Sorry mate but blogging, creating status updates and tweeting et al does not put you in the broadcast business at all. It may perhaps put you in the publishing business in the same way as a guy who owns a photocopier or even a megaphone. At best the typical twitter user is narrowcasting; until you they picked up by CBS (to wit, #shitmydadsays). #CrAshRus
Smurfdaddy
· 2 weeks ago
Tweeting, blogging etc. may give me a window into the lives of my family and friends, but those ramblings are a far cry from representing the "news". How naive and sad to think that today's generation puts such stock into today's "soap opera's". Social networking and "news" have no place being mentioned in the same breath. This feels like the same kind of "change" Obama has been threatening.
Telling me that my golf buddy's tweet about his cup of coffee this morning is a far cry from replacing relevant goings on in the world. Twitter is a fad at best ... a hub ? Bah .. humbug.
andre70
· 3 weeks ago
Great post and some good things to think about. I agree with you 98%. The other 2% is in the terminology. When I think of Twitter (social media in general for that matter) I equate it more to "Narrowcasting". Content contributors are transmitting their messages to a narrow audience segment, one that they've developed. As that message spreads through the various channels (shares, retweets, etc), it snowballs and has the potential to reach a broader audience. However, the individual streams are typically narrowcast. They are broadcast only in aggregate.
Nick D.
· 3 weeks ago
You have it exactly backwards. Twitter is a lagging indicator. Most interesting tweets link to stories that have already been published elsewhere online. And the number of sources (news sites, blogs, etc.) of those stories - particularly for business and company trends - is small (less than 50). So you'll be ahead of the game by just spending a half hour a day reading those feeds directly instead of spending all day trying to digest the repetitive babble contained in the Twitter firehose and work backwards. We've done experiments that demonstrate this point, as have others - you can read about them here: http://blog.vanno.com/ . And to your "crowd" point: Crowdsourcing was based on the assumption that the voices collected were independent. Twitter is exactly NOT that - it is more mobsourcing, with armies of followers reposting and retweeting stuff from a few savvy instigators. Use Twitter to find interesting people who can point you to valuable online sources. But then follow the sources, and you'll be much happier, and have much more time on your hands.
Smurfdaddy
· 2 weeks ago
Amen!~
MikeInOKC
· 3 weeks ago
I'm still skeptical. I don't doubt that Twitter is being seen the way you describe because of all the hype (like your post), but I also think that Twitter is not much more than a chaotic link-sharing service that also allows micro, micro blog posts. It still is very much a caste-like service as well; meaning, it has its own "stars" and they tend to already be "stars" in another arena (movies, news, sports, etc.).
soreng
· 3 weeks ago
Sure. I agree that we have really yet to see if sites like Twitter will truly serve as a new kind of voice of people or simply be a tool of the "celebrity" class. I think Twitter's recommended user list has really been unhelpful in this respect. But I do think it is giving everyday people greater voice, and believe it could move us increasingly in the direction of a more democratic and open media.
ctrl+alt+startup
· 3 weeks ago
Twitter has turned into a protocol rather than a destination site. This is the biggest difference between facebook and twitter.
brian fanslau
· 3 weeks ago
You got it right on!
Mike Zachaczewski
· 3 weeks ago
Everyone IS a broadcaster because of sites like twitter. However, what they have to say is not always taken seriously by others and their impact is very minimal. However, once the right people start to tweet about that same news it can quickly become big news without the help of large media outlets like CBS, CNN, etc.
A few weeks ago people though Kayne West was dead becuase of some people tweeting.
Amy
· 3 weeks ago
VERY INTERESTING! THANK YOU! :-)
Tyler Gillies
· 3 weeks ago
thanks for the link to power twitter
Andrew K. Lee
· 3 weeks ago
Why is Twitter, in your words, "the most obvious" hub for sharing content? One can share all the sames kinds of content (blog posts, links to articles, photos, etc.) on, for example, Facebook? What makes Twitter stand out?
soreng
· 3 weeks ago
Hi Andrew,
Certainly this exists to some extent on FB, but as it was created initially around friends, I think Twitter is more suited (for now anyhow) to broadcast to a larger audience. Of course, FB is changing fast, and could likely plow ahead in coming years, but to me Twitter allows for the most "broadcasting" potential at this moment.
