New Survey says: 71 percent of 'Tweets' are ignored

[Harold Mansfield]

We have discussed the effectiveness of Twitter as a marketing tool in the past.
I myself have long questioned the validity of others on different forums and supposed "Guru's" that claim huge successes with Twitter. Although I have a crap load of Twitter accounts, I just didn't see it and have suspected for a long time that there is just too much shouting on Twitter for anyone to gain any marketing edge.

Now a new survey seems to validate what many of us have been saying:

Toronto-based social media analytics company Sysomos scanned 1.2 billion messages that were sent in August and September 2009 to try and get some idea of the kind of conversations that are going on.

They discovered that more than seven in every 10 tweets sink without any kind of reaction from the world.

Source: Survey: 71 percent of tweets are ignored - CNN.com

[Blessed]

Certainly doesn't surprise me - it's just too much noise in my already noisy world.

Of course it's been months since I logged in to my Twitter account...

[greenoak]

im kind of glad to hear this....since i cant get into doing twitter....
also hasnt facebook passed google in some way? does that mean i should but more effort into keywords on facebook? does it mean our facebook would come up on google searches? or just facebook searches?
we are over 950 fans now...!!!

[cbscreative]

I haven't logged into my Twitter account for at least 30 years or so. Prior to that, I didn't even have one. I'm glad I didn't miss something.

[Harold Mansfield]

im kind of glad to hear this....since i cant get into doing twitter....
also hasnt facebook passed google in some way? does that mean i should but more effort into keywords on facebook? does it mean our facebook would come up on google searches? or just facebook searches?
we are over 950 fans now...!!!

You should never,ever, ignore your placement in search engines nor turn you back on keeping your site optimized for them. Facebook itself is still just a website...it is not a search engine and search engines are what people use to find information. That won't change anytime soon.

Yes, your Facebook page should show up in search results, but your website should show up first.

[ParaTed2k]

I wonder how that compares to other forms of advertizing and marketing. For instance, what percentage of radio/tv spots actually generate a response? I know I stopped putting ads in newspapers because they were expensive and generated nothing. My facebook has generated good reponses, but only fair business. I'm just starting to use Twitter, so the jury is still out.

[KristineS]

I wonder how many of those people sending those Tweets put any effort into building relationships on Twitter rather than just sending out random messages. You have to pay attention to get attention and a lot of people don't do that. I guessing if the study were of people who were on Twitter and worked to be part of the community the lack of attention to their Tweets would be much different.

[Patrysha]

I am still feeling the twitter love. I enjoy my time on there and connections made through there have led to business. Of course things are ignored, that happens to emails. voice mails, letters and ads on radio and television to. Tuning out is part of any audience experience...

[BlueOrange]

I still use Twitter to push out some messages and network with people in various industries. I saw an article just today on a new integration Bing is doing to show you which of your Facebook friends like what you are searching for: Bing, Now With Extra Facebook: See What Your Friends Like & People Search Results

[Blessed]

I wonder how many of those people sending those Tweets put any effort into building relationships on Twitter rather than just sending out random messages. You have to pay attention to get attention and a lot of people don't do that. I guessing if the study were of people who were on Twitter and worked to be part of the community the lack of attention to their Tweets would be much different.

This is the key - when I was more active with my Twitter account I did my best to respond to people I wanted to network with or already had a "relationship" of sorts with - and I quickly unfollowed anyone who simply posted annoying random Tweets - therefore... my response rate was more than 30%, but I only followed a handful of people and local businesses.