Twitter appears to go from strength to strength, with user audiences continuing to grow. There are some obvious attractions to the platform:
- Ease of use – it is easy and quick to setup and simple to actually use
- Familiar format – we are used to SMS texting on our phones so are used to the 140 character format
- Bite sized chunks – in an attention poor world, the bite sized chunk of information is not just necessary, but expected
But I wondered – how many people who use Twitter also have blogs? I didn’t expect it to be large. My discussions and casual conversations with people indicated that Twitter was preferred because it took a small amount of time to engage and create a substantial community – but blogging was seen as a much greater commitment.
So to get some clarity, I ran a quick survey via twtpoll, The results surprised me. At time of writing, almost 80% of respondents also have a blog. Interestingly, I got a response rate of 1% (which confirms again the 90-9-1 rule of social media participation).
But what do you think? Do the results surprise you? Why?
I have a blog and I tweet. In the past, if I liked a post on someone else’s blog, I would have linked to it from my blog and posted some thoughts. Now I would probably just tweet it. I pass on a lot more stuff which is great, but it doesn’t feel as much like a connection.
That’s exactly right. Twitter is far more ephemeral – with conversations disappearing from the timeline after three months.
Sometimes there is real value in the context of the conversation – not just in the conversation itself.
i do both. rarely – i tweet a post of mine. sometimes – i blog about a tweet. often – i post about something i learned from my twitter pln.
The results don’t surprise me. It is the same set of people who spread their tentacles everywhere – blogging, micro-blogging, life-streaming. When I read other people’s blogs and see the comments (even the prolific ones), this aspect is reinforced.
I’m not a big fan of twitter, considering its blink-and-you’ll-miss-a-good-tweet pattern. But everyone’s a twitter user, and your research tells a lot. It seems like social media is an addictive pattern, once you’re in, you have no choice to find more and more options to get more in! Good post!
Gavin
What are your views on the gender balance of social media users?
Apologies if you have covered this in the past.
Hey Gavin,
I am not surprised by the results.
What would be interesting to see is how many of those who own a blog actively write or post a blog