Over the holidays one has time to think about things. Looking back on social media trends of the past year, such as increasing Twitter usage, and the current economic situation, one finds one's self asking the following question:
Can companies afford to use Twitter?
In situations like the current economic downturn companies are looking to reduce cost and/or increase productivity. We've all heard that social media is being touted as a low cost means of establishing an online presence. Company profiles are showing up on Facebook and executives are communicating with customers on Twitter. Services like Twitter are free to use. Free is good. But how much does it really cost the company when corporate executives use Twitter?
Before I start on the analysis, let me say we love Twitter. Having said that, I took a look at the Twitter usage of three executives: a light Twitter user with an average of 20 tweets per month; a moderate Twitter user with an average of 110 tweets per month; and one heavy Twitter user with, on average, over 500 tweets per month (names withheld to protect the guilty).
Now let's assume that it takes one minute to post a tweet. Let's also assume that for each tweet we post we read five others. Each tweet we read is not going to have the same response time. If we read five tweets for every one we post, one tweet may take three minutes to read if, for instance, we are directed to external items, another may take one minute, and the other three may take thirty seconds. For arguments sake, let's say that for each tweet we post we spend about 5.5 minutes reading other tweets.
Therefore each tweet posted is equivalent to 6.5 minutes of one's time. For the light user that translates to 70 minutes of Twitter usage a month. For the moderate user that's 385 minutes and the heavy user it is 1,750 minutes per month.
All of these executives work at the same company yielding 4095 minutes, or 63.25 hours a month on Twitter-related activities. That is 819 hours a year. If each executive has a loaded cost base of, on average, $88/hour that's an investment of $6006 per month or $72,072 per annum.
That is a significant investment in a "free" service.
That's not close to the total investment either. If you have an environment where the executives are using Twitter the employees of that company are likely following them on Twitter as well. If the executives are accessing Twitter at work, so are the employees. The cost of using Twitter is thus even higher than $72,072 for the company.
There are lots of arguments in favor of using Twitter. Companies can track what people are saying about their product and respond in real time. It provides branding and PR opportunities as well as the ability to track trends. Twitter also allows corporations to put a professional yet human face on their company, be it through customer service representative or an executive. It is another opportunity to build relationships. The list of great things that Twitter provides goes on and on.
Twitter definitely has value, I'm not questioning that. Rather, I'm questioning whether or not Twitter provides the best value in time and money spent for your company. What could those executives do with their 819 hours a year to build the business? What could your employees be doing in those untold hours they spend tracking the executives on Twitter? If you had $72,000 to invest in your business what would you do with it?