Here are a couple of facts for you: only 20% of Americans have Twitter accounts.
Of the 20% who do have Twitter accounts, I would bet half of those people don’t interact very often on social media. That means 10% of Americans, and that’s being very generous, are active on Twitter. Probably 3% of Americans are highly active there.
So when the media or companies reference social media or use it to gauge the decisions they are making, how representative is Twitter of real life?
I think it’s not very representative at all.
Yet the media is addicted to using social media as a basis for a huge amount of their stories.
I think companies are too easy to reach now and I think, if anything, they are too reactive to what social media says or does.
Back in the day congressional offices used to get deluged with constituent mail. Much of it was produced by opinion content factories. That is, they could manufacture a huge mass of mail to make it look like their position was more popular than it actually was.
I think many have realized how to do the same thing on social media now.
Twitter is a funhouse mirror.
Related: On Tuesday, the day after Nike’s made Colin Kaepernick the face of the company, Scott Ott wrote at his satiric Scrappleface blog, “Nike to ‘Sacrifice Everything’ for Black Community,” Linking to it, I asked, “now that Nike has aligned itself with the SJW mob, how long will it be before the scorpion stings the swoosh?”
That didn’t take long: “On Friday’s MSNBC Live, as host Ali Velshi brought aboard Black Lives Matter leader Deray McKesson to discuss the controversial Nike ad featuring Colin Kaepernick, the MSNBC host actually hit his liberal guest from the left as he wondered if Nike was really doing enough to promote Kaepernick’s political agenda.”