However, from the comments I received on my last blog, I want to take this opportunity to blog about the topic which was quite popular over the last few years; "Is Twitter a FAD?" which I think is a bit more interesting than Klout.
OK, so If you actually google "Twitter & Fad" together, there will be million of articles on it. I've read some of them, some I agree and some I don't but to blog about it I should be asking myself and I also want to ask you who read my blog.
"What do you think, Is Twitter a fad?"
You are probably wondering what on earth I mean by a "fad"? If you don't know what a "fad" is. This is what Wikipedia said.
A fad, is sometimes called a trend or even a craze about something
A fad becomes a fad, when a number of people start "doing it" and it then starts to increase rapidly.
A fad is "the behaviour that will fade quickly once the perception of novelty is gone"
I remembered the first time I used twitter was because of my friend who told me what it can do. She said I can follow medias, celebrities, and other stuffs. So I gave it a try, but what makes me like Twitter was how I can keep up with the world not because I can follow celebrities.
So I would say, if you think it's a fad, then it's a fad! I mean I agree and disagree. I can agree that it's a fad because, twitter have all those elements. By saying all those elements I mean the celebrity endorsements, following people here and there and lots of media are using it. So yeah, I believe that these elements are the influences why many people are using Twitter.
However, I think that businesses that can find ways to appropriately utilise twitter within their companies are clever, regardless of whether they are using it because it's a fad or not. Many companies are now including twitter in their processes as a tool for communication, assign tasks throughout departments etc etc. I've seen it myself, the company I've interned for last summer used Twitter to communicate about the meeting, share ideas and experiences and lots of other activities.
By doing so, they can cut down some of the costs and companies can track activities of employees. Thus, this not only can benefit the companies on how they can interact with employees but what Twitter can give is more than that. Twitter allows company to know what customers are saying about them, whether they like or dislike their brand? It provides "direct" interaction between companies and customers. And if companies can find the right tool to measure and track customers, then it's easier for them to develop new products, new brands or even find potential target markets etc.
I came across this statistics which give some interesting insights.
- 23% of online customers read what's on twitter once a month and 11% do not own twitter account but are still reading the tweets.
- 20% of customers said they followed a brand of company so they could interact with them.
- One of the motivations why customers follow a brand of company on twitter is because they want to seek for more information from the brand and the company.
Source:Webpronews
However, many statistics have suggested that Twitter's popularity is fading (FAD?) and also have a very low retention rate.
Source: Nielsenwire
Nielsenwire did a study on US Twitter's users and found that around 60% of the users do not return to use twitter the following month.
I follow approximately 650 people on twitter which more than half are not tweeting anymore. I reckon that if companies do not create a regular habit to tweet, they risk loosing customers. If businesses are using twitter to interact with customers, therefore, your twitter account is somewhat similar to your customer services department.
Therefore, what do you think Twitter should improve? Do you think it will stay?
p.s. I didn't think it would be this long, therefore twitter list of interesting people to follow will be my top three only
1. @Mashable - Tech new, lots of insightful statistics
2. @SocialNetDaily - all about social medias, lots of interesting articles
3. @Flipbooks - not only lots of RTs about social media news, but lots of good quotes and interesting stuffs like "7 reasons why you are addicted to twitter"
Enjoy! : )
Is "she" the same friend as the one from your previous post? The tiny girl who got the wrong pizza order??
ReplyDeleteHaha.
Nice job by the way. Keep it up!
For me, I think twitter started of as a Fad, you know when your friend use, you use more... it's what you called the "bandwagon effect." Once people used it for sometimes, some might drop off as it does not suite their preferences, this is when it become a Fad.
ReplyDeleteHowever, some might stay tight loyal to it. And this is when twitter is not a fad. Furthermore, these people utilize twitter as another form of communication channel, creating a big population and network. Which then give opportunities for many businesses to communicate to them directly (become personalized) which has much lower cost. This is why you can see businesses to day are adopting Twitter or Facebook as their communication tool.
So for me it's a Fad if people use it for just shorterm, but not a Fad when you decide to use for longterm.
Ps. interesting stats you found there
Keep up the good work!
Personally I created my twitter account because of the news in TV at one boring afternoon claiming that Twitter is the new "It" guy in the social media industry, so I looked it up and created my account.
ReplyDeleteFirst I just followed some friends, but even more excited knowing that I could also follow my favorite artists and brands. I like how they give us the latest news direct to my mobile phone.
So I also agree with Ju and Teacup that Twitter first came up almost as a fad but once we go to know it more it became less fad-ish. And those tweeting companies should be very updated; maybe 2 tweets per day?
Btw I couldn't see the pictures you uploaded here.
look forward for your next posts, Ju!
It is an interesting question, as business experts have been predicting for some time that social media was going to break up and specialise in different areas. Twitter could be see to be doing this, or it could just be a fad that will simply die out.... only time will tell.
ReplyDelete