Is the Recession Partly Responsible for the Twitter Explosion?

If it seems as though more people are “tweeting” these days, it’s because they are. Twitter currently boasts more than 4.5 million users—70 per cent of which joined in 2008 alone. So what’s driving Twitter’s exponential growth? Some believe the recession has been a main contributor to Twitter’s recent growth with many marketers cutting back on traditional media spending in favour of social media.

In a time when many marketing budgets are being trimmed, Forrester research has found that 53 per cent of marketers plan to increase their social media budget during the recession, while 42 per cent will maintain their spending on social media. Compared to most traditional media, Twitter is inexpensive and many marketers are finding real value in the word-of-mouth generated from the social media site.

Even traditional media organizations have embraced Twitter to market themselves. Of the mainstream media players on Twitter, CNN, The New York Times, and BBC currently have the greatest reach. With marketers and even traditional media outlets themselves adopting Twitter and other social media sites into their marketing plans, one can only wonder if what the impact on traditional media will be. With social media on the upswing, traditional media will likely have to adapt or get left behind.

Bit of brouhaha this week in Twitterdom after The Sunday Times ran a story that dismisses Twitter as the online equivalent of a high school cafeteria, filled with boring, gossiping narcissists who “lack an identity.”

If you haven’t read it, check it out, and then immediately read this great response. Because there, laid out neatly on your screen, is a cheat sheet version of the great social media debate. In one corner is the “waste of timers”. In the other, the “new world of connections” supporters.

Unfortunately, smack in the middle sits the PR and new media strategists who understand how integral social media is to a modern communications campaign, but who must find ways clearly articulate this value to the skeptics.

In my experience, social media critics like the writer at the Times fail to see big picture. Is Twitter full of iPhone fanboys and obsessive “who’s following who” comments? Absolutely. But so what? That’s hardly the whole story of Twitter. Effective face-to-face networking consists of 90 per cent small talk as people get to know each other, and about 10 per cent meat. And few see networking as a waste of time. Tuning in for a snippet of the endless online conversation misses the bigger point of site like Twitter, which is all about building deep, lasting connections.

Bottom line – it’s good to be skeptical, but when looking at social but it’s also important not to lose the forest for the trees.

You still use a Commodore 64 and find it revolutionary.
The Web moves quickly. Heck, we’re already hearing Web 3.0 being bantered around. Innovative communications tools are gaining ground and changing the way we do business. Combine this with the ever-increasing number of applications for mobile devices and you can be assured that your desk is no longer going to be your primary place of work.

The Web is not your audience’s primary source of information.
It may seem like everyone is on Facebook and Twitter these days and while that may be very true for consumer and enterprise audiences, there are groups that still prefer to get information through newsletters, courseware, seminars and print magazines. Before you engage in a social media strategy, be sure that who you are targeting has an online presence and that you can measure ROI. *You may find however that a bridging strategy such as the one suggested by ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick can work for you.

You are not prepared for positive and/or negative conversation.
Self-explanatory. You must consider how these conversations are going to impact you and your business. If a customer has a query, can you respond quickly? Can you set your feelings aside and enter into a friendly discussion with a competitor? If discussions increase awareness for your company and orders start flooding in, are you prepared to handle the calls? Do those in your online network uphold the same standard of online ethics/behaviour that you do? If you can’t answer “yes” then you may not be ready for all that social media can bring.

You don’t have anything to say.
Whether it’s creating a corporate blog or participating in an online community, you must build a presence and regular following to be truly effective. Don’t wing it. Instead, identify the key themes you’d like to address and topics of discussions you’d like to contribute to. While your conversations should remain candid, it’s also important that you don’t launch a blog and then go silent two weeks later because you’ve run out of relevant things to say.