More Twits than Tweets? Don't Think So!

Ok. Sometimes you can't tell if something is a fad or a trend.  Supposedly, a fad is something that comes and goes whereas a trend is something that is here to stay. Barbie (TM) was a fad that became a trend — I guess.  And Tickle-Me Elmo will hopefully be a fad that stays a fad — who knows?

But I recently read the "Twitter for Dummies" book by Fitton, Gruen and Poston, and I looked at the Glossary — trying to find all of the different third-party entities that have been spurned by Twitter.  Here's an incomplete list in no particular order:

CoTweet, Digsby, EpicTweet, ExecTweets, StockTwits, FollowFriday, FriendorFollow, FriendFeed, HelloTxt, HootSuite, LocalTweeps, Mr.Tweet, 100TXT, 140Story, PocketTwit, SecretTweet, TalkShoe, TinyTwitter, TipJoy, Topify, Tweecious, TweetDeck, TweetGrid, Tweetie, TweetLater, Tweetree, TweetScan, Tweetups, Twellow, 12Seconds, Twestival, Twhirl, twInfluence, Twinkle, Twistory, TwitBacks, TwitPic, TwitScoop, TwitStory, Twittelator, Twitterati, TwitterBerry, TwitterFeed, TwitterFon, TwitterFox, TwitterGrader, Twitterific, TwitterLocal, Twittermail, TwitterPatterns, Twitter-speak, Twittervision, Twobile, twoof, TwtVite. . .

Twell,  how's that?  That's alot of secondary digerati to digest.  I am thinking, at about three and a half years-old, Twitter has gone from a fad to a trend — most definitely.  I have been tweeting for several months now and without really trying I have 55 followers, and I am following about as many.  I'd like to tell you that I have had the time to go through all of the above, but I am afraid I haven't.  Will I?   Probably not, but I am definitely going to pursue the ones that use marketing ploys.  And there are some fascinating ones that allow you to manipulate the Twitter API — so those I'll check out too.


The other night on Anderson Cooper 360 he said that the average age on Twitter is 52, which seemed to upset our boy Anderson, or at least it gave him pause to think.   When asked — 14 to 20 year olds said that they think Twitter is a waste of time, they'd rather text. (Hopefully not while learning how to drive their parents' car.)  I guess they just don't get it yet, but they will.


According to my department chair, Lauri Stevens (@lawscomm on Twitter, chair of Web Development and Interactive Media at The New England Institute of Art), more and more police departments across the country are using Twitter. Also in the mix is the fact that some gangs (that the police are using Twitter to monitor) are also communicating via Twitter. Amazing.

And we also know that Twitter is being used by individuals: 

• To connect with people
• To record things (from expense reports, their diets to earthquakes, yes I said earth quakes — see my sabbatical blog)
• To share information to move people to action
• And to stay in touch with their “tribe”. . . to name a few uses

Groups are using Twitter:

• To communicate (to their tribe)
• To promote
• To respond
• To seek out
• To organize
• To network
• To give a status or answer common questions
• To fine-tune an image
• To poll or seek feedback
• To perform customer care or response 

 In politics it has become de rigueur:

• US Democratic Congressional Campaign = (@dcc)
• US Republican Congressional Campaign = (@nrcc)
• US President Obama = (@barackobama)
• CA Governor Schwarzenegger = (@schwarzenegger)
• PM Gordon Brown = (@downingstreet)
• Former VP Al Gore = (@algore)
• The White House = (@whitehouse)

One of my students, Dan Barron, (Student Extraordinaire) made this great visual data image for class showing Twitter usage by age groups. (Which, by the way, seems to differ from what Cooper reported the other night. I'll have to check where Dan got his data.)

Twitter Research

I did some research back in the fall and I am going to follow-up with that research shortly (maybe in my next blog).  I was looking to find an easy sub-group to follow on Twitter, and I figured out what better way to do this than to use my own name: Robert Griffin. 

So, I searched for all the "Robert Griffins" and found that there were 19 of us (who were registered to Twitter). I haven't checked out every profile, but of those I did check,  I can say that these guys are a diverse group.  I suppose to be fair I should also look for  Roberta Griffins too, right? Maybe another time. 

Anyway, as of now the most "followers" one RG has is "105" and the least is "1." The median number is "6" — the average (coincidentally) is "19." I am going to follow these guys periodically and check to see — as a group — if they have increased their following, and or their "influence." I will talk more about "influence" later.  This is only one of many things I have planned for the research on Twitter — stay tuned.

Anecdotally,  I have about 24 students in my E-commerce and Marketing Communication course this semester and I started the semester asking them to follow me on Twitter.  The average age of the group is between 18-20 years old, and I would say 80% (maybe more) of them did not have a Twitter account.

Recently, three different clients, who did not have Twitter accounts, have asked me to tutor them on it and also asked how to include it in their marketing mix. Their average age is about 48.

 So, is Twitter a fad or a trend?  I think until something better comes along (and you know it might) it is definitely here to stay.