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Twitter – is it a useful tool for parents?

Having recently become a member of the massive online phenomenon and social-networking website, Twitter, it got me thinking about the benefits for parents of joining this new community, especially compared to other similar sites, like Facebook or MySpace. 

For all of you twitter-phobics out there (I was one before I set up a profile!), here is a bit of information about what the website is all about.  Twitter was launched nearly 3 years ago and in that time it has managed to accumulate more than 4.5 million unique users [1] .  The majority of that growth has been since January 2008, starting that month with around 500,000 new visitors and rising steeply over the course of the rest of the year.  The most remarkable growth took place in the second half of 2008, with Twitter picking up more than one million additional visitors in December alone – and those are just the US stats [2] .  The creation of Twitter has brought with it new terminology to describe this novel kind of blogging – it’s called “micro-blogging”.  The basic idea behind this free social-networking website is that you create your own profile page with information like your name, your location, web address (if you have your own blog site or company), and a short biography about yourself.  From there you write updates (known as ‘tweets’) which are supposed to answer one question: “What are you doing?” – you can only type 140 characters or less for each update (hence ‘micro-blogging’!!).  I say “supposed to” because actually people just tweet generally about anything that they want to share – like what they think about a particular topic of interest, or what’s new with their website/blog/products.  Your ‘followers’ are other people or organisations that choose to see copies of your tweets on their homepage.  On your home page, you will see your own updates as well as those of everyone you are ‘following’.  So the concept is akin to status updates on Facebook – tweeting is the same as typing something in the “What’s on your mind” box at the top of your Facebook homepage, and ‘followers’ are similar to your Facebook ‘friends’.  Like many social-networking sites, it seems that people are quite enthusiastic when they first join up to Twitter but the novelty quickly wears off.  In April market research firm, Nielsen, reported that 60% of Twitter users who sign up fail to return the following month [3] .  That said, it is questionable how Nielsen came up with that retention rate.  In any event, there are certainly pros and cons of maintaining a cyber-relationship with Twitter.

The site works on the premise that you will tweet on a regular basis – for a lot of avid twitterers that will be several times a day.  There are various ways of tweeting – direct from the web, using applications like TweetDeck, or updating through your mobile phone.  From the perspective of a new mum or dad, this would probably seem like an impossible task – when would you find the time to tweet in-between the constant baby feeding and nappy changing?  And surely when you do get a spare moment there are other more pressing things you could be doing?  I would have to agree that the Twitter model is not really conducive to the routines of a new parent.  On the other hand, there are benefits to having an online application which streams regular news and product updates to one easily accessible platform. 

More and more now Twitter is being used by companies to promote and advertise their services and products.  While this was probably not its initial intended use, it certainly has advantages for both the organisation and the consumer.  From a company’s point of view, it is a quick and free method of telling its followers what is new, with direct links to their own websites.  Followers can choose to ignore the tweet or click on the links to find out more.  This makes it highly interactive but not intrusive because there is obviously no obligation for a follower to take any action.  Indeed, Twitter claims its purpose is to give “a sense of what folks are up to but you are not expected to respond to any updates unless you want to”. This type of tweet ‘marketing’ saves organisations from clogging up reader’s e-mail inboxes with frequent newsletters and other promotional marketing spam.

As an individual and a parent, while you might not be actively changing your own status, if you are following many other twitterers who frequently update with advice relevant to the care of babies and children, you would have quick and easy access to useful and recent articles without having to spend time searching for them.  For example, a new mum could follow Babyworld, EasyParenting, Bounty and Netmums to name just a few of the organisations who tweet regularly about their news, and with one simple click you could be directed to an article of interest on any one of those websites. 

A major difference between Twitter and Facebook is that your Facebook homepage will only display news and updates from people who you have vetted and are actually friends with – and in most cases you would only ever accept to be a ‘friend’ with people you already know.  A benefit for Twitter is that you could find yourself making contact with other parents in a similar position to you that you would have otherwise not come across.  Although Twitter provides you with a means to get in touch with strangers – you can follow anyone and they can follow you – there is scope for anonymity.  You don’t have to use your real name when you sign up if you prefer to remain anonymous, but then people you do know won’t be able to search for you unless they know what username you have registered.  There is also an option to ‘block’ followers from seeing your updates - it is rare that you would want to do this, perhaps only in instances when they are advocating something with which you don’t agree.  You can respond to other people’s tweets in much the same way as writing on someone’s ‘wall’ in Facebook – your replies could be seen publicly by anybody else in the Twitter network.  Or you can send someone a private message (called a ‘direct message’) which only they will see – just like ‘messaging’ someone in Facebook. 

Twitter is still way behind Facebook in terms of membership numbers, so it may take some time before you find the majority of your friends using Twitter (if ever).  Facebook can be a fantastic resource for a new mum or dad with a network of people they know actively using the site.  It provides a medium for keeping up-to-date with what your friends are doing and to see recent photos of them and their families – Twitter does not have a feature for posting photo albums.  I found Facebook invaluable when my daughter was an infant.  Especially in the first few weeks after she was born, when I felt completely cut off from the world because I found it quite difficult to go out – she rarely slept and breastfed constantly.  Facebook allowed me to keep in touch without having to physically interact with friends - if I was feeding my daughter (for the umpteenth time) in the day, or found I had a few minutes spare then I could have a quick scan on my Facebook homepage to see what was going on with everyone else.  A potential downside of this aspect of Facebook, and Twitter, is that reading status updates or tweets from friends who are single and still living it up when you are perhaps suffering a bit of the baby blues could have a negative impact on your emotional well-being and cause you to lament over your new life as a responsible parent.

There are many people who are not registered on Facebook or Twitter who would argue that they are impersonal and a waste of time.  I would agree to an extent but am inclined to argue in favour of the use of social-networking sites.  Juggling work, family and social elements of our lives can become difficult and tiring at times, and it is so easy to lose touch with friends when focussing all of our energy on being good parents. We can also become overwhelmed with the online resources available to us when we don’t have the time to spend hours surfing the Internet.  With Twitter, you do not necessarily have to be sitting at your computer 24/7 in order to benefit from the updates of the people and organisations you are following, and you need not feel obligated to update your own tweets on a regular basis.  Let’s face it, some people are just more inclined to publicise their thoughts or what’s happening in their lives than others.  So while you may not have a regular tweet history of your own, being an active user of Twitter, and indeed Facebook, has more pros than cons associated with it, particularly if you are following other parents and companies who provide information related to babies and parenting.

Author: Claire for Kidz Things
July 2009

Endnotes

1. Stats from web analytics company, Compete, at December 2008
2. Information from http://mashable.com/2009/01/09/twitter-growth-2008/
3. Information from http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/twitter-quitters-post-roadblock-to-long-term-growth