Btb Guest Author

Jonathan Farrington

Micro-blogging service Twitter remains the preserve of a few, despite the hype surrounding it, according to research.

Just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content, a Harvard study of 300,000 users found.

Estimates suggest it now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network.

However, the Harvard team found that more than half of all people using Twitter update their page less than once every 74 days.

And most people only ever “tweet” once during their lifetime, the researchers found.

“Based on the numbers, Twitter is certainly not a service where everyone has seen it has instantly loved it,” said Bill Heil, a graduate from Harvard Business School who carried out the work.

On a typical online social network, he said, the top 10% of users account for 30% of all production.

“This implies that Twitter’s resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network,” the team wrote in a blog post.

Silent crowds

Twitter is a social networking website where people can post messages of 140 up to characters - known as “tweets” - that can be seen by other users who subscribe to their feed.

Its growth has been described as “explosive” and has become the poster child of social networking sites, particularly amongst media companies.

Twitter is a broadcast medium rather than an intimate conversation with friends.

Recent figures from research firm Nielsen Online show that visitors to the site increased by 1,382%, from 475,000 to seven million, between February 2008 and February 2009. It is thought to have grown beyond 10 million in the last 4 months.

By comparison, Facebook - one of the most popular social networking sites by number of visitors - has 200 million active users and grew by 228% during the same period.

Research by Nielsen also suggests that many people give the service a try, but rarely or never return.

Earlier this year, the firm found that more than 60% of US Twitter users fail to return the following month.

“The Harvard data says very, very few people tweet and the Nielsen data says very, very few people listen consistently,” Mr Heil told BBC News.

‘Super user’

The Harvard study took a snapshot of 300,542 users in May 2009. As well as usage patterns it looked in detail at gender differences.

For example, it found that men have 15% more followers than women despite there being slightly more females users of Twitter than males.

It also showed that an average man is almost twice more likely to follow another man than a woman, despite the reverse being true on other social networks.

“The sort of content that drives men to look at women on other social networks does not exist on Twitter,” said Mr Heil. “By that I mean pictures, extended articles and biographical information.”

However, said Mr Heil, the most striking result was that so few people used the service to publish information, preferring instead to be passive consumers.

For example, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one.

“Twitter is a broadcast medium rather than an intimate conversation with friends,” he said. “It looks like a few people are creating content for a few people to read and share.”

Some “super users” can have thousands or even hundreds of thousands of followers.

Currently, the most popular person to follow on Twitter is the movie star Ashton Kutcher who has over two million followers.

However, the service bills itself as a way to “communicate and stay connected” with “friends, family and co-workers”.

“The Twitter management need to decide if this is a problem,” said Mr Heil. “And if they decide it is, how they will tweak Twitter to become more acceptable to the average user?”

Very interesting!!

Thanks to BBC News.

Jonathan Farrington is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author, and consultant, who has guided hundreds of companies and tens of thousands of individuals around the world towards optimum performance levels.  He has authored in excess of three hundred skills development programmes, designed a range of unique and innovative process tools and has been published extensively on a wide range of business topics including organizational and sales team development, leadership and the customer imperative.  Jonathan’s first book, “Tougher At The Top” will be published early in 2009.  Visit his website @ www.jonathanfarrington.com

In the News

Here is a second very interesting post from Jonathan called “Dear Customer, Meet Me On Twitter. Dear Vendor, Why Should I Do That? “

“We all know that a vitally important sales activity is that of managing existing customer accounts, to consolidate and grow the relationship. Yet unfortunately, when compared over time, the customers’ interest levels increase while salespeople’s interest levels tend to decrease. This creates a “relationship gap” and is due entirely to complacency. I happen to believe that “complacency levels” are increasing alarmingly, and this goes some way to explaining declining levels of sales achievement”

Jonathan highlights why increasing dependence on Sales 2.0 tools may end up decreasing the levels of time and activities spent managing existing accounts and relationships. I think he makes a very strong case why salespeople should proceed with caution.

Staying with the Twitter theme, Jordan McCollum tells us that to”Breathe into a paper bag. Put your head between your knees” because Twitter traffic is now at best flat or maybe even declining.I guess I may have to start looking for another replacement addiction

Over at TSE

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