Much of last week’s discussions online revolved around some interesting news about, well, Twitter 🙂 . From the Twitpocaypse scare (“it will happen because the unique identifier –a signed integer, associated with each tweet will exceed 2,147,483,647 which is the limit of signed integers. At this point many of the third party clients for Twitter could either malfunction or crash if they are not coded to handle this problem”), which has been averted, to the Harvard study that brought out, among other things, the fact that 10% users contribute to 90% of tweets, Twitter, as is it is prone to these days, has been in the thick of the action. Facebook did have its own share of the spotlight thanks to the vanity url, but let’s save that discussion for another day. 🙂
But among all this, the news that interested me was that Twitter’s rate of growth – that has been giving graph watchers neck cricks so far, thanks to stellar growth, seems to have flattened drastically at 1.47%, even as Facebook continues to grow at a healthy 8.54%. Though I did expect this to happen at some point, the timing was quite surprising, especially since Twitter has been getting a lot of mainstream attention these days, and even brands (most recently Pepsi) have been promoting it. I wonder if I could correlate this with the recent usage of Twitter (self fulfilling trends and ‘Spymaster’, for example) which has contributed to the reduction of my usage considerably. Back to that in a while.
When i read that statistic, I couldn’t help but remember the article I had come across a few days back titled “Why Things become unpopular“. “According to the results, the quicker a cultural item rockets to popularity, the quicker it dies. This pattern occurs because people believe that items that are adopted quickly will become fads, leading them to avoid these items, thus causing these items to die out.” I have to wonder if this applies to Twitter, Facebook and the other similar services. Now, for this result to not apply, there has to be obviously some utility that makes it go beyond a fad.
Facebook seems to be in quite a good growth phase (even excluding the high growth coming from its international success). Does this have anything to do with the relative non-anonymity inherent in the service and the relatively limited number of uses that a majority of its users care to indulge in. In other words, is the Twitter user’s relative anonymity (which might be dealt with soon with Verified accounts) and lack of a specific purpose proving to be a disadvantage for the service? The trends, aimless banter could thus be a manifestation of the latter? Of course, all this would be irrelevant if this is just a minor glitch in its growth story. But meanwhile, if users were signing on, not finding the service to be of value, and then conveying this in discussions (WOM), wouldn’t it result in such dismal growth? Also remember that a recent study pegged the non returning users at some 60%. I, for one am still a Twitter user, but my ‘conversion’ rate is a dismal 1 in 10. And in the remaining 9, at least 6 are fairly active on FB. Ok, maybe its just me. 🙂
Moving further, I also wonder about the impact of this finding on brands and their strategies. Is it fair to assume that, earlier, in a relatively less connected world, trends and fads took more time to be formed, and therefore had lasting power. In today’s hyper connected world, a viral phenomenon reaches the peak of its popularity in no time. So what does this imply for brands, keeping in mind the perspective that Twitter, FB, You Tube etc are great platforms for virals. I would also like to question the ‘inherent value’ of a fad in earlier times, compared to now. Is it lesser? Say, a particular hairstyle vs a viral video on You Tube? Apples and pineapples, but still..? Meanwhile, assuming brands provide a great value proposition, do they make themselves hotbeds of trends, or do they look for longer lasting cycles? Is a balance possible? Given the frantic pace of technological advancement and its impact on lifestyles, would the audience really care about trends stretched over a long time, so is maximum reach in minimum time the way to go? From a business as well as brand objective point of view? Would that signal the end of organic communities? This decision could have implications on brands’ communication strategy, if not anything else.
until next time, trend setter or follower?
and meanwhile on the blog today, “Its trending trending..gone” http://bit.ly/xXdmm
Between FB and Twitter, there is a bigger distinguishing factor: the latter’s business model is still non-existent and beyond most people’s stretched imaginations. Businesses die if their ‘customers’ cannot quite get themselves to believe that the business will be in business next year. Also people using Facebook are more invested in Facebook – what with photos and private notes and book reviews being updated – that they do more and invite more people and keep it growing. You mention “banter” and lack of clarity of use on Twitter. Could it be that those who are finding it useful for various purposes will keep using Twitter? Whilst others who have no purpose but to play with a tool will fade away or hang around being non-contributing numbers.
In other words, brands have to keep an eye on their consumers, even as they make strategic changes. Consumer behaviour and thoughts are more transparent on Twitter than on Facebook which is Walled Garden 2.0. (Don’t dismiss it; remember when I said Twitter was Chat 2.0 and you disagreed? Now everyone is saying that!)
Hmm, to be fair, the former’s business model/s is also a bit circumspect… but concede that there is something (Twitter is making tees though 😀 )… i’d mix both the points and say the investment is quite a bit for those seriously using it.. for whatever reasons (eg. i think of Twitter as a lifestream – a “what was i doing then”, and now have started a backup of my tweets, my relationship with Facebook is more as a sharing device for ‘real’ people) .. you’re right that those just playing with it will run to the next player that makes a bang, but even they have an investment – the connections they’ve built on Twitter… they’ll run if they can take that along or rebuild it easily…
the thing is that the garden is really big, and for now, at least the status can be taken outside.. hopefully, more soon.. right you are on brands keeping an eye on consumers – that remains the constant while trends keep shifting… hmm, well, there were quite a few who called it chat 2.0 then, for me, it still isnt, it could be because i associate chat (now) more with IM than chat boards… but well, twitter is changing too, perhaps so will i 🙂