Twitter Call to Action - Participate!
Posted by John McTigue on Wed, Dec 02, 2009 @ 09:24 AM
On Twitter, 10% of the users contribute over 90% of the content, according to a Harvard Business School survey of over 300,000 participants. Compare that to other social networks, where on average the top 10% contribute only 30% of the content. What's up with Twitter? Why the exclusive club of Tweeters? Isn't Twitter supposed to be a social network, not an advertising medium? I guess I'll weigh in, as usual.
Twitter is a different beast in a lot of ways. It's much faster, more dynamic than the other networks. Unless you filter your streams, groups and lists down to a few trusted people, the flow of information can be overwhelming. I suspect that many people are intimidated by this waterfall of data and find it hard to participate in a meaningful way. It's true that certain users (who shall remain nameless of course) dominate the flow by tweeting constantly. Many of these folks are making a living at this, under the theory that if you talk often enough, eventually someone will listen. Personally, I find this practice annoying, so I tend to remove these folks from the groups and lists I follow closely.
On the other hand, Twitter is fantastic at providing up-to-the-minute, useful information if you follow people who routinely provide informative tweets. I have learned almost everything I know about social media and inbound marketing from reading posts by experts that I saw on Twitter. I am certain that valuable resources can be found in every industry or subject area. Granted, much of the flow is useless junk. That's where careful filtering, grouping and listing come in. Build channels of trusted Tweeters, monitor them and you will learn a ton.
That brings me back to my original question. Why are there so few reliable sources on Twitter? Surely there are real experts, or at least people with informed opinions, out there who are just sitting on the sidelines because they are intimidated or unsure of what to say. My advice (and request) - jump in! Let's hear from you. Join the party. You really will enjoy it once you start some dialogs and get some real feedback. Your presence is desired, and if you have something to say that would benefit others, let's hear it. Don't be afraid of the speed and the volume - you'll get used to it. And don't worry about the fact that you don't have thousands of followers. People are listening. Hopefully they will participate too.