Twitter has a massive user base and a significant amount of activity flowing through it’s data-center on a monthly basis (22M uniques according to the latest Compete.com site analytics). Those users tweet – a lot. There are a multitude of ‘profiles’ that industry publications have assigned to those that are actively using Twitter. The graphic below (Click Image to Enlarge — courtesy: @ngonews) is great. You’ll get a perspective on the activity of each profile and how you might want to consider your interaction with them – with a humorous bent. I, personally, completely block the ‘b1tch’ – but also have very little patience with the ‘smore’. I’d like to think my profile falls in the category of ‘maven’…but you may have a different opinion when following my Twitter stream. What’s YOUR Twitter profile?
David Veneski Twitter Profile, Twitter
Came across this in my daily scan of the Social Web…made me chuckle, so I am sharing with you.
David Veneski Twitter Dilbert, Twitter
As a digital marketer I’m always looking for trends in the vehicles that I use in my quarterly and yearly campaigns. Obviously the growth of Twitter in 2009 has been tremendous. You’re seeing adoption from all walks of life and across many usage models. What’s interesting, however, is that we have seen a trend over the last four months that shows the growth of this micro-blogging service as slowed…and effectively flat-lined in the US:
This is a curious phenomenon, as Mashable reports since the service has “entered pop culture, it’s been the web buzzword of the year, everyone from NFL players to rock stars are tweeting. We’ve seen hundreds of exciting services and ideas built around Twitter in the past two years.” (Courtesy: Mashable).
I continue to build a Twitter component into all of our Social Media programs that come out of my group at Intel. From my perspective, it’s a valuable and easy way for individuals to contribute to a community that we are developing – such as the MyLifeScoop program I blogged about earlier this week. While growth has slowed for the moment, there is no doubt in my mind that as Ev and Biz continue to broker agreements with industry leaders we will see audience uptake spike again.
David Veneski Twitter Intel, mylifescoop, Twitter
Personally, I am still figuring out Twitter lists. I am sure that they are useful and something I will leverage eventually, however right now I am pretty happy with the folks that I am following. I think they’re bright, informed, opinionated individuals that provide me with a generous amount of knowledge and information on a daily basis. I’m sure I’ll dive deeper into lists very soon and start aggregating my own – but prior to that, I’ve done a bit of reading on what people are saying about Twitter Lists and how to use them. Mashable, as they typically do, has given us a very educational insight into Twitter lists (and have already adopted the discipline as part of their site design by creating a navigation bar at the top of their site with a list of their, well, lists…). Impressive integration.
One of the most rapid adopter of lists from what I’ve seen has been Robert Scoble (not surprised). With his ‘voice’ and ‘influence’ many of the lists that he follows have ramped up significantly. Some of those that I find most compelling and relevant to my job are ‘Most Influential In Tech” and “Tech News – Brands“. On a more personal front, I’m a sports fanatic… Twitter list could prove to fuel the fire for my constant quest for the latest sports news – whether it be about my beloved Oregon Ducks, Boston Celtics, or simply information to give me a leg up on each of my Fantasy Football and Basketball leagues. As Ryan Corazza writes for ESPN.com, this could be a great utility for leagues and fans alike:
“If leagues use lists to their advantage, it would serve an important duality: expanding their brand and reach while satisfying fans’ craving for as much quality information as they can handle on their team.“
This is true not just for sports, but any organization with a rabid following. Aggregate information, make it easy to consume and distribute, and you have a winning combination that will extend a brand’s influence much further than it could on it’s own.
David Veneski Twitter
Tweetedbrands.com lists out the daily Top 50 Brands in the Twitterverse. Intel makes the list…today. I’d like to see us maintain our place and gain momentum.
David Veneski Intel, Twitter Intel, Twitter
The inevitable has happened. There has been a youth uprising on Twitter, with new data showing that over the last year the largest growing age group on the micro-blogging service is the 18-24 y/o demo (37% gain year over year), with the 25-34 y/o demo following closely (31% growth in the same time period). While the media age (31) has remained stable it is clear that our youth, once hesitant about the transparency of broadcasting their every move in 140 characters, has shed their trepidation and are swarming to Twitter like never before. Very different data than we saw just two short months ago.
“Internet users age 18-44 report rapid uptake of Twitter over the last nine months, whereas internet users ages 45 and older report slower adoption rates. For example, 37% of internet users age 18-24 use Twitter or another service, up from 19% in December 2008.” (credit: Pew Internet)
David Veneski Twitter Twitter, Youth
via Ogilvy and IBM Marketing. From my vantage point, we have a very similar approach at Intel.
David Veneski Twitter Twitter
According to a recently released report by the research group Interpret LLC:
“Twitter users are twice as likely to review or rate products online (24% vs. 12%), visit company profiles (20% vs. 11%) and click on advertisements or sponsors (20% vs.9%) as those who only belong to traditional social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace. The data suggests that Twitter users uniquely demonstrate higher engagement with brands, not just with “tweets” they post.“ (credit: All Things Digital)
This is an interesting finding, especially when you consider that 20% of Tweets mention Brands and Products, according to Researchers at Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology. Message to Brand Marketers, if you’re not already looking at Twitter as a community that is receptive to your message – you should be.
David Veneski Advertising, Twitter Advertising, Twitter
It can make you or break you. Bruno vs Inglorious Basterds – a shared review medium, a vastly different effect. According to AdWeek, Inglorious Basterds ‘rode a crest of tweeting goodwill‘ to pull in more than $37M on it’s opening weekend. With Tarantino’s new offering we see how the micro-blogging service can change the perception of the ‘mainstream’ audience. Sure – there will always be die hard Quentin Tarantino fans that go see every movie that he makes and give it an unwavering thumbs up, despite the quality. However, when they amplify that opinion through a service like Twitter they are touching all sorts of people – especially friends in their network that may never have considered going to see the movie in question. AdWeek goes on to say “the movie actually held its ground and even picked up steam as the weekend went on, as even Saturday Twitterers enthusiastically tweeted and re-tweeted their approval.”
This is quite the opposite effect Twitter traffic had on Bruno when it first opened. From Mashable:
“According to box office results, Brüno, albeit the number one grossing movie at the box office pulling in $30.4 million, saw almost a 40% drop in ticket sales from Friday to Saturday, and lost even more steam going into Sunday.”
Why do we see this effect? Time sums it up well in this comment: “Chalk that up to word-of-mouth, viral and virulent. “If you’re tweeting,” marketing consultant Gordon Paddison told Sharon Waxman of the Wrap, “and people are catching that live and they’re out at drinks and were planning on seeing the movie tomorrow — that hurts.”
What if Siskel and Ebert had Twitter to compete with when they got started reviewing movies? Their success may not have been what it was…
David Veneski Social Media, Twitter Box Office Receipts, Movie Success
Survey says… The Web. I must admit, I am surprised by the report released by Rapleaf this week. They did their due diligence in establishing a large sample size (4M Twitter users) to provide an accurate assessment of how people are using the Twitter service and plethora of tools available to them. The statistic that surprises me the most is the amount of people (65%) that are still using the Twitter.com Web Site as their means of pushing their 140 character message out to their followers. With the variety of great tools out there to augment your Twitter experience like Twhirl and TweetDeck, I would think that more people would be leveraging those to streamline their Twitter activities. Not true. In fact, the second largest segment of the pie are people sending out their Tweets via text on their mobile phone. That begs the question – what do you use to Tweet?
David Veneski Twitter TweetDeck, Twhirl, Twitter
