Will the Twitter Phenomenon die when everybody goes back to work?

Posted on March 27, 2009 by Katie

Yesterday, our CEO, Scott, showed me this cartoon from the web series “SuperNews!” that pokes fun at the sudden onslaught of Twitter popularity and how ridiculous a trend it is. It got me thinking about the whole debate surrounding Twitter and whether it is actually a productive use of time or a hindrance to productivity. A while back I posted “My Case for Twitter,” in which I explained the benefits of Twitter for corporate marketing purposes. I still very much believe that argument holds true and that there is value in the tool for marketers. Still, from a personal standpoint, I struggle with how I really want to use Twitter. To talk to friends? Not the most effective. To promote my company? Well, BoldMouth has its own Twitter account . To share things I find interesting? I already have a bigger network on Facebook where I can share the same things. To build my personal brand? Maybe… but again, that’s a reason to use Twitter; it doesn’t help me figure out what’s worth Tweeting. And let’s face it: Twitter takes a lot of time out of the day, especially to do it well.

So, I have to wonder… is all this hype and flutter of activity on Twitter simply because people aren’t very busy in this downturned economy?

Think about it. More people are out of work. Employees aren’t as busy. There’s a lot more leisure time on the whole. Why not Tweet? After all, you can network on Twitter and look for new job opportunities! But once people land those jobs, start going back to work, and the economy picks up, will everyone still have all that time to Tweet? My guess would be probably not.

I did a little research to see if anybody else had made this connection and I found, to my surprise, the inverse argument—that the Twitter boom actually caused the downturn in the economy! See below, a graph of the relationship between the Dow average and twitter.com visitors in 2008, from Prof. Martin Schmeldon of Harvard Business School:

I’m curious if Schmeldon ever switched the variables in his regression analysis to see if perhaps the drop in the Dow had a stronger causal effect on Twitter usage as opposed to vice versa? Or, if by substituting unemployment levels for the Dow Average, one could support my argument. I guess I could reach back into the depths of my brain and try to dig up what I remember from my college Stats class and actually prove my theory… but for now, I’ll just leave it at hypothesis.

Nevertheless, the success of the Twitter model lies in constant use and updates on the network. If people set up Twitter profiles and don’t Tweet, then what’s the purpose of following them? There is none. This is very unlike other social networking sites, like Facebook or MySpace or LinkedIn, where you friend people once, and whether they are active updaters or not, you’re still likely to remain their friend. So while activity on all social networking sites might decrease as employment rates increase, I think there’s a much bigger risk for Twitter to flounder.

What do you think? Is Twitter a fleeting fad or is it here to stay like the other social media moguls?

TAGS: Twitter, economy, social media, unemployment, leisure time, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow, Huffington Post, productivity, Martin Schmeldon, Harvard Business School, SuperNews, Scott Hildebrand, Katie Hollar, BoldMouth