Facebook for example will see a 13.4% increase in US users according to eMarketer. Previous yearly growth was at 38.6% in 2010, and 90.3% in 2009. Twitter has dropped from 293% in 2009 to 26.3% this year and is expected to remain bearish.

This is all very normal as social media evolves and becomes more mature.

In another study conducted by Gartner asked over 6,000 people between the ages 0f 13 and 74 about their current social media habits and 24% of the respondents stated that they used their favorite social sites less, while 37% stated that they were using favorite social sites more.

“The trend shows some social media fatigue among early adopters, and the fact that 31% of Aspirers [younger, more mobile, brand-conscious consumers] indicated that they were getting bored with their social network is a situation that social media providers should monitor, as they will need to innovate and diversify to keep consumer attention,” said Brian Blau, research director at Gartner.

While some are casually summing up this trend as mere boredom there may be more to it than that.

“One of the biggest pushbacks I hear from people when I talk about how wonderful I think Google+ will be for business professionals is that they’re tired. They’re tired of joining a new social network. They’re tired of going through the dance of re-adding their friends and connections on yet another platform. They’re tired of having to think up even more content for yet another platform, after having finally committed to Facebook or Twitter or wherever else.” –Chris Brogan

If people are bored using social media, or are begrudged to sign up on new networks they may have found a home on sites like Instagram and Wattpad.

Following conventional wisdom of “social media boredom” when Instagram hit the mobile app scene you may have chalked them up as road kill.  But you would be dead wrong.  Instagram has signed up 5 Million users, or “625,000 users for every month they’ve been in existence.”  Wattpad, which is an eReading community and network has seen record growth of up to 300% and more still their android app had four times the growth this January than December last year.

Users lost to the big social media sites have shifted over to mobile applications and other social sites that have successfully zeroed in on specific interests.  Where these users specific passions were only stroked on traditional social media sites, they are now totally engorged on niche sites and apps.

If you are a brand or a business this is not terribly bad news, but a call for the creation of compelling content and unique approaches.  Social media users are getting more savvy and technical, and if your business is to stay in stride with its consumers then this should be a call to where social media is going.

Update 8/23/11 14:57: To better clarify the slow down of registrants on Twitter and Facebook, vs the Gartner poll of user habits the sentence “This is all very normal as social media evolves and becomes more mature” has been moved up to better distinguish the two ideas.  The statistics are a testament to the sheer size of these networks which has engulfed a very large amount of users and cannot sustain that kind of growth any longer because the pool of new users has run dry.  This is expected.  The Garnter poll however, shows us that a quarter of social media users have become bored and use these sites less.  My thoughts are that they have hopped over to new sites and apps as explained in the rest of this post.

Good news has dawned on us -  Twitter frickin’ ROCKS!!!

But, we all knew that.  Yet, we insisted to skinny dip in tall glasses of Facebook euphoria.  Even while on Twitter, we may have hindered our experiences by remaining reminiscent of Facebook.

They are different monsters through and through and Facebook is a great platform, but Twitter is going to have a new day w/ Brands. Maybe because FB is so much more tame that business that have warmed up to it first; Twitter may now demand a more serious look.

Enough.  And to the numbers:

In a recent report from Exact Target it’s been found that daily active Twitter users — AKA, the consumers who actually reach out to or follow brands via Twitter — are 3x more likely to amplify the influence of that brand than, say, a Facebook user would.

• 72% publish blog posts at least once a month
• 70% comment on others’ blog posts
• 61% write at least one product review a month
• 61% comment on news sites
• 56% write articles for third-party sites
• 53% post videos online
• 50% make contributions to wiki sites
• 48% share deals found through coupon forums

In essence: What happens on Twitter doesn’t stay on Twitter.

If that isn’t enough for you then hear this:  Twitter is the KING of referral traffic.  That’s right.

Here’s how that goes down…Twitter got fed up of 3rd party Twitter clients having their cake and eating it too, and pulled the rug from everyone’s feet by enforcing all referring traffic to have the t.co URL – that’s a Twitter URL vs a some 3rd party app like UberMedia.

