Twitter Problem - Person Based
Written by Robert Bacal | 
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| The Never Ending Social Media Interview - Twitter |
Q: You've said that Twitter is the weakest of the main social media platforms due to its lack of features. Are there other limitations that you feel are going to drive Twitter into closure, or being taken over due to lack of interest and revenue?
A: There is one thing that comes to mind. Platforms tend to be set up to focus on people, or focus on "content topics" (there are other possibilities too). Neither is good or bad on its own. Twitter is set up so that you follow PEOPLE, rather than topics and they've tried to convince users to make use of hashtags (the # before a word) to designate tweets that share common topics. The hashtag convention is one that is informal, and so it will work to the extent that users use it properly. The notion behind it is that if you are talking about a topic, say socialmedia, if you include "#socialmedia" as the hashtag, people can search just for that and find the content posted by those using that tag.
Unfortunately hashtags are a bandaid, and Twitter still remains set up to track people one by one. That works really well for friends, celebrities, politicians and public figures since those interested in these people and everything they might do and say can follow them and know they can see everything the person tweets. It's no surprise that the numbers suggest that the most popular stuff over time is connected to celebrity type people.
Now here's the problem. It's possible to make a living catering to the needs of those who are interested in celebrities, but if we are to be realistic, it's much better to also make it easy for users with other things to do, and varied interests, to interact about those interests. Hashtags don't work very well.
That's why people looking, as an example, for professional discussion about a professional topic, go to LinkedIn, or some other platform that make sit simple and easy to interact on a CONTENT topic.
Without the ability to bring folks in to discuss TOPICS, the growth potential of Twitter is limited.
Q: Do you think Twitter will come up with a solution or if they are even interested?
A: I don't know. The problem is that real discussion on serious topics is almost impossible to do in 140 characters, so even if they came up with other ways to make topic discussions simple and easy, they'd hit that limit, and it's the 140 character limit that was a major "hook" to use to draw people to Twitter. I understand there is a significant market for gossip, and feeling connected to people -- strangers, friends, and celebrities, but I can't see Twitter breaking out of an almost exclusive people focus. Which is why I don't see Twitter as viable without major change, and it has to do that fast!
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Scoundrel
MicroThoughts
You can tell your "social media expert" is a scoundrel or utterly ignorant if they use the phrase "They just don't get social media". The truth is that the expert doesn't get social media, or how human beings work and is unable to come up with anything better to refute arguments or disagreements about social media.
Mashable no-no
In response to a Mashable article about how Starbucks supposedly used social media to bring one million people into their stores in a day:
This is just terrible "journalism". First, the giveaways brought the people in. Second, we have no idea how many people came for the freebies hearing on it from Twitter or not. Third, They could have pulled people into their stores with this promotion in any of a number of ways. This is not a social media success, anymore than having sandwich board guys outside of each store would constitute a success for loitering.
Learn From Competition?
Some believe you should monitor and emulate your competition on social media. Here's a thought:
If you look at your competitors, will you end up looking like your competitors? The ongoing issue in any marketing or even in developing a network is how to standout FROM the competition, and not to BE like the competition.
Social Media Frauds
You know someone isn't worth following if they retweet compliments given to them by others. They are either frauds who are better at self-promotion than they are in their alleged area of expertise, or they are so insecure that they have to -- just have to, make sure that everyone knows how wonderful other people think they are. Hint: Run away. These folks are like empty drums. Bang on the outside and you get a cool sound. Empty inside -- nothing to offer.
Immersion
You cannot fully understand social media solely by being immersed in it. In fact, one reason why there is so much bad information about social media is that most of it comes from immersed people. The full picture is only available to people who can DISTANCE themselves emotionally and intellectually and see social media from the outside -- as most human beings view it.
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