[08.01.09]

With Twitter being the top social networking site of the day, the common question from those who haven't signed up for Twitter.com yet is: what good is Twitter?

Before I get to that, let's look at the statistics. There's no doubt that Twitter is a popular site. A Nielsen rating showed in February 2009 that Twitter's growth ranks at number 1 compared to other social networking sites, with an annual growth of 1382% versus Facebook's growth of 228% during the same period.

A blog post from Nielsen claims that Twitter (which counts the 35 to 49 age demographic as its biggest) may be growing faster than its number say. According to the Nielsen post, the ability to use Twitter via a mobile phone -- whether through the mobile Web (735,000 unique visitors in January 2009) or via text message -- is a driving factor in the social network's success. The average unique visitor went to Twitter.com 14 times during the month and spent an average of seven minutes on the site.

A Source of News and Information for Some

After the post-election upheaval in Iran, a transcript of the State Department's daily press briefing made it clear that it had recognized the "importance of new social media as a vital tool for citizens' empowerment and as a way for people to get their message out."

According to Caroline McCarthy, a CNET news staff writer, "Social media tools like Twitter and Facebook have already emerged as sources of raw news in disasters and political crises before -- from the Hudson River emergency plane landing to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. But this was the first time they've been highlighted as vital information channels in Iran -- both for protesters trying to spread information and for government authorities trying to gather it."

A Marketing Tool for Others

Boston.com posted this article recently to highlight how Twitter can be used as a marketing tool.

For restaurants, Twitter has become a free and easy marketing and advertising space. Visitors will post tweets about their dining experience, while restaurant owners will post new menu items, ask questions about particular ingredients or invite people to attend a particular event they're hosting.

To illustrate the effect, we were in a restaurant in Somerville with a group of people a few weeks ago. Tom O'Keefe of BostonTweet was with us and a couple from a table next to ours came over to meet him. "Are you BostonTweet?" the woman asked. She was very excited. "I follow BostonTweet, was just tweeting about this restaurant, and heard you'd be here. This is great!"

Several of us at the table looked at her like she was a bit crazy, but the frequent users of Twitter amongst our group were not surprised at all. This is what they were doing it for. To connect with others about the things they care about and to help local businesses at the same time. It seemed like their efforts were paying off. They were heros to the restaurant staff and suddenly popular amongst some of the customers.

If this is how Twitter is being used for restaurants, imagine what it could do for other products and services that consumers feel passionate about. Skeptics may say that Twitter postings are too ethereal and you can't collect the data or get statistics from the information posted there. Remember, these are the same folks who brought you "the internet thingie isnt going to be a success". But this is not any different from other viral marketing sources, such as word of mouth. How do you quantify those types of sources? Marketing firms are going to have to think of using social media tools in a different way from how they've used other types of marketing research. It's also still very much in its infancy, so the sky's the limit!