In a Short-Lived Twitter...

According the the following article in the Sydney Morning Herald, more than 60 percent of new Twitter signups do not return after a month of using the site.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/twitter-users-not-sticking-around-20090429-amhm.html

The question is, what does this say about the usefulness of Twitter as a marketing tool for business? The article does say that Twitter has enjoyed exponential growth in 2009, due in part to celebrity endorsement of the site.

My opinion about all this centres around quality. Who do you want to follow on Twitter, and who do you want to follow you? Personally I don't want trend-governed celebrity followers. I seek out fellow writers, fellow social media enthhusiasts, people I can learn from and people I can bounce ideas off. The people who use Twitter properly know of its advantages. There's a bona-fide community comprised of like-minded people who are reaping the benefits of Twitter membership right now.

For business this is great news. Any organisation seeks to enhance its image and build awareness of its brand and product/service by targeting specific markets and demographics. Twitter provides one avenue by which to do this. It doesn't matter if 60 percent of users are gone after the first month - they are probably not the people you are trying to talk to anyway.