The Twitter juggernaut shows no signs of abating. Recently, Twitter COO Dick Costolo revealed that Twitter got 190 million visitors to its site in May 2010 and that the service is processing about 65 million Tweets per day. (See Twitter Gets 190 Million Visitors Per Month)

Twitter is certainly benefiting from the ‘network effect’ – where the more people use it, the more people use it. But with more and more people using Twitter, is a negative network effect at work, where it is actually becoming LESS useful – at least as a tool for communicating messages to a lot of people (i.e. as a mass communication medium)?

Now, I’m a fan of Twitter. I’m a fan of the Twitter founders and of their vision for their micro-blogging service. I like the strategic, long-term way the company approaches things – e.g. building an ecosystem and taking its time to launch an ad platform, etc. But there’s an obvious flaw with Twitter. Not one that’s necessarily insurmountable or that applies to all Twitter users, but one that is relevant to anyone intending to use Twitter as a way of broadcasting messages to hundreds or thousands of people.

Let me explain the problem this way: if I have a follower who, in turn, follows, say, 999 other Twitter users who each post 10 Tweets per day, then, if I also post 10 Tweets per day, I have a 0.01 percent chance of having my Tweet noticed in my follower’s Twitter Timeline. Here’s the math:

• 1,000 Twitter users x 10 Tweets = 10,000 Tweets per Twitter Timeline.
• 1 Tweet / 10,000 Tweets = 0.01 percent chance of being seen.

Okay, so this is somewhat simplistic and doesn’t account for such variables as the pace of Tweets, when someone actually monitors their stream and the nature of the Tweets themselves (whether they contain topics of interest, are retweets, comments, etc) and various other factors.

But in general, the more followers that one of YOUR followers has, the less likely they are to see your Tweets in their Twitter Timelines.

This is mainly a problem for someone trying to get their message across to their Twitter followers. As a follower, you have much more control over what you do and do not see in Twitter.

Depending on the Twitter client you use, you can, for instance, place Twitter users in certain groups and display these groups in panels in the Twitter client interface. Whenever someone in these groups posts a Tweet you are more likely to see it (provided there aren’t too many people in each group).

Apart from asking your followers to place you in a given group (which may not be a bad idea), you don’t, as a Tweet sender, have the same ability to ensure your followers actually see your Tweets.

No question, if you use Twitter how it was originally intended to be used – as a way for small groups of friends to send each other group updates (and this IS how some people use it) – you shouldn’t have any trouble getting your Tweets read by your followers. But if you’re planning to use Twitter as a broadcast medium i.e. a mass communications medium – think again.

It’s not that you can’t or shouldn’t use Twitter in this way – if you have huge numbers of followers you may still get enough people reading your Tweets. It’s just that you need to be aware of the inherent limitations of doing so.

The ‘negative networking effect’ applies to other media, of course. Email senders must compete with everyone else sending email to people’s inboxes and the ability of anyone using ANY medium to reach a target market has declined as both usage of that medium – and competing media – have increased.

Ironically, Twitter is one of the few media where we can actually estimate the probability of getting a Twitter follower’s attention within Twitter, since we can see how many Twitter followers they have.

Nonetheless, with all the hoopla over Twitter – especially that perpetuated by Internet marketers claiming that Twitter is some kind of revolutionary marketing medium – it’s worth pointing out its deficiencies as a mass communication medium.

In fact, the best way to use Twitter for marketing may well be to use Twitter’s Promoted Tweets advertising program. In this case, you can have certain promotional Tweets displayed when someone performs a relevant search on Twitter. Since the Twitter searcher is specifically looking for information, they are more likely to see your Tweet.

And we all know how effective search marketing can be…

Related Posts

• The Case Against Twitter (Does It Have a Negative Networking Effect?)
• How Often Should You Tweet?
• Twitter Users – Most Have 10 Followers Or Less
• 10 Tips For Getting More Twitter Followers
• Facebook and Twitter Users More Likely to Recommend and Buy The Brands They Follow

This entry was posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Feature, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.