Twitter takes a hit on retention, but that could be a good thing.

So the numbers are in and at first glance Twitter takes a hit with a low retention rate. According to Nielsen Wire, “Currently, more than 60 percent of Twitter users fail to return the following month, or in other words, Twitter’s audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month’s users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent. For most of the past 12 months, pre-Oprah, Twitter has languished below 30 percent retention.”

Before you let your executives think that this means Twitter is not a fit for your company or you decide to dismiss the opportunity, remember this: most influencers display higher rates of technology use and are early adopters. With this in mind, you have an opportunity to clarify your message to a group of very desirable people. People who have a distinct interest in being engaged and are more likely to engage and influence those around them.

Going back to my earlier post stating that no single social network can be all things to all people, I again think that having a variety of social networks is a good thing. Distinctive networks will allow you to communicate in different ways and will help you build specific relationships with different groups based on how they want to receive their information.

Not every customer wants to be engaged at the level that social networks allow. Be sure to understand your social audience and the opportunity. Someone who follows you on Facebook may not be the same customer that follows you on Twitter, or comments on your blog posts. Sure, you will have some that do it all, but use social to track behavior and better understand the profiles of your key influencing base of customers. Take this information to better segment your approach to connect with people the way they want to be connected with for the best returns.

I see this lower retention rate being the equivalent of cycling out the weaker links (in terms of targeting influencers). And I have a pretty good feeling if the retention rates of other networks were compared, they would be very similar.

The future, I am sure, will bring plenty of new technologies to help us use social behavior to understand our customers in new ways that we have yet to realize. So get out there and engage, learn and prepare for a very quick evolution of social. Our marketing efforts are going to be kept on their toes.

Follow me @mpriestarnold.

Profit ruins everything... Unless you have authentic brand!

So here we are again. Another tech company that experienced one-time great success taken over by the immediacy of monetization. Of course with the crippled traditional media market, business people are salivating over anything that reaches the masses and has the capability of filling the advertising void, so I understand why MySpace (and many others) are eager to make their business plans work.

For the sake of full disclosure, I am not a MySpace fan, but value the importance of having several varieties of social networks to hit across all demographic segments. Anyone who thinks one social network can be it all to every audience is a bit naive. Facebook should not be Twitter, and MySpace should not be Facebook. How each network allows you to be social, will attract certain types of people. And that's OK. We all know competition is good.

But back to my point... I am very curious to see how the very networks, which are all about providing an authentic vehicle for people to be themselves, may quickly take a very unauthentic path. What does all this mean? MySpace needs to figure out what it is (beyond just being another social network) before it can reach sustainable success. It won't matter who they put in place or how smart they are. If MySpace doesn't know who it is as a brand, and what its authentic brand purpose is, it will inevitably fail. I can only hope they know this, but are not sharing, and are using their insider understanding to recruit executive talent that align with their purpose. If not, they are especially doomed if the only agreed upon understanding of purpose is to drive profit, and fast.

Good luck MySpace. I need you to make a successful go at this change - there are advertisers looking to target your audience. You just need to clarify who your audience is and what your relationship needs to be with them.