How Twitter Automated the Word-of-Mouth

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By Jacob Maslow

Twitter on iPhone screen
Twitter profile on iPhone 5s

Word-of-mouth used to be very difficult. Somebody has to pick up the phone for word-of-mouth to spread. Moreover, somebody has to be motivated enough to spread the word. As you can tell from these descriptions, there are many different hoops a particular message has to go through for it to gain traction.

 

With Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), on the other hand, word-of-mouth can spread like wild fire. You can have as little as five followers, but if you have the right followers, and you share the right kind of content; you can easily become an overnight celebrity. That’s how exponential the reach of Twitter is.

 

How does this work? Very simple. Your followers also have other followers. Their followers have other followers as well. Even if you have very few followers but one of your followers has a ton of followers, your message can have a huge reach. If you send content that engages your influential followers, you increase the likelihood that they would spread your link far and wide. This is how Twitter automates word-of-mouth. This is also important to note because it highlights the power of influence in Twitter. Not every Twitter member is listened to. Not every Twitter user is influential.

 

By targeting influential Twitter users, you can explode your marketing message. This is the great opportunity Twitter offers to advertisers. Unfortunately, this is not being monetized enough by Twitter. Twitter is still playing the tired game of simply copying Facebook’s monetization system. The real money in Twitter is automating influence marketing. Of course, this still boils down to the quality of the content being shared but a lot can be said about the power of influence. If Twitter is serious about generating a heavy revenue stream, it has to focus on building a business model on influence marketing on Twitter.

 

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