Jaffe on Twitter “Shiny Object Syndrome”
I’ve been woefully remiss in posting to SR! lately, but the absence hasn’t been so much due to a lack of things to say as it has been a desire for time to think.
Too often in today’s social media saturated world, the multitude of outlets at our disposal — IM, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. — call upon interactive marketers to talk and opine constantly rather than listen and process thoughtfully. This is problematic because interactive marketing demands strategy, and strategy demands more than knee-jerk emotionality. It demands experience, analysis, and time to develop great ideas into beneficial actions.
With that in mind, I was pleased to see that Joseph Jaffe focused this week’s edition of JJTV on why the collective hysteria about Twitter might not be a good thing for interactive marketers. Twitter is, after all, but one tactic among the myriad of internet-based marketing tools that can help companies connect with customers.
Much like email, Twitter’s value depends on the relevance and attentiveness of your followers (i.e., subscribers). However, as Joseph points out, because of the temporal nature of Twitter posts, he’d be surprised if his followers had read more than 10% of his total tweets.
If that’s the case, Joseph wonders, aren’t we all putting a disproportionate amount of emphasis on Twitter’s importance — especially when most of us have yet to fully optimize the performance of channels such as email and search?
Here are Joseph’s thoughts — feel free to share yours via the comments link above and to the right.
