WWE: Is the Twitter Hype Too Much or Brilliant Marketing?

The WWE has gone Twitter crazy. 

Twitter is literally everywhere in the WWE, from the superstars’ Twitter handles appearing on the screen during ring entrances to The Rock talking about making terms trend on the site to John Laurinaitis bragging about his 38,000 followers. 

The recent push of Twitter seems to be directly related to Vince McMahon, who is reportedly obsessed with the social networking site and the ability to make WWE-related terms trend worldwide. 

The question on my mind—and probably many of yours, too—is this: What exactly does he think that the WWE is going to accomplish by shoving Twitter down our throats? 

Unless the WWE has some sort of business relationship with Twitter that we don’t know about, the answer is nothing. Yes, nothing. 

I’ll admit that Twitter is an easy way to market your product and reach fans who spend a lot of time on the Internet, but there is a very thin line between the promotion of Twitter and Twitter overkill. And the WWE has crossed that line. 

What Vince doesn’t get is that, though it may be nice to see people talking about the WWE online or have a bunch of superstars with a million followers, it does not benefit the company in the long-term. 

It’s not like the WWE is being paid for having a certain amount of trending terms or a huge number of followers. In fact, the company is probably spending more money promoting Twitter than the site is making in return. 

Pushing Twitter on Monday Night Raw is not going to result in an increase in pay-per-view buys or ratings. But it is going to give the WWE TV staff more work to do and ultimately, cause an increase in production costs. 

So, what the hell is the point of it? 

I’ll put it to you this way—If I see a picture of myself in the newspaper with my name in the caption and so do the thousands of people that read it, more people are going to know who I am. But no one’s going to be lining up to give me thousands of dollars just because I was briefly important enough to get a mention in the paper. 

It’s the exact same thing with Twitter. 

WWE-related terms are going to trend as long as the site is around, but there’s no real payoff here. Twitter executives aren’t going to call up the WWE and say, “Hey, here’s a few million dollars because you got #bootstoasses to trend.” 

No, that’s not gonna happen. But you know what is gonna happen? 

Vince McMahon is going to continue to think that Twitter is the greatest thing on the planet and that the WWE must continue to integrate the site into the company’s storylines and TV product in general. 

But it’s a completely worthless tactic that will not benefit the WWE in any long-term way. 

I mean, who remembers MySpace? Seven or eight years ago, that was the social networking site. 

Everyone I knew had a MySpace account, everyone updated it like crazy and we thought it was going to be the premier social media site for the next couple of decades. Yet, here we are in 2011, and I don’t know a soul who has a MySpace anymore. 

Mark my words: Twitter will go the way of MySpace at some point. It’s just a matter of which social networking site will take its place. 

Therefore, McMahon’s recent absurd obsession with Twitter is equivalent to pushing a superstar who you know is going to leave the company in the near future. The short-term payoff (whatever it may be) might be there, but when WWE officials look back at the guy’s push, they’re going to realize that it was a dumb idea to push a guy whose overall effect on the company would be minimal. 

That’s what Twitter has become, an overpushed aspect of the WWE that will come back to bite the company in the butt down the road. 

Pun intended, Twitter is a trend. And all trends become outdated and go away at some point. 

I can’t wait to see Vince’s reaction when Twitter goes the way of the cassette tape. That’ll be the day.