Twitter’s appeal is the signal to noise ratio… for now
As more big names keep showing up on Twitter (Southwest, Comcast, MSNBC) people are get more excited about using Twitter as a means for connecting with real people inside these companies. Obviously everyone wants to be heard and right now Twitter is a great spot for the little guy to actually be heard by the corporate giants.
And for a while this will actually be possible. However, as more people jump on the Twitter bandwagon, the ability for these corporations to keep up with all the @ replies and name mentions will suffer.
Think of it in the same way 800 numbers can occasionally be released as ‘getting you straight to a real person.” For example, if someone finds an easy way to get ‘a live body’ via a stealthy 800 number, they’ll give the number to their friends; who in-turn give it to their friends. Before long everyone has the ’stealth 800 number’ and… everyone is sitting on hold, not getting any attention. That… or the number changes.
And that’s exactly my point. For now Twitter’s signal : noise ratio is benefiting both the companies PR department and the little guys. We feel connected to an otherwise unscalable barrier of communication to the corporate giants.
The question is how long will Twitter remain the ’stealthy 800 number’ and what happens next?
Aside: Yes there are some major companies doing some very unique things with Twitter. Jennifer Laycock over at SearchEngineGuide has an article citing some examples.
