickly.   Businesses need to move to finding ways to getting to know the person who just wrote a check .  They should focus on making sure they will be back to write  another one.

Hopefully another social platform will be launched soon that provides the quality businesses need.  Until then..

Let me know how I can help.