Something like ten percent of Twitter users produce ninety percent of the tweets (per a Harvard study), and something like sixty percent of users never return after their first thirty days. These two factors alone suggest the numerical impact of Twitter is far less than in the media hype.

Further, Twitter’s business-friendly policy and strong showing in peak earning-year age brackets have lent themselves to business-oriented tweets. Twitter policy and automation by users has led to a more liberal use of self-serving or business-oriented tweets than the non-tweeting majority may care to digest.

I generally assume that users who merely view tweets without engaging themselves further will soon lose interest or their commitment will be haphazard.

Of course, many do happily use Twitter socially or for specific and limited purposes, and the business uses of Twitter have proven to be an economic boon in these hard times. One-time users may return, and layoffs may drive more to the kinds of self-employment in which Twitter is helpful. But I expect the gross number of users will decline in coming months to some more realistic level, and perhaps more so when Google Wave arrives.

Twitter is a great tool, but it may be advisable not to make it one’s only marketing tool.

Peter Rubel

P.S. If Twitter is merged with Facebook or Google Wave, its attractiveness may be greater or more secure.

Developing trust and relationships takes time and is based on a bit more than spamming sales pitches. Therefore, if relationship building is the goal, self-serving tweets should be in the minority. Alternate kinds of tweets fall into a limited number of categories.

The Other Kinds of Tweets

Questions Asking questions is a great possibility, though there is an art to asking questions that can reasonably be addressed in 140 characters.
Humor One can of course inject a bit of tasteful humor or respond to humor.
Retweets Retweeting others’ tweets compliments and benefits both the tweeter and the retweeter as long as the frequency of retweets is not overdone. In moderation, a retweet forms an independent witness to the value of the original tweet.
Thanks Expressing genuine gratitude or praise is always a good thing too.
Useful Stuff Then there is the plethora of news, quotes, and tips which may be interesting or useful to the reader. Some of it should be self-serving (or you are in the wrong business).
Links Include tweets with links to continue the conversation on blogs and announcements of webinars and conferences. Links can also be to further helpful information related to words that comprise the rest of the tweet. Various services exist to shorten URL’s so as to take up fewer of the 140 character limit Twitter has established.
Engage in their conversations Address their concerns. Be a listener. Don’t just talk. Answer questions if you have a ready answer or can readily research an answer.

Frequency of Tweets

Another issue important to developing relationships is the number of times each tweet is given. I’m not talking about the stuff you do for individuals once, but there are tweets that can be given multiple times. The question is how many without turning into annoying spam.

I am thinking of four factors to consider.

One, your followers are not always on Twitter at the time you are tweeting. Repeating a tweet at different times of day increases the chances your followers will see your tweet.

Second, consider which time zones your want to reach. Tweeting when your target audience is most likely to be asleep or busy elsewhere is not wise. Lunch time, evenings, and weekends often are better times.

Third, tweets will pass by the eyes of your followers at different rates depending on how many people your followers are following. One of your followers with a hundred followers will not see as many tweets flying by as a person following five thousand. For a given tweet, you can look like a spammer to the one following a hundred at the same time that you barely register on the radar of someone following five thousand. Striking a moderate balance between extremes is important.

Four, be persistent over a long period. Sooner or later most of your followers will become familiar with you. If your persistence consists in spam, your followers will drop out, but a with bit of creativity in providing real value, persistence pays off.

Peter Rubel/Twitter.com/katahdinme

P.S. Of course, followers come and go too. You will excite some for ten minutes, but a month later, the person has dropped out of Twitter. Pruning inactive followers thus becomes important over time.

Perry Belcher was a guest speaker for Matt Barak on a webinar last night. The call was SO great I had to take copious notes, a few of which are included here.

The topic was “How to Build Your Twitter List.” Perry’s basic premise was that Twitter is like a face-to-face party, so you don’t start a Twitter conversation with a sales pitch.

Peak tweeting times for the most viewers are 1-3 PM and 8-11 PM weekdays (presumably ET in the US), but forget Friday evenings. Weekends are great also, especially Sunday evening, the week’s top peak.

What to tweet about? I’m sure the percentages were rough … but

Make people’s lives better: 30%
Keep your people informed: 10%
Make your people laugh: 30%
Compliment and praise often: 25%
What YOU do: 5%

… with a emphasis on NOT selling to the “party” people and an assurance that once you have established yourself as a trustworthy friend, the friend will become your customer.

Some of Perry’s favorite sources for tweet content:

Alltop.com, PopURLs.com, Digg.com – for popular posts
Lifehacker.com – how to help people
Fark.com, Cracked.com – for humor (watch tastefulness, though)

Content can also be generated by (1) asking questions and (2) retweeting. Questions should be simple conversation starters so that more people in the Twitter “party” can pitch in.

But this is very sketchy. Perry has a whole lot more. Visit perrybelcher.com

Peter Rubel

If a person tweets me relentlessly with sales pitches (fleshed out via the links on the tweets)–OK, even if I am slightly pestered–I may drop them from my “following” list. In fact, that is what I have done sometimes, and I am not alone. Dropping with a click shuts them out of my site, like changing channels, as someone said. Social media does best when it is, well, social.

But if I fear I might miss an opportunity by dropping the person with sales pitches, or if the person I am following has provided tweets that lead me to know, like and trust the person, I may listen and I may buy. Tweeters using Twitter for business would thus do well to provide quality tweets consistently.

Quality tweets may be friendly or funny to attract.
They may ask questions to get conversations going (as long as the conversation is not long and relevant only to you and the other person).
They may answer questions to be helpful–and enhance one’s reputation as a go-to person. They may warn others of a problem that concerns them.
They may provide helpful and desired information, whether the information is self-serving or not.
… And there is always the self-serving link in one’s profile which fans and the curious will ferret out.

Focus tweets on things relevant to your keywords and niche, and you will develop a niche go-to reputation. Focus more broadly, and you may develop a broader, but less targeted audience.

Consistency of tweeting need not be all day long, although Twitter can be mildly addicting. One will want to provide tweets enough to be noticed, but not so many that one becomes annoying. Someone suggested ten minutes three times a day: morning, afternoon, and evening. Or once a day, preferably at peak viewing times for your target audience. Others are successful with less.

Of course, seasonal specials, promotions, and product launches will be times when you will want to provide more tweets than normally.

Peter Rubel

Various software and print products have arisen to teach users how to and how not to use Twitter to increase their business bottom line. Despite its detractors and mimic sites, Twitter and its users are evidently a force to be reckoned with.

Reasons for its growing popularity may be close to hand. One, it rides the crest of the virtual relationship wave on the internet. One can even use Twitter on one’s iPhone, if one doesn’t mind paying for text message “tweets” (as the micro-blogging messages are called). Obviously, the technology has not changed human nature, so that the bulk of the relationships are superficial and transitory at best, especially when Twitter only allows a maximum of 140 characters per tweet. But Twitter is a platform that has enabled the average person to touch a large circle of casual friends in brief, but significant ways, a natural for business. If done right.

More to follow.

Peter Rubel