Twitter Use a Moving Target

I read yesterday in Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim about a report on Twitter use by The Pew Center on the Internet and American Life Project that calculated use among Americans at 8%. As the piece in Marketing Pilgrim, points out “Since 74% of Americans are internet users, that means only 6% of the entire adult population of the US is Tweeting.” For marketing departments, the question has to be are these the RIGHT 14 million people to be talking to?

I continue to believe that Twitter is a useful broadcast channel that offers a conversational outlet for helpful and interesting information that can assist in brand identity efforts and start conversations that enhance marketing efforts in other channels. Plus there are the potential research benefits, whether you search hashtags, create your own, create and follow lists of influential users, watch Trending topics or search/monitor your firm and product names.

Twitter’s blog has recently touched on the Trending function in answer to some concerns about the relationship between online news stories and tweets on the subject. Seems there is a relatively direct relationship between Twitter mentions and Trending rank and popularity, but less of a relationship for hashtags.

I also think it is important to build audiences in the Twitter space, so I recommend putting the follow icon or direction on every communication and populating all your other other social media spaces with your Twitter handle.

The Pew report does point out that there is little cohesion among use and behavior on Twitter, which I think reflects its users are still discovering the way that it fits into their lives. Marketing professionals need to be patient with this learning curve, but unafraid of diving in and leading some of the learning themselves, something our law firm has done on our @Sociallawyers conversation.

Here’s what Pew found out about frequency of user activities:
Have you implemented specific conversations to test Twitter’s utility in marketing your firm? Are you planning any experiments for 2011?