Is Twitter Useless and Over-Hyped?

Is there any doubt today that Twitter is worth using? I mean, I constantly tell people how valuable Twitter is. But, the answer to the question is: YES. There are still a LOT of people out there who think Twitter is a complete waste of time. Do they have a point?

This post was inspired by a commenter named Vu Tong on my post about going viral on Twitter. He started out saying:

Has anyone ever had real substantial traffic boost from using twitter? And by substantial, I mean thousands of unique hits.

I hear the hype about twitter on almost every blog I’ve visited, but no one has really showed proof of it being a success. I mean, practically everyone on twitter has one thing in mind, and that is marketing their product or site. With everyone doing the same thing, who else is left on twitter?

I responded, and then we got into an exchange which you can read more fully on that post. His position was that Twitter was hyped up and that people like me are getting results from Twitter simply because of our position. People like him (new bloggers) can’t get benefit from Twitter because they have no leverage. What I found even more interesting was that Tong was getting rather argumentative about his point, too:

Prove to us how valuable Twitter can be with your results. Otherwise the tips found here and on many other “problogger” blogs are completely useless.

Brutal, I know.

My position is that if you’re not getting any benefit from Twitter, it is because you’re not using it correctly. Apparently, he didn’t agree with that.

Is It Twitter’s Fault?

Twitter is simply a conversation medium. What you do with it and how you use it are up to you. It is just like a blog. When you install WordPress and start posting, is it the fault of WordPress if you don’t get traffic? Would the conclusion be that WordPress is over-hyped? I think not. The logical conclusion would be that you’re not doing what is necessary to get traffic.

In other words, Twitter is a TOOL. And it needs to be used correctly in order to gain benefit from it.

As a second point, everybody on Twitter started out with zero followers. It isn’t as if everybody who joins Twitter and has done well with it had immense resources to leverage off Twitter to get to that point.

How To Use Twitter Correctly

I have no idea how Tong is using Twitter. Since he seems to be only using Twitter for traffic to his blog, my guess is that he is simply broadcasting blog links to his Twitter account. Therein lies a mistake…

The two things you DON’T want to be on Twitter are a spammer or a broadcaster.

A spammer simply uses Twitter to blast sales links and draw attention to an offer. A broadcaster simply throws out random stuff (and links to a blog or something) and rarely uses Twitter to interact with people. In other words, it is a one-way flow.

Neither of these work. Twitter is a TWO-WAY medium. So, to get the most bang from Twitter, you’ve got to proactively go out and interact with people. Send tweets to them as public replies. Find out where the conversations are happening and enter them.

Imagine being in a party. People tend to gather in groups and have conversations about various things. If you just stand in the room and start talking randomly, nobody is going to hear you because they’re having conversations with other people. In fact, they’re probably going to look at you and think you’re nuts (sitting there talking to yourself like a crazy man). Obviously, that’s stupid. The right approach would be to enter yourself into one of the conversations and start talking with the people there.

I was recently listening to a talk by Coach Deb in Las Vegas and she said the following about using Twitter: Seduce, don’t molest. In other words, you get people to your blog by being interesting and captivating their attention. You don’t just throw blog links out broadcast style and expect people to click.

Old Versus New

Some people have the hardest time adapting to new media. I suspect Tong may be one of them. Instead of questioning his use of Twitter and seeing what he can do differently, he proceeded to bash the medium as “hype” and me for being the messenger. Some people are really quick to make judgement of the medium because they are immensely impatient.

Listen, EVERYBODY who starts using Twitter goes through the initial stages of “this seems stupid”. I did. When I signed onto Twitter for the first time, I thought it was hype, too. I thought it was a fad. I thought that only the people who were expert marketers would have that many followers. However, I stuck to it. Being in the market I am, I am surrounded by many of the big names on Twitter. So, I decided to see what I could to do make it work. I knew Twitter was just a tool and that, more than likely, I was just using it wrong.

If you want some laughs, look at some of my earlier post on this blog about Twitter. See related posts below. I called it a blowhard platform. I even questioned whether it was of any use to anybody. Makes for some fun reading nowadays.

So, remember, it is NORMAL to have those thoughts. However, if you continue to use Twitter to actively ENGAGE with people and find people of similar interest to you, that little light bulb will click in your head and pretty soon Twitter will not only be second nature to you, but you’ll find it incredibly engaging and useful.

So, we know what Tong thinks. You know what I think. What about you? Do you think Twitter is stupid? Did you go through an initial phase of thinking it was stupid? Share your thoughts below.