Where as before, because it was only possible to track traffic coming from Twitters web interface, it was impossible to truly measure the impact Twitter brought through referrals. Going forward, you’ll begin to see the influence the entire Twitter ecosystem (and specific tweets) have on the traffic to your site.

I get it and support it, but that’s throwing wood in a blazing fireplace.

It’s a new day.  Twitter finally will get the respect that it deserves.

I didn’t win anything, but I feel somewhat like these folks in this video:

(Updated: 08/21/2011 10:52)

Because people approach Social Media in a temperamental fashion, I feel the need to post this.  On Twitter, the amount of followers one has is a sensitive area.  Social media is such a fickle area that there are not many things concrete.  Social media is situational.

I hover around 10,000 followers and I follow about the same.  Some people accept that, some people don’t.  I’ve always approached social media as a means to an end, and not as a means to itself.  If you think that I’ve inflated my numbers just to appear like a gran jefe (big shot) you are dead wrong.

Below are both a long story and short story…

Here’s the skinny: On Twitter, I currently follow roughly 10,000 people and they follow me because I have my account set on auto-follow. I auto-follow people based on key words and I follow back anyone who follows me.

If we were in a court room, any good lawyer would try to corner me in stating the above without the explaining my position.  “Is it true that you auto-follow people, yes or no Mr Pagan?!? Yes or no?” Thankfully the democratic properties of social media keeps us unbound.

Here’s the long story…

When I started on Twitter, I wanted to hit the ground running and my approach was to throw a very large net to find as many relevant conversations about Latinos and Hispanics (two of the many key words I used) that I could find.   Thankfully, the same principles for networking applies to Twitter and I used what I learned in the blogosphere in order to grow very fast.  Same game, different tools.

When building a community you do not want to miss an opportunity to connect with others…thus the auto following and key words.  (I am aware that some artificially inflate their numbers just to showcase they have a large following.  Be careful not to believe the hype on some of these individuals as they only seek to deceive and wield their influence, which has  never been my intention.  By the way, I have a track record for building something and then leaving it once it is self-sustaining or are in capable hands of others.  This has nothing to do with leaving things undone or incomplete follow through, but are rungs on the ladder until I reach my goal – it’s all part of growth and a destination.  This has kept me very honest when dealing with social media.)  Any organization or company who does social media right monitors it for relevant key words.  They have the resources – I’d hope – to evaluate the validity of such leads and choose the best way to engage them, or not.  Unfortunately, I do not have the time to evaluate each connection. This is the other half of the main reason on why the auto-settings stuck – lack of time.

Another reason that I auto-follow back is because some people get very personal when you don’t follow them back and unfollow you later.  Again, it’s about the big net and not missing out on opportunities to connect with others.

There are a couple of approaches on networking when you are an organization or a company.  My approach to building a Latino community on Twitter took on a personal signature, meaning I used my own personal account for what I believed in.  This approach was the one that I felt would work best.

There’s a quality vs quantity issue here and this is where some BIG divisions on what is the right way to use Twitter or not.  Many people have their opinions on what is the right way and what is the wrong way.  I’d say show me the results of what you’ve done and that should be enough to make a decision on what works or not.

Going Forward

After re-evaluating the auto-settings on my account (you should always re-evaluate your social media approach every 3-6 months b/c attitudes and perceptions change over time), I am going to clean up my account and do a mass un-following over a period of time and removing the auto-follow and key word settings.  It served it’s purpose and that’s that.  The fruits of labor is the validation.

Subtitle: Get to the core of the matter

Here are a couple of examples of technology simplified:

Facebook. One of the most popular social media application on the planet. All it is really is an advanced message board.

Twitter. Hailed as Cadillac of micro-blogging and one of the most popular social media applications sitting alongside Facebook.  At it’s core it’s an advanced text messaging platform.

Yes, their innovative.  Yes, their useful and relevant to much of what we do.  And yes, they work. Strip away all the bells and whistles, and look under the hood to gain an intimate understanding.

I can go on for days like this…can you come up with one?

Fight Club.

