Twitter: The Macarena of 2009

by Lisa Bari | May 19, 2009

Now that Oprah, CNN and Sarah Palin are on Twitter – has it officially “jumped the shark”? Is it the Macarena of 2009? A recent Oprah tweet: “Great day at Duke. Love North Carolina…Headed to Maya’s for dinner” is no more relevant and interesting than that of an average Joe – and functions only as a short-form blog – and Oprah already has a blog on her site.

Like every new product or service out there, Twitter had its early adopter phase and generated a huge amount of buzz – or tweets, pardon the pun. That is definitively over. And, the most damning issue is that Nielsen reported last week that over 60% of first-time users of Twitter do not return to the service after one month, starting a new trend of so called Twitter Quitters. No doubt Oprah’s followers contributed greatly to this new group. Jordan Rohan of Clearview Partners said at Search Insider Summit last week that if that statistic does not stay under 50%, the service will not be viable in the long term.

The biggest challenge marketers are facing now with Twitter is how to incorporate it in their branding efforts. As of right now, this effort could be categorized generally as Twitter Flail. At a Forrester Conference in Florida in April, the speakers were prompting attendees on when and what to Tweet. Not exactly the definition of “viral media.”

Here’s some ways you can still use Twitter to benefit your company.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHT #1: Reputation management. Add-ons such as TweetScan help you to monitor the real-time conversations happening about your company. This is especially relevant for multinationals, airlines, government agencies, etc.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHT #2: Customer service. Comcast has been especially successful with this strategy, defying customer expectations (known for poor service) by addressing individual complaints on Twitter directly and ensuring that problems get solved – apart from the call center.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHT #3: Brand Building. Polling your customers, publishing POVs, promoting research and supporting public relations initiatives.