Miles Maker
· 3 weeks ago
GREAT stuff! I don't know what Power Twitter is but I'm about to find out--
This is the way things should always have been. This was the original intention.
Perri Gorman
· 3 weeks ago
That article rocked :) Thanks.
richardstacy
· 3 weeks ago
Twitter isn't changing media. The nature of media is changing as a result of this thing called the social media revolution. Fundamentally, this revolution is due to the fact that content is no longer tied to, or controlled by, a particular means of distribution. This means that influence within media is shifting from places (newspapers, TV bulletins etc) to spaces (conversations, Twitter tags). Twitter is simply the latest form of this new media - and one which is the least tied to a place (web site, network etc) that we have seen to date. http://richardstacy.com/2009/11/02/so-tell-me-a...
One of the mistakes many people make with social media (reflected to an extent in your post and a number of the comments) is looking at is as thoigh it were traditional mass media and applying the same judgements to it - in especially in terms of judging its worth according to old fashioned definitions of quality (i.e. mass appeal rather than individual relevance). Social media doesn't give everyone a broadcasting channel - its giving everyone a channel. Broadcast is an old-fashioned concept that assumes the necessity of a mass audience. What is really happening is that the concept of broadcast is ceasing to exist.
If you really want to understand the significance of Twitter it is this - Twitter is a single place anyone can use to say everything ("I am eating a sandwich" or "I am watching a plane crash on the Hudson") and influence or relevance is determined by the spaces (conversations) into which our utterances get drawn. These may be very big conversations or they may be very small conversations. It matters not which. From http://richardstacy.com/2009/08/17/of-course-tw...
abee
· 3 weeks ago
thats why i ♥ twitter!
Joe
· 3 weeks ago
How is item 5 new? You used to be able to CALL IN and talk to a news show. At least then you were LIVE and could say what you wanted and INTERACT.
Now you send a tweet, they pick and choose what THEY want to air and can answer as they like and you can't reply.
Jensen_G
· 3 weeks ago
In terms of #5, facebook does a much better job of this than twitter. If I want to respond to a company, in twitter I have to tell all my friends about it and shove it in their face by putting it in their feed. With facebook I can join the comment feed on a particular item, and it is much less obtrusive..facebook, unlike twitter, doesn't make me share my movements annoyingly with everyone I know...it goes to the proper place.
Bobby Ocean
· 3 weeks ago
Good to know: Twitter fits perfectly into a comparison with "Thoughts," including their possibly of influencing so many people. Thoughts are all over the place, in content and availability, AND they are finite and hollow and totally require (your) attention to host any life. Thoughts precede the very telling of them, all conversation, all Tweets. You, on the other hand, are eternal, and the only authority and permission your mind looks to within its sphere of influence. You must choose how you use your social media devices as you had to learn to be in any conversation. Taken as a tool, Twitter can be a most effective communicator; as a distraction, however, also very efficient. So - like everything else, it can be misused. Real draw, magnetic charm and power of attraction comes from the one Tweeting. As in all else, you are the Chooser. Thus - most important to know in this age of instant communication, as it has everything to do with the quality of your Twitter content, is - how well acquainted with yourself as the Tweeter are you?
Ryan
· 3 weeks ago
Thought-provoking post. True twitter has changed the face of media, but how? For every impact breaking news story there has been a hoax. Perhaps the hoax : legit news ratio is even higher. It all depends on the motive of the individual tweeter. Some would like to share news, others to hawk their wares. I still see #iranelection keywords linked to internet marketing opportunities. For twitter to become a broadcasting hub we need more responsible, less attention-hungry tweeters.
Danny BenDebba
· 3 weeks ago
ok
aurel
· 3 weeks ago
i use twitter everyday, there are days when i do not have anything to "broadcast" though everyday, i get something useful out of it, and as i use twitter, i do not realy think about the incredible change this has on media.
however, when i'm listening to the radio, is amazing how many times the djs reffere to twitter ei, "i read on twitter" , "whats your twitter name" or "follow us on twitter to join in and request a song" - something that a time a go you could only do my phoning in.
in incredible and i (we all) love it
Alroy Tan
· 3 weeks ago
Interesting article Soren!
colinmansell
· 3 weeks ago
Absolute nonsense. I agree with anyone who says that twitter is hype, that while it may help to form closer connections between celebrities and their fans (who should by the way get a life), it has absolutely minimal impact on Commercial Results for business, and that is still what makes businesses succeed or fail.
