Twitter turns toward entertainment?

24 August 2009 448 views Comments

While doing my routine Monday morning blog catchup, I noticed an article via Mashable about Twitter’s turn toward entertainment over news, tech, etc.

The post struck me because as an avid twitter user, I just don’t feel like Twitter is predominately entertainment-based. Yes, I tweet when I like a movie and I’ve seen those I follow do the same. However, I would argue that entertainment-based tweets only make up about 5% of the tweets that I notice through my stream.

Of course, maybe I’m stuck in my little PR/marketing/social media world and those I follow happen to be there as well. So I decided to do a little research myself…

trendingtopics What I’ve found is that over the weekends, yes – Twitter is predominately about movies, music, and the like. However, during the week when we’re all back to the daily grind, the trending topics list sways back toward a more mixed bag of technology, conferences, AND entertainment.

So I could argue that Twitter’s not mainly entertainment based, but rather very generally based. IMO, there’s a little something for everyone. Twitter’s not just entertainment, not just news, not just tech…but rather a little bit of everything…which is reflective of who we are as people.

Just because I’m a PR pro, doesn’t mean I don’t like music and movies. Just because my boyfriend, Michael, is an avid gamer, doesn’t mean he doesn’t also like to know about the latest technologies, etc, etc, etc.

Twitter is truly reflective of our lives, and can be used an adapted to fit almost anyone’s lifestyle. And while Twitter’s trending topics may begin to shift more mainstream as the audience broadens, it’s important to remember that you can get whatever you want out of Twitter. – All it takes is a little time to find the right people to follow.

It’s just further proof of that value Twitter provides: to our jobs and our lives.

What do you think? What has Twitter been for you? And do you think Twitter is shifting toward a more entertainment-based social network?

@mikeschaffer

I've been changing how I use Twitter. For the past several months, I've been using it to connect with publicists, build a network...and promote my blog :)

However, in the past several weeks, I have begun managing all of my company's social media activities, giving me a new relationship with Twitter.

Instead of finding like-minded people, I've been reaching out to potential users of my clients. Brave new world!

Sasha H. Muradali

I think you're absolutely right. I mean i get a TON of news tweets into my feed. Again, that's probably because I live in PR World. However, I also tweet about trends, movies and music -- also, I read about those in my stream as well.

So I don't think Twitter is all about entertainment. I would say its more about trends and what's in the "now."

The thing is, whatever is in the "now" could be anything.

It could be an Iranian civil war, an Amazon fail or a ComicCon. It really depends on the day of the week and what's going on in the world.

Excellent observation Nicole!