Based on the recent articles below, one could very easily come to this conclusion:
- Information Week: "Twitter at the Vanishing Point"
- eMarketer: "Time to Write Twitter's Tombstone?"
- iMedia Connection: "Why Twitter will soon become obsolete"
Whether Twitter
is here to stay or gone tomorrow is anyone's guess. This recent hiccup
in Twitter's unique visitor numbers should make us pause a bit, though, to ponder a few key points.
The "Next Big Thing" May Not Be For You
If
you're a CMO or other senior executive and were recently seen running
down the hall in hysterics asking everyone "what's our Twitter
strategy?, what's our Twitter
strategy?..." you're probably feeling a bit silly now. Like any new
marketing channel/platform, before diving in head first, you should first ask
yourself the following questions:
- What does this new channel enable me to do that I couldn't do before?
- Who's the target audience for this channel?
- Are any of my competitors using this channel? If so, how are they using it and what's their success been?
- What are the hard and soft costs associated with using this channel?
- How is marketing ROI calculated when using this channel?
- How does this channel integrate with my current marketing infrastructure?
After answering these questions you may decide that Twitter isn't feasible for your organization. THIS IS OK, because not doing this type of due diligence may end up costing you a lot of time, money and embarrassment down the line, should you decide to jump into "the next big thing" without doing your homework.
Don't Put All of Your Eggs Into One Basket
Like any smart investor, you never want to put all of your money into a single investment vehicle. This same concept also applies to marketing channels and channel platforms.
Marketing Channel Diversification: In most instances, it's best to adopt a multi-channel approach where you leverage the right channel for the right audience at the right time. Leveraging this approach better ensures that your message is received in the most effective and cost efficient manner.
- Marketing Channel Platform Diversification: In this case, you don't want to "hard wire" yourself to just one channel platform (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn...etc.). Here it's best to publish your content once and distribute it to multiple channel platforms through a content distribution service such as Ping.fm or Sendible or through a standard content distribution format such as RSS. This approach yields to key benefits:
You can communicate with your customers on their preferred platform
- If one channel/platform goes out of business (i.e. Twitter goes under), you don't have to change the format of your content to "plug into" another provider's platform
The Viral Effect Can Go Both Ways
Twitter's exponential growth grew mainly through the "viral effect." Just as easily as Twitter's growth can skyrocket through the viral effect, it's growth can also tank via the viral effect as well, as negative publicity (via viral distribution) can be a self fulfilling prophecy. This is an important reality to keep in mind as more companies incorporate viral marketing/social media into their overall marketing mix.
So, is twitter losing its tweetappeal? We'll find out more in the next few months.
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