Tyler Durden: You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis. You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

Self-importance – a pompous  facade to simply try and save face.

If Tyler was talking about social media:

You’re not your blog. You’re not how many Facebook friends you have.  You’re not the amount of your Twitter followers. Your not who retweets you. You’re not your fucking Klout score.  You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the internet.

Despite being told we should spread ourselves equally on a few social media platforms, everyone has a favorite.

Somewhere we develop an affinity with the small differences that makes each site unique. Maybe because of a site’s features, we feel that our personality is able to express itself more readily, or maybe we understand how one site works over another and feelings of familiarity wins us over.

There can be other reasons like “I’ve been using XYZ site for years – it’s all I know,” or the results of friendships, traffic or popularity makes us sneer with satisfaction.

I have two favorites: Twitter and my blog. For the simple fact that I’ve made great things happen on Twitter, and leverage knows no bounds. As for my blog, I can do what I want, when I want and whatever I want here.

What’s your favorite?

It’s been almost 9 months since I did the first comparison on Twitter Venn for Latino + Hispanic + Mexican to prove that the term Latino is preferred over Hispanic with users on the web (Hispanic is preferred in the ‘real’ world).  The study was to see what term was being used more on Twitter – Latino or Hispanic?  (I threw in ‘Mexican’ in from my experience as a blogger and the knowledge I gained of Mexican bloggers.)

The current results shows an increase on all terms from the initial comparison, and still reflects the same relationships:  ‘Mexican’ is used more than ‘Latino’, and ‘Latino’ used more than ‘Hispanic’ on Twitter.

Although I strongly suspect that these terms are being used more because Twitter’s usage has grown, I can not state it as fact because these charts were done on different days, and at different times.  From my experience, what I do know is those who are Mexican better identify with that term, rather than Latino or Mexican and I’m sure it’s the same with other groups.

I am interested in what you’re conclusions are, or if you’ve seen other data in relation to this.

UPDATE 11/03/2010:  What I failed to mention here is that Mexican may be used more than others because of the immigration situation going on here in the United States.

]]> http://louispagan.com/twitter-venn-mexicans-beat-latinos-and-hispanics/feed/ 11 http://louispagan.com/how-to-stop-twitter-from-updating-facebook/ http://louispagan.com/how-to-stop-twitter-from-updating-facebook/#comments Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:25:54 +0000 Louis Pagan http://louispagan.com/?p=2125 I’m pretty active in social media.  The main platform I use is Twitter.  My challenge was staying relevant across each medium spectrum that I wanted to remain relevant.

So, when the ability to seamlessly integrate Twitter and Facebook (as well as LinkedIn), I jumped at the opportunity.  Problem was, Facebookers are a different ‘monster’ than the Twitter crowd.

“You are not a normal Facebook user,” I was told “so I hid your status updates.”  !

Twitter is a full frontal social media assault platform, and hardcore Facebook users are not used to the multiple updates Twitter users perform.  That and other reasons – Facebook is more personal – leaves my Facebook followers with a bad taste in their mouths.

Here’s How To Stop Twitter From Updating Facebook

1. Find Applications and Websites in privacy settings, find Twitter and select ‘edit your settings.’
2. Under Applications You Use find Twitter (you may have to select edit if you have multiple programs like I do).
3. Find Twitter and select Edit Settings.
4. At bottom of list there’s a setting called “Post to my Wall.” Remove it.

When you’re done it should look something like the above (I had already removed the setting before doing this post), which I’ll be removing as a whole after this post.

If you do Seesmic, or any other 3rd party application and tied it to Twitter you should do the same for that application as well.  I left one application that can update Facebook, as well as all of my social media sites in one swoop.  There are just some messages that you may want to cover everything.

Did this help?  How do you update multiple platforms?

I never believed in success at first try.  Other than being very lucky, success is a process and takes time.

So, I’m comfortable and happy with LATISM being # 5 – one day LATISM will be numero uno.

Thanks to the continued efforts to all the members on Thursday night’s Tweet Parties.

Check out the LATISM site for details on how you can get your ribbon and the Twitter party tonight.