Has it finally happened? Has twitter crossed the invisible line that separates cool, relevant social media to irrelevant declining social media? First MySpace, now (slowly) Facebook, Twitter seems to be the next one to go.
As with all social media, the cool kids (i.e. teens and preteens) dictate what’s hot and what’s not. They are the first ones to jump on to new trends, with adults, businesses, and brands ultimately following. Some of these latter followers can successfully infiltrate these media and reach the kids. But once too many have come in, the cool kids feel that their social media haven is full of “old people” and move on to the next big thing.
Thanks to South by Southwest in 2010, Twitter was the next big thing for quite a while. But now, things like Instagram, Vine (for a little while) and Snapchat (unexplainable by anyone over the age of 29) have swooped in. Twitter used to be the go-to for a quick update as to what was going on in someone’s life, where they were, who they were with, etc. But as always, a picture is better than 140 characters of text and Twitter is slowly losing steam.
Businesses, brands, and news media have been able to take advantage of the quick pace of Twitter, feeding out information to audiences very easily. However, the social aspect is on the decline. People rarely tweet strictly for social purposes, and rarely check twitter for social purposes either. It is either to garner information, communicate with a business (usually an airline) or to read funny parody accounts.
The little blue bird isn’t totally irrelevant yet, but its safe to say it’s no longer on the rise. Will Twitter be able to make a social comeback or will it need to rebrand as more of a news/update media than a social one?
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