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Motivations For Using Twitter
Twitter's growth in the past 6 months has been remarkable. For most of the two years prior to November 2008, it had between a million and two million active users. Since November, it has grown to an estimated 8 million users as of last month and is poised to top 10 million users by the end of April. Labels: Learning, Motivations, social media, Twitter
Last week's Ashton Kutcher vs CNN follower battle (won by Ashton) and Oprah's "Welcome to the 21st Century" tweet should give Twitter all the publicity it needs to convert into a mainstream social media tool. Due to all this explosive user growth, many tracking experts predict that Twitter will reach 100 million users within the next year, placing it in MySpace usage territory.
What exactly is the motivation for people to join and use Twitter? What is causing all this excitement about micro-blogging at 140 characters or less?
MarketingProfs (Allen Weiss of USC’s Marshall School) just released a new study of Twitter followers and identified the primary motivators for using Twitter. It's not really about obtaining the most followers. It's not really about saying something brilliant to the world and getting responses.
What it's really about this: "It's cool to learn new things from people."
As reported in Mashable:People use Twitter for all sorts of reasons. But what are those reasons, exactly? Is it about marketing, gathering intelligence, connecting, community? Is it for social reasons?
In a word: Yes.
Twitter may be used as just another lead-generation tool. Or it may be about connecting with new friends. But above all, people on Twitter are truly motivated by learning new things and getting information real-time, as it’s developing.
posted by Unknown @ Wednesday, April 22, 2009,
