Clearing out the social media clutter in 2010
December 1st, 2009 by Marita Upeniece
The social media arena has been dominated by the growth of Twitter, Facebook and other networking sites this year. As we’re nearing 2010, there’s chatter about how networks will evolve going forward and one of the key points I’ve seen in almost every trend forecast is filtering out the clutter.
According to Pingdom, Twitter is already closing in on 30 million tweets a day and the latest figures from Facebook reveal that over 45 million status updates are uploaded on the site each day. It’s no surprise that some users are starting to tune out and some still think that Twitter is a waste of time.
David Armano predicts on the Harvard Business Conversation Starter blog that social media will begin to look less social next year - i.e. we will try to get more value out of our networks through filtering messages (hiding from hyperactive updaters etc).
Twitter has already started tackling this with Twitter Lists, but it raises an interesting question - do we actually want to connect with people we don’t know? The majority of people using social media connect almost exclusively with people they already know in the real world. Or is it simply information overload and we need to be able to administer the incoming messages better?
Either way, it emphasises yet again that successful online PR does not equate to a large number of followers on Twitter or fans on Facebook. As people start to sift through the clutter (and some will probably do this early next year as everyone jumps on the New Year’s resolutions bandwagon and pledge to tidy up their lives in general), brands which aren’t offering something really valuable are likely to be the first ones to fall off the list. Relevant and trusted content has always been important but more aggressive filters will mean it’s paramount to digital PR success next year.
How do you see 2010 panning out? Will it become more difficult for brands to reach consumers through social networks as people are increasingly being bombarded with marketing messages?
Tags: Facebook, online content, Pingdom, social media 2010, twitter, Twitter lists
December 1st, 2009 at 3:00 pm
It’s a good analysis, but it reminds me rather of several that were made in last 08/early 09 as predictions for 2009 - and 2009 didn’t really turn out that way. Perhaps next year will, but this year turned out not to be the year of mass unfriending, large scale filtering etc.
December 1st, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Interesting debate, and I think ubiquitous hashtags like #followfriday are becoming a little tedious, indirect, and certainly wash over me (even the few I’m in!).
Some new Twitter tools (I’m thinking of Brizzly) are already offering ’sleep’ modes where you can switch off designated tweeters at the tick of a box; it aims this (it says) at tweeps that are incessantly tweeting from conferences and you need to escape their stream. Personally I like to follow conference #’s but sure there are some tweeps I’d like to put to sleep now and again (and I don’t doubt they’d like to recipricate!).
December 1st, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Thanks for your comment Mark. Perhaps we won’t see mass unfriending, but rather targeted unfriending and avoiding updates and escaping streams with new tools, such as Brizzly, as Rob has pointed out.
December 1st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Rob - I agree, the problem with hashtags is that there’re so many floating around and the popular ones are targeted by spammers (remember the Habitat incident?). Brizzly looks promising!
March 11th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
For me Twitter and Facebook are totally different things. And your question whether we actually want to connect with people we don’t know, I would say it depends what social media platform you are using. For me Fasebook is only for my friends i know in real life, i don’t accept any request from people I don’t know. However I use my Twitter to get to know people i haven’t meet, i use it for my degree and other professionals i would like to follow and know what they think. Twitter doesn’t have that personal relationship like Facebook, which for me has no problem connecting with people i don’t know.