Here's an off-the-wall idea: I think Trump will kill Twitter. Twitter has pretty much always been useless. I've been in marketing for over 10 years, and there has never once been an ounce of data that backed up any sort of Twitter campaign. But people kept doing it because... well... people kept doing it. (And FOMO.) Now the essential uselessness of Twitter is illustrated every single day by Trump tweeting out things that are so entirely baseless and childish, that the entire platform is beginning to look like a joke, even to diehard fans of it. It will be funny when Twitter finally does go tits up, and The Donald doesn't have that outlet any more... I expect he will begin raging around the White House, hurling lamps at paintings, because he has no other outlet for his tiny-dick rage.
The thing about twitter, is that corporations take it very seriously. So it's my go-to place to go vent any frustrations I have. And tweet at some minot celebrities in hopes to attract their attention. And spongebob memes. I have a friend that's been branding himself a "growthhacker" and his twitter is basically automated, replying to people, re-tweeting, re-posting. He's gaining followers by the minute but how many of these people are even real? So useless...
And this is the key thing. Once you start digging into Twitter, you find that there are isolated pockets of users who are very active. Black Twitter. Customer Service. Affinity circles. But more than 80% of the activity on Twitter is never seen by human eyes. The people who actually use Twitter as a communications medium use it as a tertiary or even fourth-level platform. Twitter is already an afterthought. Trump's presence and bloviating will further diminish the last remnants of "business tool" sheen that Twitter has, and it will slide quickly into irrelevance. See: MySpace. but how many of these people are even real?
Don't they do it because of how ubiquitous Twitter is in many people's lives? The same thing happens on Facebook now, with companies replying to real people who comment on what they've posted. Point is - corporations will find an Internet social communication apparatus; the name doesn't matter.The thing about twitter, is that corporations take it very seriously.
Eh, I bet they do it because it fits well in some corporate checklist and it's easily quantifiable. You don't see that many corporations active on reddit (in an official way, not saying they're not trying to sneak in corporate shills) in comparison.
That might be because Twitter is faceless (it has no identity of its own) and tolerates even worst of humanity's traits being published uncensored. Facebook is similarly faceless: it, like Twitter, is just a platform to post stuff. Reddit, on the other hand, is a subculture with defined traits, one of which is disdain/hatred for corporations. Posting there is as much political (in the sense of being defined by common external interest - Zeitgeist, in this instance) as it is personal.
Everyone's twitter is basically automated. "corporations take it very seriously" means that there are keywords and metrics and they can measure if your hate-fest about their bad customer service gets retweeted enough for them to give a shit. But that's about it. Seriously. get up on Hootsuite and create some original content with keywords in it. You'll gain about a dozen followers in an hour. Keep it up and you'll gain an extra dozen every time you post. None of them are human - they're automated bots to add to link networks. I forget the statistic but if you have over 100 followers you're in the top 1% of Twitter users. I can't wait for it to die.