By Paul Bates

Having attended two key marketing events recently, TFM&A 2010 and the Online Marketing Summit, I found attendees had only one subject they wanted to discuss: Twitter.

The question of everyone’s lips was consistent; is the hype around Twitter a passing trend, as many predict, or does it have a real purpose beyond celebrity voyeurism and throwing your 140-character musings out into the void? What is clear is that many people are questioning the future of Twitter, its uses, and if it’s here to stay.

Admittedly, Twitter may not be as compellingly obvious a platform as Facebook or YouTube, but like all social media platforms, it is evolving fast. I believe the real question is not whether Twitter will still be around next year; the question is what it will become next year, and the year after and so on.

A decade ago, the term social media didn’t mean much to consumers, let alone marketers and corporate executives.

Today, none of us can get away from the term – it’s everywhere. Companies are jumping on the social bandwagon, erecting fan pages on Facebook, developing corporate Twitter accounts, creating groups on LinkedIn and producing channels on YouTube –all in the name of reaching, engaging and influencing customers on a more personal level.

While the game has certainly changed, it feels as if the social media pendulum has swung a bit too far in one direction. But by taking a closer look, it becomes clear that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Social media isn’t new; neither is the idea of sharing short updates with people you are connected to online. Email is considered by many to be the first social network, word-of-mouth marketing has been around for decades and viral marketing isn’t a fresh idea (arguably the pyramid scheme, which dates back to Charles Ponzi, was fueled by viral marketing).

Yes, the mediums have changed, but the underlying fundamentals and human motivators have not. People know how to share information. Companies that recognise this are not pushing content, but are promoting engagement, looking at their customers as skilled knowledge brokers who are adept at reaching the right audiences with the right messages at the right time.

To be an effective marketer today, you need to leverage and monetise both traditional online channels and emerging online channels to reach and influence your audience. This requires not only technology for creating, delivering and monitoring your campaigns, more than ever it requires expertise and understanding in how to use emerging channels appropriately and in cooperation with traditional channels.

Those companies that are willing to step back and take a more philosophical approach to social customer engagement will benefit from stronger customer relationships, more trusted, recognisable brands and incremental revenues.

So, does Twitter have a future? Do social media channels really offer marketers extended reach and enhanced program conversion? I believe that Twitter will continue to exist and serve us largely as it does today, but HOW it does that will evolve organically driven by the user base pushing it beyond its current shortcomings.

In particular, the signal-to-noise ratio is off-balance, with noise (pointless content) often outweighing signal (useful content). The Twitter user community will inevitably find a solution to this, allowing users to (easily and selectively) reduce/eliminate the noise and allow the valuable content to be come through. This will reduce the current attrition that Twitter experiences, and pave the way for innovative new uses cases for Twitter beyond personal updates (location, encounters, experiences, etc), and providing a valued source of content in specific subject areas.

What remains to be seen is whether Twitter becomes as popular as email or if it will be some other platform; it’s only a matter of time before one of them does. Twitter poses unique attributes relative to email, SMS and IM, therefore it will find it’s place once the shortcomings are addressed.

About the author

Paul Bates is UK Managing Director at StrongMail. He is an email marketing veteran with more than 18 years of marketing and sales experience in the UK. Paul regularly speaks about email best practices at industry events and regional seminars, including Internet World UK, Online Marketing Show and eTail Europe.

As UK managing director at StrongMail, Bates is responsible for the company's regional marketing, services and sales programs. Previously, Paul served as UK country manager for Emailvision, a leading provider of email marketing automation software, where he ran the company's UK operations. Prior to that, Bates held senior sales and business development positions with Sybase UK and Embarcadero Europe. Bates began his career with the Royal Air Force.

About StrongMail

StrongMail’s online marketing solutions for email and social media enable businesses to reach, engage and influence their target audience using the most powerful channels available to marketers today. StrongMail gives email marketers the control and support they need to improve campaign performance, boost deliverability and lower costs, while also using the power of social media to extend the reach of their campaigns and brand to new audiences. Combining an easy-to-use email marketing application, high-performance delivery system, viral-marketing tool, social media integration, and a wide range of deliverability, strategic and supporting services, StrongMail makes it possible for companies with all levels of resources and expertise to take advantage of its proven solutions. StrongMail’s clients include global leaders across virtually every industry. To learn more about StrongMail, visit http://www.strongmail.com/company/overview/ or follow online at www.twitter.com/StrongMail or www.facebook.com/StrongMail.