Aaron Shields’s Mind Terroir

A study conducted by the Harvard Business School released in June examined the habits of Twitter users. The researchers concluded:

In other words, the pattern of contributions on Twitter is more concentrated among the few top users than is the case on Wikipedia, even though Wikipedia is clearly not a communications tool. This implies that Twitter’s resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network.

The conclusion of this study highlights an important issue: most social media isn’t social. Despite claims of trying to involve the customers, the majority of social media is composed attempts at trying to find new media in which to broadcast messages, because marketers believe that their old media are no longer as effective.

But, it doesn’t matter where you put your message if people don’t care. Just because Twitter is hip, it doesn’t mean people will pay attention if you have nothing to really offer them other than a pitch for your goods and services.

Instead of using Twitter to sell, sell, sell, think about how you can use it to get in tune with your customers and find out what they really want from you.

Tags:   Branding · Harvard Business · Marketing · Social Media · strategy · twitterNo Comments