"everyone is now a broadcaster" was what people said with Viral marketing, blogging, creating the same white noise generated by Guerilla marketing and Word-of-mouth.
The truth is this: Twitter maybe a bit of fun, but it is a fad, it is all just 'emperoro's new clothers' hype, and like the aforemenetioned fads, has zero impact on the majority of commercial businesses.
richardstacy
· 3 weeks ago
Colin,
Have a watch of this - from multinational organisation using Twitter and the full range of social media tools to fundamentally change the way they run their business http://tinyurl.com/5kgelz
I think you're getting stuck on semantics. Just to clarify on your last message, my background - I head up digital strategy for a marketing agency, and have a background in commercial marketing, handling up to £10m annual budgets. I wrote my dissertation for my first degree ten years ago on digital distribution, and have a masters degree in marketing from a top 5 business school.
The point is that social media is just one web technology, and is certainly no more important than email and CRM, affilaites, search marketing, or other forms of offline media, it's just one tiny part of a complex mix that forms an effective strategy.
I think that people who say that Twitter is the biggest things since sliced bread are false prophets, and if they are trying to cash in on it, they are nothing more than charlatans, as Twitter will never do anything significant for a business's bottom line - and that is still what business is about...
colinmansell
· 2 weeks ago
THIRD MESSAGE
This is getting a bit tedious. To be clear - I work for a full-service agency and my remit is digital - which includes social media strategies, and so I should be like you, one of Twitter's biggest advocate, but I'm not. I'm just not convinced it has any real traction.
Just to see if Twitter is really having the impact you say it is, I put up a survey on facebook to get a feel amongst my friends as to the adoption of Twitter. So far a very low response from what should be a young(ish) professional, web media-biased crowd - the core demographic.
So far, only 1 person of six responses has said they use it actively, and the reasons are more as a kind of stumble-upon, boredom killer. The other respondents have all said that they tried it once or twice, and it just isn't interesting or sticky enough, and arent following it actively anymore. (actually in their words, they mostly said 'it's shit' or it's boring).
I therefore doubt the numbers - anyone claiming to have X amount of followers on Twitter, will only really be a small fraction of that number, and even those people are only skimming the messages, which in real terms represents really low numbers of impressions / interactions, for a relatively high level of input.
And as for social media in general - of course can be an effective tool when adopted in an authentic manner, but it is only one ingredient of a much broader mix; to say that Social Media is more important or will replace the other fundamentals of commercial strategy is complete nonsense.
Search is still where 90% of web users start out their journeys, and is where they are actively 'searching' for a product or service. CRM remains the business brain in any smart organisation, and when used effectively with email, is the most cost effective way of turning your known prospects into buyers and repeat buyers.
And other media will continue for as long as people consume them. It's all very well to take the view that 'people now create their own media', and 'everyone is a broadcaster', but that doesn't mean it will replace it. Do people prefer to watch other peoples dull home videos than a well constructed film? or read the ramblings of you or me on some random blog, rather than a well-written and properly researched article by a professional journalist? I think not.
Feel free to respond, but I think I'm done here...
richardstacy
· 2 weeks ago
Ah - there is the problem. I have found very few people who work in digital agencies that understand social media - because it threatens them. The idea that the action is shifting away from (expensive) web sites and digital platfroms into digital spaces controled by individuals using free tools is confronting, to put it mildly.
I would suggest that you take the statements "Twitter will never do anything significant for a business's bottom line" and "social media is no more important than email, CRM, or search marketing" - frame them and put that frame your desk. Then see how long it takes before its presence becomes an embarassment.
colinmansell
· 3 weeks ago
Hi Richard,
Thanks for the link. However, it's not really correct to deduce that Dell is using Twitter as a fundamental way of changing their business. The point that Dell's VP of GM is making here, is that Dell is using "social media technology" to listen to their customers, and listening to your customers has always been a marketing fundamental.
That is very different from saying that they are using "social media platforms", and if the point is to listen to their customers, Twitter would be a pretty useless and ineffective tool.
