According to official numbers provided by Nielsen, traffic to Twitter.com was down a dramatic 27.8% between September and October 2009, falling to 18.9 million unique visitors. While the drop of 27.8% to the actual website does not take into account the growing number of Twitter followers who use phone based apps like Twitterific and therefore bypass going to the site, the steep decline has raised eyebrows with marketers across all industries, especially music.
While traditional consumer packaged goods companies have failed to find the right way to use Twitter, most accounts are inactive or just stay active during promotional periods, hip-hop artists and their fans have flocked to the 140 words or less as a means for artists to stay connected to their fans and fans to feel like they are part of the artists’ lives. Want to be a major hip-hop artist? Well then you gotta get yourself a Twitter account…much like you had to have yourself a MySpace a couple years back. But all is not well in Twitter land for the hip-hop nation.
The Twitter backlash has already started with prominent well-known artists like Kid Cudi flat out rejecting the Tweetness. “I will NEVER get back on twitter or facebook. im gettin my blog back together and that will be the only way to stay connected with me” he recently stated. And other artists like Jay-Z tend to stay away just because of the privacy issues. “I watch it through everyone that’s around me; so I’m like a Twitter voyeur or something,” stated Hova earlier in the year.
But the balance of hip-hop support for Twitter remains a delicate one as it has almost reached the point of saturation and copy-cat marketing has plagued the industry. Every artist now follows the same Twitter strategy: release their album art, teaser trailer for an upcoming video, then the actual video via Twitter. More popular artists are even using label interns to post as them to keep fans coming back. This so called strategy is becoming such a predictable pattern that definitely does get the word out but how much interest does it really generate to turn casual fans into actual consumers?
So what is the future for hip-hop and Twitter? Does Kid Cudi leaving Twitter open the floodgates for other artists to follow suit? Or is he shooting himself in the foot by alienating the potential 18.9 million Twitter viewers out there?
People that “twit” have no lives!!! LOL
I agree with you yet on the fact that twitter is becoming hella saturated. I use twitter but to be honest with you, i find it to be somewhat a waste of time because most people don’t read my tweets. Also, most of the chatter on twitter is meaningless….
In a year every artist and celeb will be on to the next thing. Twitter is fueled by everyone wanting to feel like others really care what they do all day. In the end no one reads anyone elses and there is no point. ESPECIALLY hiphop artists!
Maybe not out in a year – still part of everyones lives not just celebs and artists. But I really dont see it long term. Fade and fizzle like 50 cent.
Wow great article..very well written..
I don’t think Kid Cudi is the floodgate operator, but I think people are gradually losing interest with it, there has been such a huge amount of hype surrounding the new Social media phenomenon that it would of been unrealistic to think the growth would continue.
I think twitter will still be a household name, but the usage will not be as astronomical as it was in the beginning (people need to get back to their lives)
Im on twitter everyday but i get ur point – cats gotta keep it up cuz other cats are. but some point we goin get tired of it. i do it to keep up with everyone but cudi not gonna be the one to stop it. Diddy bounces on it then u kno its done wit.
[...] the industry might be jumping off the Twitter bandwagon, at least we know one good use for it these days…complaining about album sales. Here is Chris [...]
It doesn’t have much to do with hip-hop per se. The hip-hop folks who jumped on the Twitter bandwagon jumped (and will likely jump off) for the same reasons as other celebs and “the masses”…
I think that the real potential for Twitter was only briefly realized, before it was flooded by the tsunami of every-day folks and celebs. Twitter was great for just a few minutes when the only people who knew of/used/understood Twitter, were PR folks, journalist/blogger-types and social media mavens. This batch of people shared pertinent, interesting and informative bits of info back and forth, each-one-teach-one style. Once the masses invaded, the noise became too dense for these types to be able to find much value out of it, and it morphed into mainly yet another (message boards, MySpace, FaceBook) channel for self-promotion, voyeurism and self-expression.
Perhaps in the medium-term (8-16 months), the interest will wane, and the casual users/celebs will fade out, seeking more interesting, fresher means of exercising their narcissism, handing Twitter back to those who enjoy the sharing of valuable information among like-minded individuals.