Twitter’s Traffic Climbs to Record Levels

Twitter is flirting with the top 10 sites in the world based on Alexa’s traffic ranking system. Perhaps most people don’t realize Twitter is still putting on record growth because the Fail Whale hasn’t been making many appearances lately.

The novelty of Twitter may have worn off quickly for the original generation of twitter users, but the masses are finally discovering how to use twitter and overall activity is higher than ever for every metric.

Twitter traffic rated by Quantcast over the past 12 months:

Simplified mobile applications, integration into popular sites, and real time search result placements in Google have dramatically boosted exposure for the millions of Tweets posted daily.

How I get down on Twitter:

TweetDeck – hopefully you’ve already tried this yourself. Easily manage multiple accounts on multiple social networks, auto-url shortening with stats integration from bit.ly, and tons of custom layout options.

Web based clients:

Hoot Suite – great aggregator options allow you to manage multiple accounts with ease. Follow only the topics that you’re interested in with ease. The best feature for me here is scheduled Tweets on multiple accounts.

TwitterFall – posts fall onto your screen for whatever topics you choose. Uses different color backgrounds for tweets from different searches you’ve setup . It’s very hand to follow breaking events or trends.

Find me on twitter @jaytoddmartin

The 80/20 Rule for Effective Social Networking

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and other social networks that provide or feature status updates from users have taken the internet by storm over the past several years.

MySpace helped lead the Web 2.0 revolution before it crashed and burned. Now Facebook seems like it could be headed down the same path.

Originally, the first huge wave of Facebook users embraced the network mainly because of the value add factor. It was possible to be more aware of your competitors, get useful tips from people you trusted, and discover new and emerging trends by monitoring the socialsphere. In some ways, we were building Web 2.0 together.

Recently Facebook is a relaxing area where the last thing they think about is business or growing their personal network. I get the feeling most people aren’t measuring the ROI of status messages left by their friends, and basically you end up coming out of the whole situation knowing what everyone is drinking, eating, and watching on TV. This data is already available from a variety of sources so I don’t really need to get it from Facebook.

So what is the 80/20 Rule of Social Networking?
One of my associates that introduced me to Facebook in 2008 explained the value add factor – simply put, 80% of your posts need to add value to your readers, while at most 20% can be about your breakfast or your plans for the afternoon. If you violate the 80/20 rule you will not gain followers who value their time.

Rarely do people calculate the real cost required for others to read their updates. These are people I unfollow. There are many friends I have in the real world that I enjoy to hang out with during non work hours, but that I don’t necessary want to read updates from everyday of the week, all year long. This isn’t because I value their friendship less, I just don’t have the capacity to read what 45 people had for lunch, what they are planning to do that evening, or what type of wine they just opened.

With over 25,000 friends, subscriptions, and connections between Youtube, Tumblr, LinkedIN, Facebook, and Twitter, the value of the information I receive has been in a steep decline. Perhaps if I was spamming commercial products this would be a more ideal setup, but I’m simply there to consume and analyze information. This is 7 times more people than live in my hometown!

How to Unfriend your Grandma on Facebook
The recent South Park espisode featuring Facebook spelled out clearly what many of us have been thinking for the past 6 months about Facebook. For the past several weeks I’ve typically unfollowed/unfriended 25-30 people per day acrossed all networks I participate in to help keep the noise level down. Sometimes, these accounts I unfollow may be people I value relationships with in Real Life, and their feelings get hurt, or they get mad, or just don’t understand how I could unfriend them.

The problem is growing larger now that most people who primary used Facebook for business in the past are following their parents, siblings, mate’s friends, people from the bar, etc. The reason is simple – how the hell are you supposed to reject friend requests from blood relatives and people you really value without them feeling hurt in some way?

For the most part, I’ve been inactive on my personal Facebook account for the past 6 months because it just costs to much to use timewise. I’m not the only one. Professional networks such as LinkedIn are experiencing record traffic levels as Facebook’s traffic starts to level off after giant gains recently. Business people may seek more niche driven networks to increase ROI on time.

If you unfollow/unfriend me because this message cost $40.00 of your time to read and wasn’t helpful I understand. That’s how the world should work.

Twitter Traffic Plunges

Twitter’s traffic has dropped by about 25% in 90 days, reversing course on it’s giant exponential ramp up during spring and early summer.

Perhaps once people got intrigued by simple social networking, they moved on to interfaces that allowed more than 2 sentences.

Here is the image that must be keeping the twitter exec’s and $100 million investors really nervous:

Just over the past month traffic has declined an estimated 15%. Twitter did an enormous amount to help bring new people into social networking, but I think their hay day is coming to and end (and I’m sure plenty of people will be cheering as the old fail whale begins years of decline).

MySpace Advertising Performance Improves

MySpace Advertisers already know, performance at the social network giant has increased by leaps and bounds over the past several months, while prices continue to drop.

Is the performance boost because younger kids are abandoning the network in exchange for more niche driven communities? Perhaps the new ad placements and improved interface have finally combined to form the special sauce for conversions. Maybe all the other advertisers just left (haha)!

This past year MySpace ran into a ceiling on traffic, the year over year growth digits aren’t as exciting (in fact traffic is down year over year, 10% just last month) as past years and the site looks doomed from almost every angle. Maybe just the realization they would go out of business forced MySpace to start acting like a business.

While Twitter and many other newer social networks will likely hit a ceiling then deflate, MySpace may just survive long enough to buy the guys who are in the spotlight today. As ad rates continue to drop, MySpace continues to step up and work harder.

At the end of the day, traffic prices and conversions are all that matter and MySpace is running away with the lead for advertisers no matter how you slice it.

Kanye West Is Dead Hoax

Kanye West isn’t dead, yet after 48 hours the rumor will not die. I saw a new rumor last night Kanye’s mom had died, it could even be true, I’m so confused by all this nonsense flying around on Twitter.

I think Balloon Boy got everyone excited to fake the Kanye West funk. Now getting a lie re-tweeted 200 times is almost an art form. I’ve noticed recently, around 30% of the trending topics on Twitter at 3am are hoaxes or half truths (maybe this % is lower than real life, lol).

While it’s funny and interesting to watch, over the long run this type of activity could devalue twitter.

Do you find the hoaxes entertaining? Do you think they improve or decrease your Twitter experience? Is the trending topics list an open door for spammers? Does anyone gain from this type of exposure? Post your feedback in the comment box below.