I saw a study the other day from the Harvard Business School that states Twitter usage may not be as widespread as you may believe, given the deluge of media coverage lately and how often you are hearing the name (all the time). I would generally agree with Harvard, as I think most people still don’t have Twitter accounts, and most of the ones that do are just occasional users. But I also think that our town bucks this trend. St. Louis is actually an up and coming stronghold of social media.
The study by Harvard put forth some interesting statistics, most notably that 90% of all the “tweets” come from only 10% of the Twitter users. Whether that is true or not is probably not knowable, but it would seem to be supported by another study that suggests most people give up on Twitter after about a month. What this means in the long term for Twitter is debatable, but there is little doubt that whatever the medium, people are embracing social media and social networking in one form or another. St. Louis is no exception. There are a lot of dedicated users here, and what’s more, a lot of them are just as interested in seeing St. Louis as a whole prosper as they are in their own endeavors. There is a growing sense of community, and from what I can tell, everyone genuinely has an enthusiastic outlook about where this trend is going. I started a calendar to track events around town, and there are others like it popping up all the time.
One of the biggest proponents of this trend is Todd Jordan. Todd is a blogger and twitter power user who is doing as much as anyone in this town to put it on the social media map. I asked him what he thought about St. Louis’ social media status and he said “St. Louis social media is just in its infancy. It seems hot but it’s only hot for a very tiny audience. Once it really opens up, there will be more events than we can ever get to by one person”.
Another local social media presence, Melody Meiners, founder of the blog Girls’ Guide To the Galaxy weighed in as well, “I think there are some people who would say we only think [we have a thriving social media community], but compared to other Midwest cities we are actually pretty decent.” She went on to add that she does think there is some division over the interest in and the intent of the local community.
I agree with both of them, and my point is that you have a chance here to get involved in something before a lot of other people pile in. The Twitter you hear about on the Tonight Show is not the Twitter I am talking about. You can follow Ashton Kutcher if you want, and tune in to hear about his experiences at the grocery store, but I am telling you there is more to it than that. In St. Louis there is a local community of interesting people just starting to come together. If you live elsewhere, search out your community, or start one if you can’t find it.
I would love to read your thoughts in the comments.
NOTES
When tweeting about St. Louis, please consider using the #STL hashtag.
The two people I mentioned here are both putting talk into action:
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Todd Jordan weighed in on this same topic at his blog, The Broad Brush.
On Twitter Todd is @tojosan
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Melody Meiners is hosting an event on June 11, click on my calendar link, find her event on June 11, there is a link to her site for more details
On Twitter Melody is @cosmosgirl
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and me…I’m on Twitter too, @execbp. I want to hear about your events too, so fill me in if you know of any.
