A shorter version of this column originally appeared in Ian Fenwick’s digimarketing column in the Bangkok Post, March 31, 2010.

All the hype surrounding twitter seems to have died down somewhat. Leaving Twitter (now just over 4 years old) as about the 12th most popular site on the entire web. Although there have been reports that its breakneck growth has subsided somewhat, it still most definitely has an impact on digital life and digimarketing.

New Communications Channel

Last time I wrote about Twitter, I noted that Nielsen claimed 60% of Twitter users quit every month. That’s a fairly drop-out rate (about twice what Facebook had at a similar stage of development). I think that churn rate reflects the huge publicity Twitter got, and the unusual nature of its service. It was predicted that unless that churn rate was cut, Twitter would eventually peak at about 10% of internet users, or a little over 160 million people.

Well as of January 2010, ComScore (which bills itself as “the global source of digital market intelligence”) put twitter.com traffic at 75 million people: 11 times as many as it had at the start of 2009.

The ComScore numbers only look at the site twitter.com, many twitter users (like me) almost never access twitter.com, and use a “client” instead. The client is a stand-alone piece of software on your computer, or a site that somehow improves Twitter for the user. This non-Twitter.com usage of Twitter is becoming known as the “Twitter eco-system”.

The number of tweets sent in January 2010 is estimated at 40 million a day: about 16 times more than in January 2009. And tweets per day are growing at about 17% per month.

16 times as many tweets: 11 times as many users at twitter.com, it’s tempting to guess that about 45% of twitter users (16/11) are using Twitter but not going through the twitter.com site. This is backed up by technical analysts who suggest that 50% of twitter usage is away from the Twitter.com site. So maybe a gross audience of about 160 million: within a few months we should see if Twitter will blast through its predicted ceiling.

Not an Audience

This is not an audience in the passive, sit-back, listen/watch/applaud sense. As the famous Canadian author William Gibson put it: “…audience is as antique a term as record, the one archaically passive, the other archaically physical”.

Despite so many people, sending so many messages, I still meet many marketers who ask “So what? What can I do with Twitter?” Well Twitter itself is trying to answer that question with a new blog http://cleveraccounts.posterous.com. Some of the applications are indeed intriguing, and every would-be digital marketer should take a glance through the ideas.

Some Ideas

The North Face (the outdoor apparel, foot wear and gear supplier) pulls out from the massive Twitter stream all conversations about ski-resorts. They separate “official” tweets from resorts from those by individual users. Then group them all by resort mentioned and send them out again as a service to their potential customers. These can be accessed via following The North Face on Twitter, or by downloading a free iPhone app. In either event, The North Face gains a direct communication channel to customers and potential customers.

Sears Holdings use Twitter to advertise vacancies, they find this a particularly useful tool for reaching 18-34 year-olds. Dunkin doughnuts make periodic offers like “Free Coffee for a Year”; building a useful contact database, and polishing their irreverent brand personality amongst followers.

Charities and NGOs are using twitter to personalize their actions. Pictures, short quotes, even  video clips from specific individuals that have been helped, bring the reality of their work to donors’ desktops.

Public transport users are twittering about their flight/train/bus delays: smart transit marketers are responding to the posts with reasons behind the delays, and suggestions of new routes.

Nor are B2B companies left out. EMC Corp (an information infrastructure technology developer) has over 400 employees with personal Twitter accounts, monitoring for mentions of the company and its brands, and engaging the potential customers they find.

Developing Twitter Uses for Your Business

The best uses of Twitter seem to take advantage of three key features. First, its real-time role: a message on Twitter goes out instantly, marketers have real-time direct communication to customers and potential customers.

Second, searchability: unlike blog-post, or bulletin board entries, the Twitter stream is a unified, searchable, whole. This means that marketers can set up always-on searches for keywords and be alerted when those words are used.

Third, your communications can come from as many accounts as you like, and each account can be staffed by multiple people. So the task of engaging potential customers can be spread of several of your brand representatives.

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