Twitter appears to be everywhere these days and it seems, from a social media standpoint, that Twitter is the way to let everyone know what is going on with you right now. Twitter has an a huge Hollywood and Television star following and it would appear that everyone wants to get on board and share the magic. Having said that, do you remember spinner rims? Those car wheels that always appeared to be in motion even when the car itself is not?

For a short period of time, it seemed like every other car on the road had either a set of these wheels or the hub cap equivalent. If that doesn’t ring a bell, how about hydraulic dump beds on mini trucks, just for show? Admittedly, that may date a few of us, but there was a time when I thought that a dump bed on a mini truck seemed like a great style accessory. Many of my fellow mini truck enthusiasts added these styling cues to their own personal mini-trucks.  The big question is “Where is this style now?” There will always be die-hard’s who hold onto something long after the wave of popularity has passed, for a number of reasons. This can be Nostalgia, circumstance or many simply didn’t get the memo?

In my own experience, I personally got interested in “traditional” hot rods and kustom cars in the early-1990’s because the six figure show car scene was getting way out hand, and I felt mini trucks had ran their course. I stayed in the traditional movement to this day because I fell in love with the style of the cars, the emphasis on 1940’s, 50’s and early 60’s history, and the shared vision that started the movement. Unfortunately, by 2006, it became infected with “Johnny-come-latelies” who didnt understand the history and ideology behind it, and corrupted the scene with the (now cliche’) “Rat rod”. This took the entire scene and its shows into “side show carnival” territory and to me, it was mutating into the very thing it was a backlash against. Suddenly our small scene was transformed into an overblown pop cultural sensation, laden with cliche’s…just like the show car scene that we hated. Fast forward three years, and the new “Rat rod enthusiasts” who didn’t get into it for love of the cars, or ideology have moved on to the “next big thing” and the traditional movement is slowly moving back into the pure, yet small, scene it was before.

While I am a Traditional-style car enthusiast in my free time, I am also involved in the SEO and social media world in my professional life and I see something in this SEO and social media world that parallels my car scene experience: Twitter.

Twitter is a wonderful social media outlet for those who use it regularly and properly; Ashton Kutcher, Oprah, Barack Obama, and Britney Spears are notable users, and I am sure that they have plenty to do with Twitter’s 1st quarter of 2009 massive surge in users. However, like my traditional car scene, it appears that many of the new users responsible for the 1st quarter growth have already moved on to the “next big thing”. Perhaps they followed their own favorite celebrity to Twitter and then didn’t get the use out of it they imagined? Current Nielsen research has determined that 60 percent of Twitter users leave the service after one month. That means that 40% of the users consistently remain on Twitter. Comparatively, while on the decline in popularity, Facebook and MySpace still enjoy an audience retention of approximately 70%. This is according to Nielsen ratings, who also suggest that if Twitter doesn’t turn this trend around, there is a point in the near future where those users leaving will soon outpace new members joining. This will be a difficult situation to rectify. In my car experience, a small scene is desirable to weed out those who aren’t using it properly. But for a social media outlet, even those users who misuse it, are still wanted and needed to some extent.

This leaves me wondering: Will Twitter eventually join Spinner rims, mini-truck dump beds, and Rat rods or will Twitter users use it properly and stay for the love of the social media community that it represents?