I logged into Twitter last night and this was the tweet that I saw from a good friend of mine:

Twitter has lost its novelty

I wondered to myself whether or not he may be right. It’s hard for me to accept that Twitter is just a passing fad as I doubt that it is. It’s definitely not new anymore and the novelty aspect of it may have worn off a bit, at least for some. The quote that best sums up Twitter is in a post I have linked to before. In fact, it is the post that prompted my Twitter Experiment, titled How Not to Promote Your Blog: Top 10 Broken Blog Promotion Strategies. In that post, author Kevin Geary states (about Twitter) “Free and easy asks for abuse.” Many of the casual users of Twitter joined because to them it was just a passing fad, everyone else was using it. And hey, It’s FREE! People liked the idea, liked the concept, and tweeted fairly regularly…at least to start. Like a flower without water, their Twitter activity withered and died and the account sits dormant.

The novelty of Twitter is gone but the usefulness remains

I think that my friend was right…to a point. The novelty aspect of Twitter may have worn off. However, that doesn’t mean it’s a worthless service that people should stop using by any means. Twitter is likely the best service for bloggers and publishers since RSS. In fact, in yesterday’s post, I discussed the fact that Twitter may one day replace RSS feeds.

Twitter is all about how you use it

When it comes to Twitter, there are two types of users: casual and professional. For the casual non-blogger user like my friend, if the novelty has worn off, then what good is Twitter? How is it any better than plain old text-messaging? For a casual user, the majority of their followers are going to be people they know, people they can send a text message to. For those random followers that everyone happens to pick up that they don’t know, it doesn’t matter that you can’t text them; you don’t know them. If you need to convey something to your friends, why not just do it through a mass text message? Chances are they will get that long before they check their Twitter accounts.

For the professional user (bloggers, marketers, recruiters, etc), Twitter is a blessing. We tend to pick up many more followers because of what we do; our Tweets are of a different nature than the casual users’ and are found in the results of a Twitter search. Using Twitter to promote what we do results in traffic to our blogs/websites from our followers, and thus in a higher probability of revenue, be it through advertising, selling services, or selling products to that person. For instance, any time I get a new follower, i check out that persons profile and often times will then click over to their website. If the content interests me and is under the same general niche as my blog, that user just picked up a new subscriber, and likely, a new follower. They are now likely to get more traffic to their website because of me. I will become a regular visitor and chances are good, if I like their content (which is why I’m following/subscribing to them), that I will ReTweet one of their posts, which will in turn drive more traffic to them. It’s the viral nature of Twitter that makes it so valuable to the professional user.

Why does Twitter fail the casual user?

A count of the “casual” users I am following (my friends), their followers total 19, 11, 22, and 6. I myself currently have 41 followers and have been using Twitter for less time than all of them. It is all because of how I use Twitter. Other professional users I follow often have follower counts in the 1000’s, mainly because they are much more active than I and have been using Twitter longer. In fact, one professional user I follow (not counting Stephen Colbert) has over 64,000 followers. In the past month, not one of these 4 casual users has sent a ReTweet. Why? They don’t have much of a need to. ReTweets are critical to the professional Twitter user for picking up followers. Often times the recipient of the ReTweet will thank the tweeter with an @ reply and their followers may see that and click through to the tweeter’s profile and follow them. “This person is ReTweeting other peoples’ posts, if I follow them they may ReTweet my posts.” My tweets, for instance, are also about using Twitter, blogging, design, programming, and more. The likelihood that someone is searching for something related to one of these topics is far more likely than someone searching for “mac and cheese” (yes a person I follow tweeted about that).

How do we make Twitter more than just a passing fad?

As I already stated, I think Twitter is more than just a passing fad. But how do non-bloggers like my friends use it to their full advantage? For starters, do you have something to promote? Anything? Two of the people I have mentioned certainly do – one hosts weekly karaoke, the other is in a band. The promotional opportunities with Twitter are boundless right there. Mention Twitter at your next show and then use Twitter to promote your upcoming shows. Use Twitter for contests only open to your followers. Use Twitter to announce discounts and promotions, or other reasons why people should come to your next show. You see where I’m going with this.

If you’re using Twitter solely as a mood ring then what’s the point? If that’s the case, then the novelty aspect is gone and there’s no point to continue using it. However, if you can find a genuine use for Twitter, even if it’s promoting your husband’s upcoming karaoke show, or your son’s upcoming band gig, then Twitter is no longer a novelty product and instead is fulfilling a genuine purpose.

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