Twitter is just low commitment public email
The more I saturate myself in Twitter, the more I feel like Twitter is just low commitment email.
1.) We tweet at Celebrities praying for a response or some recognition
2.) We tweet at Companies demanding some customer service
3.) We tweet at friends when email is just too much work and really want the voyeurs to know our business
4.) Companies tweet their press, updates, promotions the same they would spam our inbox
But its OK to Spam, because its Twitter. We don’t have to delete the unwanted message, it gets a second long glance like everything else. Twitter is really just streaming email.
So what does streaming email mean for businesses?
Most emails have a 2% chance of being opened, on a good day. The same applies for Twitter, if you have 10,000 followers, the chances are that only 400 will see the tweet (do to timing and # of people they are following), and of that 400, only 180 will actually click the link. So getting people to follow you on Twitter is about the same as getting people to sign up for your newsletter, as far as effectiveness.
So why tweet?
1.) Faster information sharing
2.) Higher chance of getting people to follow you, than give their email
3.) Being able to contact anyone who has a twitter account and easily connect to larger conversation. Twitter is public micro-email.
Unless you have 1,000,000+ friends, your tweet will probably not make a huge impact. But if you can get the individuals with large followings and influence to tweet about you. Then you’ve hit gold.
