I have received hundreds upon hundreds of replies (I stopped counting after a while) and have kept this question open to see how long interest in it might last. The vast majority of respondents talked about themselves, their likes and dislikes and their needs. I was struck by their desire to get their story out, to share and be part of something. They (we, because I Tweeter too) want to be heard.

And then, a few days ago, someone posted the following: “For those of you who say you’ve had great results with Twitter – can you please give an idea of what those results have been?”

In the hundreds of replies I got, very few talked about results; about Twitter helping their business goals; about thinking who their target audience was when selecting a topic to Tweet. Very few people, it seemed to me, really talked about Twitter for business even thought there is a clear understanding that Tweeter is meant to work both as a social media tool to stay in touch with family and friends as well as a tool to drive business results.

In those 25 words, this person captured the essence of why I think Twitter could flame out as a business tool.

Simply having a large number of followers is an irrelevant metric (It’s not unlike measuring TV show viewers in a TIVO-world: Yes, the ad was broadcast and millions of people watched the show. But how many did not skip the commercials?)

But I can see some companies really “getting it.”

Here is a great example of how @DellOutlet has gained quite a following (620,000+ followers) and sold a lot of computers: at the end of last year, they surpassed $1 million in revenue, after about a year and a half’s worth of tweeting.

Of course, I can hear it (because my husband pointed it out): Dell’s fiscal 2009 revenue was $61.10 billion and these Tweeter-driven results aren’t even a drop in the bucket for a company that showed zero growth from fiscal year 2008 to 2009 as its sales fell off a cliff in the fourth quarter.

But at least it’s a start in trying to quantify the buzz Twitter has created as a business tool.

So, what is the “secret” to success with Tweeter?

I will finish this post with a quote from a personal email from another LinkedIn respondent – just today:

“I continue to find it exceptionally “funny” how people using Twitter for a few months proclaim themselves as experts — gimme a break! — social media is too young to have any true ‘experts’ — being a great experiment and all… still there are those who will make the claim.”

We shall see.

But all’s not well.

A few days ago, Reuters reported that about 60 percent of people on Twitter end up abandoning the service after a month.

Aggressively challenged by Twitter–aficionados, Reuters updated the study a few days later and went beyond just Twitter.com, adding in more than 30 websites and applications that feed into the Twitter community including: TweetDeck, TwitPic, Twitstat, Hootsuite, EasyTweets, Tumblr, and many others.

The results? The year-long retention curve looks very much the same as the one for just Twitter.com: more than 60 percent of U.S. Twitter users fail to return the following month.

In other words, Twitter’s audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month’s users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent (and, No, Oprah hasn’t helped much).

But, seriously, is this really bad news? The blogosphere seems to think so but I don’t.

The low retention rates aren’t even surprising, really. Essentially, if you follow more than a few people, the overall experience can be very dissatisfying – especially as compared to the similar relationships on Facebook or even LinkedIn.

(Disclaimer: I am not writing here about people interested in simply Tweeting about what they had for lunch. Frankly, I don’t care – not should you care about what I had for lunch –carrots sticks at my desk; how fun is that! I am writing about Twitter as a business tool)

From a business perspective, it’s possible that Twitter has been over-hyped and that the metrics are all wrong. It’s not about how large your Follower list is but about how homogeneous it is.

Cases in point:

• I know a marketer who has highly focused but relatively short list of Followers who was turned down by an advertiser who was looking for large numbers of Followers. In the end, the advertiser went for a large list of unqualified Followers. This isn’t progress, folks. This takes us back right to the broadcasting model which has been declared no longer valid.

• I follow Starbucks, just because I am curious to see how they use the tool. So far, not a single Tweet has been of any interest to me whatsoever. I am still waiting to get a coupon for a free latte. (And please don’t tell me they have done that and I missed it – that would only confirm that following more than a few people can be very dissatisfying experience)

• Here is a website that reports on Top CMOs on Twitter. I challenge you to find one really important reason to follow any of them (other than waiting to get a coupon for something).

But, still, I love Twitter.

As a marketer concerned with effective, measurable tactics that are action-oriented, my primary concern with regards to Twitter is to secure Followers who belong to our target market and have a potential interest in our company’s offering.

And as a marketer, I know that the only way to achieve a homogeneous Follower list is to stay very focused on the content I provide on Twitter.

If you do that, you will achieve a Follower list that actually cares about what you have to say.

At WiderFunnel we know this for a fact: in the last few weeks we have secured new clients who have found us on Twitter. These individuals are interested in Conversion Optimization so they searched for the topic; found either one of Chris Goward’s Tweets or one of mine; clicked on to our website and the rest, like they say in Hollywood, is history.

So, yes, Twitter has is a big role to play in a marketers’ mix. The news of a low retention rate will ensure that the quality of the content improves so that they continue to attract Followers who are like-minded and therefore more likely to become clients.

