Today’s WSJ story by Tom Gara, “Twitter Users: Real or Fake?” leads this blogger to suggest that Mr. Gara might have tripped over this blogger’s recent tweets (and posts) that question the viability and integrity of Twitter’s advertising model-the key ingredient for those contemplating investing in the unprofitable company’s upcoming public offering.
Per the WSJ article, “An undetermined millions of Twitter’s 215 million accounts (which is who advertisers target) are of questionable legitimacy..” The article suggests that 5% of Twitter’s “audience” are so-called “bots” –which are not human eyeballs, but merely artificially-created. We, along with industry experts, believe the real number of ‘fake users’ is upwards of 15%.
What’s the big deal? Well, the big deal is that brand marketers and advertisers are the bread and butter of Twitter’s business model. If many of the targeted audience are not really real people, where’s the beef for the business?
Reminding us of the iconic branding campaign courtesy of Parkay Margarine
#TwitterIPO: #Marketers Battle #Bots; Investors Solicited to Buy Parkay or Margarine?
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