There was a lot of buzz about social media site Twitter in 2009. The little-site-that-could soared up from relative iniquity as a cute little way of blogging to become The Place To Be. As a consequence, businesses and even celebrities were falling all over themselves to design Twitter campaigns. Often, they fell flat on their faces as well.

The sheer numbers of people using Twitter make it an attractive prospect for most businesses. As Twitter users tend to access the site from all sorts of platforms, from their mobile phones or though the various remote-access applications like Tweetdeck, the estimated big numbers of users on Twitter are likely to be even bigger in reality. Although the going may be hard on this site, the potential for success is great.

This potential has gone to the head of many site owners and search engine optimisation companies, who have been only too keen to jump onto the Twitter bandwagon. What many seem to have forgotten is that not all social media sites will suit a particular business’ campaign. As recent studies have revealed, Twitter is not a site for everyone.

The data on Twitter reveals that only certain types of businesses are likely to benefit from Twitter campaigns in any significant way. At the moment, all types of businesses are flocking to the site. Retailers, corporations and even movie producers are trying to get a piece of Twitter’s outbound traffic, which accounts for one out of every 350 visitors to a typical UK site. These figures makes Twitter undoubtedly attractive, but many businesses on Twitter today are investing in something that hasn’t happened yet, although it’s going to happen in the future.

Most businesses are sucked in by the hype, believing that Twitter has the same effect on consumption as real-life word of mouth. The media has been keen to push stories about Twitter’s supposed mega-influence over the public, for example reporting that negative celebrity reviews on Twitter destroyed the opening cinema box office sales for Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno. Stories like this make it seem like Twitter holds an enormous sway over the general public. This may be true in the future, but it hasn’t happened yet. It hasn’t happened yet because Twitter users are a certain type of internet user, and are only visiting certain kinds of sites. Research shows that over half of Twitter’s outbound traffic is to content-driven sites. Although intuition expects Twitter users to be big consumers, less than 10% of outbound Twitter traffic is to transactional sites like retail.

What does this mean for you? It means that, while a Twitter campaign could well be a huge success as part of your SEO, it could also be a waste of time. If you’re considering a Twitter campaign, it definitely pays to do your research first. Advice from an SEO expert can help you to determine whether the audience on Twitter actually suits your business, and you can talk to us at SEO Consult.

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