Twitter’s Quitters Compromise Its Long-Term Growth

In a recent Wall Street Journal Digits blog, Marisa Taylor cited a fascinating Nielsen Online study which revealed that — despite the dramatic surge in new Twitter users, more than 60% of them won’t be coming back the following month.

A user retention rate of 40% will limit a site’s growth to about 10%, according to David Martin of Nielsen Online, who is quoted in the article. By comparison, Facebook and MySpace only churned 20% of their sign-ups when they were at the same phase of growth as Twitter is today. Now, they both hover around 70%.

Taylor suggests that, while setting up an account is easy, “learning the lingo of Twitter, with its “RT” retweets and #hashtags, can be intimidating for new users. It’s also difficult to build up followers and figure out who to follow.”

I used to be in the school that it wasn’t worth the time to follow the random comments of people I know… However, I’ve come around myself.

My own personal opinion today is that, on a day-to-day basis, most users’ experience with Twitter starts and ends at the inane chatter that makes up a good part of the Twitter experience. But I’m seeing that the real value lies in two valuable functions. First is the ability to get live reports from the scene of breaking news…while you’re on the run. Many learned about Michael Jackson’s untimely passing through Twitter and followed many celebrities’ immediate reactions about it there. And during the protests in Iran, and the terror attacks in Mumbai, for example, the Twitter feeds added an important dimension that would have been hard for other news organizations to replicate. Second, and perhaps more important, is the ability to follow what respected thought leaders have to say and learn what that they are reading, which can be enhanced through using add-on programs like Tweetdeck, where you can organize folders to follow the opinions of people you respect and topics you want to follow more easily than just looking at your Twitter update stream.

My colleague Jonathan Blank says it very well:


“First, you should know that the metrics cited in the article are a little misleading. Just as most people that read multiple blogs daily use an RSS reader instead of visiting sites, most users of Twitter that follow a large number of people use a “client” like TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop, thereby cutting through the clutter in ways that are impossible on the current Twitter website. So much of the ‘churn’ is actually people being more active on Twitter, rather than quitting.

“Second, while casual users of Twitter primarily follow breaking news stories and friends’ updates, those that are daily users use it to filter through news on their primary occupation or areas of interest. I go to Twitter first thing in the morning to get the commentary of the day on social media, public relations, and improv comedy. After that I go to The New York Times and Wall Street Journal to see what’s happening in the broader world. Essentially, Twitter allows us to focus our news reading.”

Great perspective, Jonathan! Thanks.

Twitter Moms Take on Motrin

It’s been fascinating to watch the unfolding of the online brouhaha over the Motrin “Mommy ad.” It featured a mom who gets aches and pains from wearing a baby sling which she uses because it “seems to be in fashion” and “supposedly, it’s a real bonding experience.” (You can still see the original ad on YouTube).

Launched on September 30, the ad seems first to have been taken up as an issue by the social media in mid-November, when “Susie” of the MagicCitySlingers blog wrote: “Dear Motrin ad lady, if you look tired and crazy, it’s because you’re using a schwing. Don’t take Motrin, take a meeting. When you learn to use a non-schwing carrier correctly, you won’t be in pain.”

Over the next few days, there were Tweets aplenty. Blogger Katja Presnal created a YouTube video featuring anti-Motrin commentary. The most active citizen journalists begin contacting mainstream media outlets about the story.

On November 17, just two days after the first negative blog commentary, Kathy Widmer, VP of Marketing for McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a division of Johnson & Johnson, apologized and announced that the company was pulling the ad.

In his recent article on “Motrin-Gate” in Ad Age, Jack Neff thinks it’s all a tempest in a teapot. He writes: “J&J might have been a tad hasty in pulling down its ad. In doing so, it bowed to a vocal flash mob that represents a tiny fraction of moms, and Twitter, which itself attracts about 0.15% of the world's internet users each day … about 1.1 million people in the U.S. And despite a storm of media attention, the ad — together with a YouTube video put together by a mommy blogger on the controversy — received less exposure than one 30-second spot on a cable news network.”

I take issue with Neff’s position. It’s typical — and a bit arrogant — of the advertising industry to equate the impact of a relatively small percentage of the social media audience to advertising equivalencies (and hence importance), thereby minimizing the impact of irritating the mommy blogger community.

I credit J&J for its apology, because that’s what seemed to have helped manage the crisis; in fact, things quieted down after Widmer’s apology was communicated throughout the online community.

Remember the Don Imus fracas in April last year? Initially, no one noticed his tasteless comments about the Rutgers’ women’s basketball team … until the Media Matters blog picked up on it and forwarded video to a group of mainstream media, who ran with the story. It cost Imus his job (though he’s now back to being gainfully employed).

