Hubspot, the marketing software, has published its third ‘State of the Twittersphere’ report, the report which they published on March 2009 showed Twitter’s growth peaking at 13%, but this time all is not well for Twitter, as their growth has slowed down to 3%. 3 Months ago Techcrunch reported that visits to Twitter has reduced by 8%, but Twitters CEO Evan Williams told that Twitters visitors had reduced only because most of its users were using 3rd party apps instead of directly using Twitter.
There was another report by Techcrunch which states that 75% of the Tweets made are self promotional and are usually made by marketers, I and a few friends believe that the reason for this slow growth is due to Twitters restrictive policies, many bloggers and marketers have started to feel that Twitter can no longer drive sales or exposure.
I created my Twitter account 8 months ago, I had a bit of success for the first 3 months, but then I started to feel that Twitter can no longer drive traffic to my site, my Twitter follower level went up to 700 but came down to 400 in just a few weeks after these policies were laid. I was really upset for many of Twitters new rules and regulations, this effect won’t be seen by Twitterers with more than a 1000 followers, it is newbies who are going to face this, there are a few unwanted policies I have listed below,
- You cannot follow more than 3 people in under 5 minutes once you reach 1000 following mark (the reason my follower count reduced)
- You cannot post more than 500 tweets a day (People who use automated softwares to schedule tweets are effected by this)
- Not more than 150 direct messages per day.
These were some of the policies announced publicly, but I’m sure there are plenty more unannounced. I actually started to feel that my tweets aren’t read any more, when I had 200 followers I used to get 5 retweets for every 10 tweets I make, now when I have 700 it takes me hours to find one retweet. Before I felt that the tweets I made helped me gain new followers, but now I feel most of them come from my blog and links I have placed to my Twitter account.
The idea of Twitter sounded crazy to me, but i created my account only for the benefits of marketer, not for networking with friends or anything. Now, with marketing with Twitter out of the sight now I don’t know why else should I use Twitter. I’m not really sure about this, please do tell me your views about this.
I’ve been trying to use Twitter since I started my blog, but I’ve never really liked it. Twitter never really captured my attention, I think it’s because like you said here, 75% of tweets are just self promotion and most of what isn’t self promotion is just garbage.
I still tweet my new blog posts, and occasionally put up personal updates, but only to keep some form of presence.
As far as those regulations go, I don’t see a problem, mostly because I think anyone using twitter that much is going overboard. I know if I followed someone and they tried posting more than 500 a day, I’d unfollow them for being annoying.
Same with following and direct messages, if you’re trying to follow thousands of people a day, your not following them out of interest, just to put your name out there as much as possible. That’s just my opinion though, and I’m biased since I think Twitter is a waste of time.
Twitter has it’s uses, but I think it’s difficult to consistently post useful tweets every day, and that’s the only way I think you could keep a good twitter following. That, or or most of your followers found you through your blog, and follow you because they are already fans.
“Loosing” isn’t a word.
Loose = the opposite of tight, and the verb form is “loosening”.
Lose = the opposite of win and the verb form is “losing”.
I think you meant to use the latter in your title.
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