I would even go further to ask the question: is Twitter strictly speaking "social media", when even in this discussion, it is referred to as a 'broadcast' tool (or more accurately a 'narrowcast' tool). It is a "push" medium, and to me that fails to grasp the fundamental benefit of internet technology over all other media - it allows for a 2 way conversation, social or not.
Having worked in web builds and online strategy for over ten years now, I would have to say that the term "social media technology" gets a bit confused with "web technology". Since the success of myspace and facebook, marketeers overly-simplify all web technology with the use of this term, but social media strategy in Dell's terms has nothing to do with with social media platforms like facebook and twitter.
A well built site (like this one), that is there to promote discussion or have a meaningful effective dialogue with a set of consumers or stakeholders, will use blogging tools like "comment", and will use tools like "like" and "flag" to order content.
The web has so much to offer, and like so many others who comment on these pages, too many simple-minded people are jumping on "social media" as some holy grail, when it's not, shamelessly self-promoting links to their blogs, as if they offer some kind of thought-leadership, when really they are several miles behind the cutting edge.
So to summarize: smart marketing strategies and tactics will simply use the best tools available to get the job done. "Social Media technology" (sic) may help to inspire what they do with their own web development, but Facebook or Twitter will never fundamentally change the way anyone runs their business.
richardstacy
· 2 weeks ago
True - Twitter alone isn't changing Dells business - but social media is. And Twitter is a absolutely part of social media.
Not sure why you think Twitter is a useless and ineffective tool to listen to customers - you don't listen to customers by demanding that they come and talk to you (on a web site or through a survey). You simply go to the place where they are talking about you - which towtter allows you to do.
Twitter is neither a push, not a pull medium in the way that a conversation is neither push not pull. In fact, Twitter is not really a medium at all - its just an infrastructure like the telephone.
Social media is very very different from web technology. The web has been with us for many years, but up until recently it has been just another institutionalised communication channel because only institutions (and some techies) had the money, resource or expertise to use it. The web was therefore made of websites, which organisations built, and people were driven to these sites. Now everyone has an equal opportunity to use the web and as a result, it has busted out of web sites into other forms of distribution like blogs, Twitter, social networks, on-line communities, content sharing services etc. There is, after all, no law which states the web shall be made up of web sites. This, of course, upsets people whose expertise lies in building web sites.
The universal ability to publish - this is the fundamental shift at the heart of social media. It may just look like a small technical evolution to you, and other technologists, hence why you dismiss it. But if you understand history, rather than technology, you will recognise that this shift is unstitching a fundamental pillar that has supported the way our societies have operated since Gutenberg invented the printing press.
The cutting edge to be at and understand is the cutting edge of history, not technology.
mytweetmark
· 1 week ago
Yes, and my greader is getting old fast. I only read the news that I want, directly from the source.
2. I’m not sure I completely agree with the point that we are now considered to be the “new face of media.” Blogging does allow us to “be” broadcasters, but does this mean we “are” the new face of media? Don’t get me wrong, some of us very well might contribute to important breaking news content that now is able to reach us at an astounding rate, but do we all contribute to this mob sourcing? In a way…yes; but to what extent? The answer truly lies with the quality of content we post. The fact is, unimportant post could very well take the place of the “assumed” important news feeds. One individual could be posting about how a plane crashed outside of his/her window while someone else is posting about what they had for breakfast. So as you see, the content quality is just as important as the post itself.
All Comments
Telling me that my golf buddy's tweet about his cup of coffee this morning is a far cry from replacing relevant goings on in the world. Twitter is a fad at best ... a hub ? Bah .. humbug.
And to your "crowd" point: Crowdsourcing was based on the assumption that the voices collected were independent. Twitter is exactly NOT that - it is more mobsourcing, with armies of followers reposting and retweeting stuff from a few savvy instigators. Use Twitter to find interesting people who can point you to valuable online sources. But then follow the sources, and you'll be much happier, and have much more time on your hands.
A few weeks ago people though Kayne West was dead becuase of some people tweeting.
Certainly this exists to some extent on FB, but as it was created initially around friends, I think Twitter is more suited (for now anyhow) to broadcast to a larger audience. Of course, FB is changing fast, and could likely plow ahead in coming years, but to me Twitter allows for the most "broadcasting" potential at this moment.
