I was asked by a collegue of mine today (who is a digital strategist at a media company) "Would you say the majority of twitterers are business owners or consultants?"


I had to have a little think about it - but here is my interpretation of who uses twitter and why it matters.


The majority of twitter users today are either innovators or change agents. The kinds of early adopters that influence decisions - both socially and within their business communities.


They are the people that other people go to with questions about how things work or who to choose as a service provider. They most likely tell their friends about new products or services before the mainstream knows about it. They probably have a blog. They also probably influence directly at least one CXO level decision maker.


This makes them especially influential and powerful as a group of consumer influencers but they are more savvy and elusive than most and generally dislike advertising/marketing.

Connecting with these influencers is not something that your PR agency is well suited to - and there are no shortcuts in becoming a trusted influencer within these influencers. And it is very difficult to engage Twitter communities as an immediate marketing/sales tool for your company.

To earn the right and privilege to engage this community to your benefits you have to become an innovator or change agent yourself. And you must add value to the network before the network starts adding value to you. You must be authentic, interesting, transparent and most of all - be prepared to tell the world what you had for breakfast every day of the week :)



What are your thoughts? Who do you think uses twitter?