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.

As I start to use Twitter more and more I have noticed something that got me thinking. As a web designer/developper/blogger, I try to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of the internet. My biggest leap came a few months ago when I hitched a ride on the train to Tweet Town. I signed up for Twitter obviously knowing what it was. What I didn’t know was the potential that lies therein.

Twitter creates duplicate content

I am constantly reading articles and posts online from other bloggers and site owners sharing their expertise (and lack thereof on occasion). I have my favorite sites that I subscribe to via RSS and am always on the lookout for new source of information. As I begin becoming a regular Twit, I find myself following all these same individuals, and more, on Twitter. And there’s the rub. Most bloggers (myself included) obviously use Twitter to reach a larger audience to promote their posts. If I subscribe to a blog’s RSS feed and follower that author on Twitter, I get the feed in my Mozilla Thunderbird and I see the tweet on Twitter about the post: double whammy. As I noticed this, I wondered:

“Do I really need to subscribe to a feed and follow the author?”

The end of RSS is near

I started thinking about this more when a thought popped into my head:

Will Twitter bring about the end of RSS feeds?

Maybe not now, maybe not in the near future, but maybe in the not-so-distant future I think the possibility is there. Just the same as the internet has brought about the end of print edition newspapers, the same could end up happening for RSS feeds.

Why keep RSS?

While the end of RSS may be inevitable, I currently have a need to use both. For instance, I work for a major internet software company who has a pretty strict “public web site” policy. Under this policy, all social networking sites are blocked, including Twitter. This means that for those authors who publish posts in the morning, I can’t see their Tweets stating this. Thus the necessity of the RSS feed for me.

When in Rome…do as the Twitterers do

However, when I am at home, I am following along on Twitter. I have yet to download or try out any of the numerous apps out there for following your twitter account and making reading/tweeting easier, but I plan to. The advantage to Twitter is obviously that I get to see posts and ReTweets from users sharing others’ interesting information and articles, without actually having to repost the whole article.

As a source of information sharing, Twitter exceeds RSS by leaps and bounds, there’s no doubt about it. However, with the convenience (at least for some like me) of RSS still proves worthy. Time will tell, but I think Biz may be digging a shallow grave somewhere.

What do you think? Will Twitter be the end of RSS? Leave your comments below and vote.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

I have officially begun my Twitter Experiment where I will attempt to increase blog traffic from, and by effectively using, Twitter. (read more about what prompted it here)

Last night I made my first “non-selfish” Tweet.

Reading @problogger How Listening to a Waiter can Jack your Profits up 33% – http://is.gd/MFXh

Before that tweet, I had 20 followers. Since that tweet (I have had no other since), I gained 17 additional followers. Are all of these followers just because of that tweet? No. Are most of them? Yes.

So with one tweet, I’ve proven (what most of us already know), it’s easy to gain followers. However, the real test of the experiment will be if I can increase my traffic to my blog from twitter or not. Subscribe to my feed to keep up to date on the status of The Experiment.

The market for using these new types of technologies is still growing and is rather fresh for most companies. Many businesses do not use the social media and web apps at all to market or make their businesses run more efficiently, mostly because no one is laying it out for them in a fun and easy way.

I thought to myself “How can I expound on that? How can I help show people how to use social networking to their advantage?” I pondered over this for a while before realizing “I’m not the best person to do this” as I am a fairly new passenger of the “social networking train” having only recently punched my Twitter and Facebook tickets about 2 months ago. However, blogger Darren Rowse of ProBlogger has started a site for exactly this purpose: Helping people (and businesses) use Twitter effectively.

So what does the second article have to do with this post? As I read through Kevin Geary’s guest post at ProBlogger, I realized that I am guilty of number 4: “Making Twitter all about you and your blog.”. In that point Kevin says

The people who are breaking Twitter (yes, it’s being torn down in terms of value as we speak) are the ones who use it to promote only themselves and only their blog. They’ll throw a retweet out there every once in a while and join in on a #followfriday session, but that’s about it. Their main goal is to drive traffic without adding any value. And who can blame them? It’s free and easy.

If you take a look at my twitter status, you will notice how guilty I am – just how much of a “twitter spammer” I am. So far a mere 2% of traffic to my site has been referrals from Twitter. Obviously I am not using it effectively.

So how am I going to use Twitter effectively? Well first and foremost, I need to follow Kevin’s advice and not make twitter all about me. I have, to this date, not followed one single person that I do not know personally (with the exception of the ESPN follows and Stephen Colbert). So, I need to start following other people in my field/niche first of all. By taking advantage of the information and knowledge that other people posses, I can expand my own knowledge. Secondly, ReTweet something, or lots of somethings. I will shy away from my “twitter spamming” ways though and only ReTweet the content I find useful and worth sharing. Lastly: read, read, read. I will obviously be starting with TwiTip.com as my source for all things Twitter, but will be Scouring the web for more Twitter information to help me become a better tweeter and less of a spammer.

This will be a 2 week experiment on using Twitter effectively and the difference it can have on my site. I will keep track of my referral traffic from twitter, as well as my “following” and more importantly, my “followers” and content of mine that has been “retweeted” during the course of the experiment to see what kind of progress (if any) I will be making. Check back often to see the results of the experiment.

Of course it’s not all about me (as I am learning). What methods have you used to grow your business/site traffic with Twitter? Share with others in the comments below.