Miles Maker
Writer/Director of "Brown Baby" (2010)
The totally FREE movie you can share, remix, re-use and rediscover!
DONATE on IndieGoGo: http://www.indiegogo.com/brown-baby
"Brown Baby" Website http://www.brownbabymovie.com
"Brown Baby" on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/brownbabymovie
"Brown Baby" on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/brownbabymovie
One of the mistakes many people make with social media (reflected to an extent in your post and a number of the comments) is looking at is as thoigh it were traditional mass media and applying the same judgements to it - in especially in terms of judging its worth according to old fashioned definitions of quality (i.e. mass appeal rather than individual relevance). Social media doesn't give everyone a broadcasting channel - its giving everyone a channel. Broadcast is an old-fashioned concept that assumes the necessity of a mass audience. What is really happening is that the concept of broadcast is ceasing to exist.
If you really want to understand the significance of Twitter it is this - Twitter is a single place anyone can use to say everything ("I am eating a sandwich" or "I am watching a plane crash on the Hudson") and influence or relevance is determined by the spaces (conversations) into which our utterances get drawn. These may be very big conversations or they may be very small conversations. It matters not which.
From http://richardstacy.com/2009/08/17/of-course-tw...
Now you send a tweet, they pick and choose what THEY want to air and can answer as they like and you can't reply.
Twitter fits perfectly into a comparison with "Thoughts," including their possibly of influencing so many people. Thoughts are all over the place, in content and availability, AND they are finite and hollow and totally require (your) attention to host any life. Thoughts precede the very telling of them, all conversation, all Tweets.
You, on the other hand, are eternal, and the only authority and permission your mind looks to within its sphere of influence. You must choose how you use your social media devices as you had to learn to be in any conversation.
Taken as a tool, Twitter can be a most effective communicator; as a distraction, however, also very efficient. So - like everything else, it can be misused. Real draw, magnetic charm and power of attraction comes from the one Tweeting. As in all else, you are the Chooser.
Thus - most important to know in this age of instant communication, as it has everything to do with the quality of your Twitter content, is - how well acquainted with yourself as the Tweeter are you?
however, when i'm listening to the radio, is amazing how many times the djs reffere to twitter ei, "i read on twitter" , "whats your twitter name" or "follow us on twitter to join in and request a song" - something that a time a go you could only do my phoning in.
in incredible and i (we all) love it
"everyone is now a broadcaster" was what people said with Viral marketing, blogging, creating the same white noise generated by Guerilla marketing and Word-of-mouth.
The truth is this: Twitter maybe a bit of fun, but it is a fad, it is all just 'emperoro's new clothers' hype, and like the aforemenetioned fads, has zero impact on the majority of commercial businesses.
Have a watch of this - from multinational organisation using Twitter and the full range of social media tools to fundamentally change the way they run their business http://tinyurl.com/5kgelz
The I would suggest you start to find out what social media is all about http://richardstacy.com/what-is-social-media/
Richard,
I think you're getting stuck on semantics. Just to clarify on your last message, my background - I head up digital strategy for a marketing agency, and have a background in commercial marketing, handling up to £10m annual budgets. I wrote my dissertation for my first degree ten years ago on digital distribution, and have a masters degree in marketing from a top 5 business school.
The point is that social media is just one web technology, and is certainly no more important than email and CRM, affilaites, search marketing, or other forms of offline media, it's just one tiny part of a complex mix that forms an effective strategy.
I think that people who say that Twitter is the biggest things since sliced bread are false prophets, and if they are trying to cash in on it, they are nothing more than charlatans, as Twitter will never do anything significant for a business's bottom line - and that is still what business is about...
This is getting a bit tedious. To be clear - I work for a full-service agency and my remit is digital - which includes social media strategies, and so I should be like you, one of Twitter's biggest advocate, but I'm not. I'm just not convinced it has any real traction.
Just to see if Twitter is really having the impact you say it is, I put up a survey on facebook to get a feel amongst my friends as to the adoption of Twitter. So far a very low response from what should be a young(ish) professional, web media-biased crowd - the core demographic.
So far, only 1 person of six responses has said they use it actively, and the reasons are more as a kind of stumble-upon, boredom killer. The other respondents have all said that they tried it once or twice, and it just isn't interesting or sticky enough, and arent following it actively anymore. (actually in their words, they mostly said 'it's shit' or it's boring).
