Newsweek reported that protesters are demanding Twitter's CEO to step down if he is unable to remove US President Donald Trump from Twitter. The protesters have launched a campaign "@Jack is complicit" to highlight the role Twitter has played in promoting Donald Trump.

(See the @realDonaldTrump tweet that sparked off the recent outrage)



All the hype about Twitter doesn't seem to be relevant at all. Twitter has been around for almost 10 years now and is one of the oldest social networking sites. In the last decade the site has been able to add and maintain only 330 million monthly active users when reported last and the company has never revealed the number of daily active users worldwide but is believed to be less than half of it's monthly active users. Compare this to the number of internet users worldwide, which is 3.8 billion, nearly half of the world's population! If we look at the top 3 countries of internet users - China has 750 million, India has 460 million and United States has nearly 300 million connected to the internet. 

What is apparent is that the number of Twitter users among internet users worldwide are minuscule. More than 100 million internet users in India are not on Twitter at all.

If we take a moment to stop and distance ourselves from the social media frenzy, we may notice that Twitter may not be relevant to a vast number of audiences, simply because they are not there (and are not following tweets from Donald Trump).

But Twitter is a big deal! Twitter's merit as a platform for breaking news is well established. It is also the broadcast tool of choice for the high and the mighty. It is also great to establish direct contact with influential people. And, the media loves it. It gives journalists  direct access to sources and their commentaries. Twitter derives its influence precisely from this, the fact that it manages to get media amplification for activities on the platform. The current trend of news media reporting on Twitter reactions, Twitter feeds, is what keeps the platform going. It's unfortunate that precious media space gets used up in such a manner, pushing issues of the day out of the public discourse.


It would be interesting to see if media decides to ignore Twitter updates of important people and what that would do to Twitter's business. The media should also stop obsessing about Donald Trump's tweets as he operates within a highly evolved democratic framework of institutions with robust checks and balances. It should recognize when it gets played.

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Much has been written about the US State Department spending USD 630,000 to "buy millions of Facebook 'likes' on it's Facebook page. A story by AFP in the Indian newspaper Mint reported the following,

"A scathing report by the department’s independent watchdog took the coordinators of its social media outreach policy to task saying it needed to “direct its digital advertising to specific public diplomacy goals ...

The report by the Office of the inspector general found that two advertising campaigns launched in 2011 and 2012 cost some $630,000 with the “goal of building global outreach platforms for engagement with foreign audiences by increasing the number of fans... on four thematic Facebook properties.”

Many in the bureau criticize the advertising campaigns as ‘buying fans’ who may have once clicked on a post or ‘liked’ a photo but have no real interest in the topic and have never engaged further.."

While the idea of directing tax dollars to buy Facebook 'likes' may seem atrocious to many but the criticism is not fair. While the amount spent may be debated, but the buying of 'likes' reflects the State Department's astute marketing sense and aggressive style - which is good. It also shows an understanding of the concept of 'social proofing' that matters in digital marketing,

"an attempt to guide user behavior by showcasing social influence. Facebook ‘Like’ is the most common example"

A higher ratio of Facebook Likes implies higher influence, popularity and more often than not influences others to explore. People are more likely to engage with a page that has already received large perceptible acceptance. 

While some may feel that the ideal scenario is to build the fan page organically; it is time, effort and resource intensive and promoting the page can take much longer. Also, keep in mind that it is dependent on posting meaningful content ... and achieving the level of streamlined collaboration that is required to source content within a bureaucracy, and the vastness of the State Department, would have made organic growth difficult.  Nonetheless, by making its page dynamic and reaching out to a larger group, specific public diplomacy goals would have been realized by more engagement. 

Similar to 'Likes' on Facebook,  Twitter following is another example of social proofing. See the following infographic from social selling university on the practice of buying Twitter followers. Do I see Obama?




Suggestions/Critiques welcome.

-- Madhur

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Some useful resources:

• How to Write a Great Twitter Post

• How To Write The Perfect Tweet

• Tweets that click

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