Our tips for crisis communications in the media generally involve addressing a faux pas sooner rather than later, as we would judge the potential impact of the negative response based on the risk to the brand.



Technorati Tags: Montrin, Twitter, Motrin Mommy ad, social media, MagicCitySlingers, Katja Presnal, Kathy Widmer, Jack Neff, crisis communications, communications, public relations

Dangerous Ideas about PR?

By Robbin Goodman, Makovsky + Company

Last week I attended The Council of Public Relations Firms' Critical Issues Forum on “The Most Dangerous Ideas about the Future of Public Relations.” I agreed with the substance, if not the tone, of marketing blogger BL Ochman's post on this conference, concerning statements made by a couple of senior executives from large PR agencies. “Some pretty dangerous ideas came out of the mouths of people who really should know better,” she said. She and I were both surprised by a comment from a senior public relations pro that our job is about “stealing,” rather than “creating, new ideas about using new media today.

I was even more struck by obervations made by David D'Alessandro, former CEO of John Hancock Financial Services, who gave the keynote address.

D'Alessandro cited statistics from Pew Research that show that the percentage of people who reported "reading a newspaper yesterday" fell from 40 percent in 2006 to 34 percent in 2008 (for print only, those numbers fell from 32 to 27 percent, respectively for those years). He pointed out that one of the biggest casualties of the shrinking media is the exit of veteran reporters who know their beats and issues in-depth.

(For the record, Pew contends that the television news audience, by contrast, has generally remained stable since 2006, and the proportion regularly watching cable news in particular has increased, from 34% to 39% from 2006-08.)

The hard reality is that the heyday of print media - so vividly illustrated last week by the end of the daily Christian Science Monitor print edition and major cutbacks at Time Inc. and the Star-Ledger (Newark) - is rapidly fading.

News audiences are seeking their information online … a fact verified by a recent report by the Newspaper Association of America, indicating that in the fourth quarter of 2007, 39 percent of all active Web users visited newspaper Web sites, with visits averaging 44 minutes a month.

None of this should be news to PR practitioners, although many companies outside of the consumer and technology sectors remain skeptical about new media. Despite the troubles of print media, people are more interested in news than ever before. While 85 percent of the population read print newspapers back in 1986, today 83 percent are using search engines to find news rather than patronize a news brand (we couldn't find the citation and D’Alessandro didn't supply it in the talk). Even when a traditional newspaper scoops a story today, within hours the social media have grabbed it and are running with it. Thus, the role of traditional media today in PR campaigns isn't going to completely disappear, it's going to shift - in becoming a feeder of "free content" to the new media.


Technorati Tags: The Council of Public Relations Firms' Critical Issues Forum, BL Ochman, David D'Alessandro, Pew Research, Newspaper Association of America, Christian Science Monitor, Time Inc., Star-Ledger, communications, public relations

Seniors’ Online Behavior Mirroring Teens

By Robbin Goodman, Makovsky + Company

The BBC recently reported the death of the world’s oldest blogger – Australian Olive Riley, age 108. You can find photos and remembrances of Olive at http://www.allaboutolive.com.au/ as well as her blog entries. Most of her fan base was in the U.S. and reportedly she received a great deal of attention because of U.S. blogger Kim Komando.

For those who think blogging and social networks are only for the 20- and 30-somethings, a recent study from Jeff Cole’s Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, states that “Internet users 50+ are rapidly closing the digital divide with booming online activity,” and that the community involvement of this age group even exceeds that of teenagers, at least in some categories. The study found:

• Users 50+ are online news junkies. 42% of those 50+ check the Internet for news daily or several times a day, compared to 18% of users under 20.


• They love their online communities. Those 50+ report extensive involvement in their communities: 58% log in to their online community daily or several times a day, compared to 47% of those under 20 years of age.


• A significant number have increased their social activism. Participation in online communities has increased social activism for 30% of members 50 and older, compared to 29% who are under the age of 20. (Presidential candidates take note!)


• They’re maintaining social relationships online. Among users under 50 years of age, 46% said the internet is important or very important in maintaining their social relationships – identical to those over 70. Over 70!

However, IMs and video downloads are still the territory of young users – only 9 percent of users 50+ said IM was important or very important, compared to 48% of those under 20.

However, while seniors represent a lucrative market, two-thirds of consumers aged 50-69 researched their online purchase in stores first, according to the Center for the Digital Future.



Technorati Tags: seniors, Olive Riley, world's oldest blogger, Kim Komando, Jeff Cole, Center for the Digital Future, USC Annenberg School, internet users, communications