I therefore doubt the numbers - anyone claiming to have X amount of followers on Twitter, will only really be a small fraction of that number, and even those people are only skimming the messages, which in real terms represents really low numbers of impressions / interactions, for a relatively high level of input.
And as for social media in general - of course can be an effective tool when adopted in an authentic manner, but it is only one ingredient of a much broader mix; to say that Social Media is more important or will replace the other fundamentals of commercial strategy is complete nonsense.
Search is still where 90% of web users start out their journeys, and is where they are actively 'searching' for a product or service. CRM remains the business brain in any smart organisation, and when used effectively with email, is the most cost effective way of turning your known prospects into buyers and repeat buyers.
And other media will continue for as long as people consume them. It's all very well to take the view that 'people now create their own media', and 'everyone is a broadcaster', but that doesn't mean it will replace it. Do people prefer to watch other peoples dull home videos than a well constructed film? or read the ramblings of you or me on some random blog, rather than a well-written and properly researched article by a professional journalist? I think not.
Feel free to respond, but I think I'm done here...
I would suggest that you take the statements "Twitter will never do anything significant for a business's bottom line" and "social media is no more important than email, CRM, or search marketing" - frame them and put that frame your desk. Then see how long it takes before its presence becomes an embarassment.
Thanks for the link. However, it's not really correct to deduce that Dell is using Twitter as a fundamental way of changing their business. The point that Dell's VP of GM is making here, is that Dell is using "social media technology" to listen to their customers, and listening to your customers has always been a marketing fundamental.
That is very different from saying that they are using "social media platforms", and if the point is to listen to their customers, Twitter would be a pretty useless and ineffective tool.
I would even go further to ask the question: is Twitter strictly speaking "social media", when even in this discussion, it is referred to as a 'broadcast' tool (or more accurately a 'narrowcast' tool). It is a "push" medium, and to me that fails to grasp the fundamental benefit of internet technology over all other media - it allows for a 2 way conversation, social or not.
Having worked in web builds and online strategy for over ten years now, I would have to say that the term "social media technology" gets a bit confused with "web technology". Since the success of myspace and facebook, marketeers overly-simplify all web technology with the use of this term, but social media strategy in Dell's terms has nothing to do with with social media platforms like facebook and twitter.
A well built site (like this one), that is there to promote discussion or have a meaningful effective dialogue with a set of consumers or stakeholders, will use blogging tools like "comment", and will use tools like "like" and "flag" to order content.
The web has so much to offer, and like so many others who comment on these pages, too many simple-minded people are jumping on "social media" as some holy grail, when it's not, shamelessly self-promoting links to their blogs, as if they offer some kind of thought-leadership, when really they are several miles behind the cutting edge.
So to summarize: smart marketing strategies and tactics will simply use the best tools available to get the job done. "Social Media technology" (sic) may help to inspire what they do with their own web development, but Facebook or Twitter will never fundamentally change the way anyone runs their business.
Not sure why you think Twitter is a useless and ineffective tool to listen to customers - you don't listen to customers by demanding that they come and talk to you (on a web site or through a survey). You simply go to the place where they are talking about you - which towtter allows you to do.
Twitter is neither a push, not a pull medium in the way that a conversation is neither push not pull. In fact, Twitter is not really a medium at all - its just an infrastructure like the telephone.
Social media is very very different from web technology. The web has been with us for many years, but up until recently it has been just another institutionalised communication channel because only institutions (and some techies) had the money, resource or expertise to use it. The web was therefore made of websites, which organisations built, and people were driven to these sites. Now everyone has an equal opportunity to use the web and as a result, it has busted out of web sites into other forms of distribution like blogs, Twitter, social networks, on-line communities, content sharing services etc. There is, after all, no law which states the web shall be made up of web sites. This, of course, upsets people whose expertise lies in building web sites.
The universal ability to publish - this is the fundamental shift at the heart of social media. It may just look like a small technical evolution to you, and other technologists, hence why you dismiss it. But if you understand history, rather than technology, you will recognise that this shift is unstitching a fundamental pillar that has supported the way our societies have operated since Gutenberg invented the printing press.
The cutting edge to be at and understand is the cutting edge of history, not technology.
Cheers,
mytweetmark.com