What do you think? What examples of business success have you had with Twitter? What are your challenges?

The Twittersphere is exploding.

According to an analysis of February data by comScore blogger Sarah Radwanick, over the past several months, comScore has been watching how quickly traffic to Twitter has exploded:

• Worldwide visitors to Twitter approached 10 million in February, up an impressive 700+% vs. year ago.
• The past two months alone have seen worldwide visitors climb more than 5 million visitors.
• U.S. traffic growth has been just as dramatic, with Twitter reaching 4 million visitors in February, up more than 1,000% from a year ago.

But what are the demographics of Twitter users?

Well, marketing friends, it seems that we are in for a surprise.

Twitter Followers are older than you think

According to Reuters blogger Alexei Oreskovic, while Twitter “has the fast-growing microblogging service has all the earmarks of a young person’s pastime” Twitter devotees are grayer than you might expect:

The majority of Twitter’s roughly 10 million unique Web site visitors worldwide in February were 35 years old or older.

What Oreskovic discovered was that 18-24 year olds, the traditional social media early adopters, are actually 12 percent less likely than average to visit Twitter. It is the 25-54 year old crowd that is actually driving this trend. More specifically, 45-54 year olds are 36 percent more likely than average to visit Twitter, making them the highest indexing age group, followed by 25-34 year olds, who are 30 percent more likely.

Twitter is a rare example of older people embracing a new Web technology at such an early stage, says Andrew Lipsman, director of industry analysis at comScore

According to comScore, again, the skew towards older visitors, although perhaps initially surprising for a social media site, actually makes more sense than one might think at first.

With so many businesses using Twitter, they argue, along with the first generations of Internet users “growing up” and comfortable with technology, this is a sign that the traditional early adopter model might need to be revisited. Not only teenagers and college students can be counted among the “technologically inclined,” which means that trends are much more prone to take off in older age segments than they used to. And with those age 25 and older representing a much bigger segment of the population than the under 25 crowd, it might help explain why Twitter has expanded its reach so broadly so quickly over the past few months.

All this is actually great news –but only if your target audience is in the 25-54 year old crowd. But if it isn’t, you may be wasting your time (even if you are having fun).

We at WiderFunnel for example can attest to the (admittedly) surprisingly positive impact Twitter is having on our web traffic as well as new client generation.

We now have several examples of new clients finding us not by searching on Google (the most common method) but by searching for Conversion Optimization on Twitter. Since the decision-makers we target are at the C-suite level (a group normally populated by older segments) it all makes sense.

When The Pew Internet Project presents a report, I pay attention. (The Pew Internet Project is an initiative of the Pew Research Center, a non-profit “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. I particularly like them because the Project is nonpartisan and takes no position on policy issues. Support for the project is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts – so as far as I can tell, they aren’t “trying to sell me anything.”)

A few days ago, Pew presented their report on Twitter – and the findings are fascinating (note to self: must Tweet about this).

There are a lot of us out there wasting time, er, I mean, communicating via Twitter and the numbers are growing.

May be we should start thinking about how to track the impact of our Tweets a bit better. After all, this is very targeted traffic (I know because a few weeks ago we got a RT by a very prominent Twitterer and our website traffic jumped ten-fold, and we have since experienced a lingering effect).

Here are the stats:

It seems that, as of December 2008, 11% of online American adults said they used a service like Twitter.

However, unlike applications like Facebook which started with the very young and got adopted by older types later, Twitter use is not dominated by the youngest of young adults. The median age of a Twitter user is 31 vs. the median age of a MySpace user at 27, Facebook user at 26 and LinkedIn user at 40.

Here is the Tweeter users’ profile:

• 19% online adults ages 18 and 24
• 20% of online adults 25 to 34.

Twitter users are slightly more racially and ethnically diverse than is the full U.S. population, most likely because they are younger – and younger Americans are a more ethnically and racially diverse group than is the full population.

Plus, Twitter users are also slightly more likely to live in urban areas, with 35% of Twitter users living in urban areas (compared to 29% of all internet users).

Apparently, the use of Twitter is highly intertwined with the use of other social media; both blogging and social network use increase the likelihood than an individual also uses Twitter.

Twitter users are also significant consumers of blog content; 21% read someone else’s blog “yesterday” and 57% of Twitterers have ever read a blog. By comparison, 9% of those who go online but do not Twitter read someone else’s blog yesterday, and 29% have ever read a blog.

Twitter users also keep blogs at a greater rate than the overall online population; 29% of Twitter users have ever created a blog, and 8% worked on a blog “yesterday.” In contrast, 11% of internet users have created a blog and 3% are working on their blog on any given day.

Just how much time DO you spend on Twitter??

Here is “a completely useless and was created by @itcn, designed by @reese and based on a concept by @sugarrae she thought of during a lecture aimed @streko” – find out how you rank.

Oh, yes: You can follow me on Twitter (sorry, could not help myself)