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June 14, 2009

Twitter for Marketing

Recent traffic stats from Hubspot indicate that Twitter's incredible growth came to a rather abrupt end during May. 


Consider these statistics on Twitter users from their newest report (PDF) on Twitter and the state of the Twitter phenomenon. 



  • 79.79% failed to provide a homepage URL
  • 75.86% of users have not entered a bio in their profile
  • 68.68% have not specified a location
  • 55.50% are not following anyone
  • 54.88% have never tweeted
  • 52.71% have no followers

You are left wondering whether this is a trend that has run its course, or whether this is just the tyranny of large numbers. (They are still topping 17 million page views.)


For me, it doesn't really matter. Twitter is (and has always been) a mainly broadcast medium. You may find some good relationships there, you may find some opportunities, but more than anything else - it is a medium for broadcasting to others. 


I posted on this a while ago, here. The heart of it? Facebook for friends, LinkedIn for B2B, Twitter for marketing.


And it is not entirely without results either. Dell has just come out to say they have made $3 million so far on Twitter, Forrester have been reporting the success of Twitter as a customer relations tool, and Ebay continually report 50% higher sales from those engaged in social media.


Not dead, not dying - just flattening out. If you already have a brand, and your brand is online (Plumbing isn't too much online for example) then Twitter for marketing remains a very valid broadcast tool. 


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