By Chris Lee

Microblogging service Twitter has already proved its value in many ways, breaking news stories and even leading to arrests, but despite having more than 100 million registered users worldwide terms such as “echo chamber” have been attributed to the site.

While Twitter may boast so many registered accounts, those that are actually active form a very small percentage. According to some figures, around a fifth of accounts are inactive, while half of users are “lazy” - i.e. they have not posted in the last week. Of the rest, after excluding spambots, there remains an active minority with a significant following via whom users could potentially establish a connection of value.

Does this mean Twitter’s value is limited and bit of a bubble? To address whether this is truly the case, a number of UK-based online PR communicators engaged in a live online debate recently. NMK caught up with two of the protagonists behind the debate – freelance consultant Emily Cagle and Adam Vincenzini of PR firm Paratus Communications.

Keeping it real

“When I say that we're stuck in a Twitter bubble, I'm really addressing how we view Twitter when we're inside it,” Cagle told NMK. “I see tweets all the time that suggest that a cross-section of views shared on Twitter are representative of the population. Of course, this simply isn't the case. What I mean by this is that if you're using Twitter regularly, you're already the type of person that actively engages on social media. OK, that's still a wide sub-set, but it's a sub-set nonetheless. We're talking a tiny percentage (two per cent) of the population here, and an even tinier percentage is actually active.”

Cagle added that active Twitter users tend to gravitate towards those with similar interests, which in turn creates a smaller community with common ground. The challenge, she believes, comes when Twitter users forget that they are communicating in a filtered environment and think that what happens on Twitter mirrors the real world.

“We're living in a little community and pretending it's the whole world. All I ask is that we remember that a Twit Poll tells us what tweeps [Twitter users] think, not what people think,” she said.

Virtual reality

For Adam Vincenzini, Twitter – like other social networks – is simply an extension of who its users are.

“I wouldn’t say Twitter is representative of real life, far from it in fact. However, the people hitting the buttons, responding to comments and sharing links are real people,” he told NMK. “They aren’t machines (mostly), they aren’t hiding behind a false username or identity, they are just regular people sharing their thoughts, opinions, and most importantly, time.”

As to the results of the online debate, Cagle’s assertion that “Twitter is a defined group of people who share common interests and that if we ask Twitter to help with decision making we have to accept that this is akin to asking a group of friends with similar attitudes, beliefs and ideals” won the debate with 74 per cent of votes.

Other debate contributors argued that while Twitter users may often form links with like-minded people, the environment can be an extension of ‘the real world’ as it’s often the place people hear news first, wherever it occurs.

Vincenzini concluded: “Twitter is what you want it to be. There is no right or wrong and there are no rules. As long as you are real you’ll be OK.”