Harvard, Twitter and the Pareto Principle

A Harvard Business School study, as reported by Reuters, raises a serious question on the value of Twitter for businesses. Relying upon research by Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, results show greater than 50% of Twitter users will tweet less than one time every ten to eleven weeks. Along with that, many have witnessed Twitter struggling to keep their system running, due to an overload of tweets, apparently by 10% of all Twitter users; who are responsible for blasting out 90% of all tweets. What an interesting twist on the Pareto principle.

Fail Whale says Twitter is Over Capacity

Notwithstanding there are some companies utilizing the social value of Twitter, one would have to question whether or not tweeting holds much value for smaller companies. The Harvard study seems to indicate that of all Twitter users they will tweet on average only once during their Twitter lifetime.

What do the ten percent that are responsible for 90% of the tweeting, tweet about? Although there are some tweets about news events, there are also some who simply troll for followers, by repeatedly tweeting a rotated set of keywords. However, the bulk of the tweets I have seen are MLM related, or attempting to sell their information or services. The same tweets are repeated over and over again; many of which, are too incredible to be true. Obviously, all of the people who say they are making twenty gazillion dollars per month; or who can show you how to get 50,000 followers in 90 days on autopilot, are not making the money they say, nor is it possible to build these empires on autopilot. It is, however, possible to send out thousands of tweets making these claims.

Twitter needs to figure out a way to minimize the SPAM that is flowing in the tweets; otherwise the value to businesses and to individuals will quickly diminish; and the only sustainability will be the smell of Hormel on Pareto;s plate.

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