Is Twitter (Becoming) the New Hyde Park

Spread it!

Email This

If you walk through Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, London (UK) you hear a lot of opinions. There are a lot of people who stand out and openly express their opinion on any subject. These opinions are very audible and basically sound like a bunch of yelling. As long as you don't say something illegal and don't use profanity - you have free reign to share your opinion. I find this place really amusing as there are more people talking and very few listening, with only a small fraction paying attention to what is really being said! Sound familiar?

Twitter is turning into a launch pad of how a lot of people are planting tweets, re-tweeting, but rarely listening.

A quick survey of some good friends who Tweet. I asked them to share feedback on how they are using Twitter, and what their response from Twitter really is. Their opinion, people are polite and re-tweet what they are saying but there are no responses back on what is really being said. Fewer people are listening.

A look at a few business over time on Twitter. A tweet six months ago led to a large number of responses or feedback. Today, with 10 times more followers, each tweet elicits less than 5% responses compared to the past.

Lists in Twitter are going to create interesting challenges for the 'Tweeter' - you have to learn how to multi-task as you message different lists with different messages. A bigger challenge for people who are in small businesses or those who Tweet while they are doing other things.

Twitter is also like the Jim Carey movie, the Truman Show with one significant difference. Imagine hundreds if not thousands of shows running concurrently. This gives people a lot of things to look at, good choices no doubt, but again very few people focused on listening.

There are more applications that are being launched that allow people to reuse tweets, this allows business and individuals to reuse Tweets and repackage old information as they reach out to people. You need to go back to the basics and remember that Twitter brings together the power of now, merging both your computer and mobile. You have to go back to the fundamentals and create interactive conversations.

Hyde Park also has some great speakers. They have a following, they are engaging, & they respond to the questions thrown out to them.

To fix Twitter you have to focus on three things - you have to learn to listen so you can participate in conversations, you have to build trust so your followers will click through on what you provide them, & you need to communicate relevance else you are as irrelevant as the loud obnoxious ones in Hyde Park.