Twitter trumps email.

Every time.

That’s my opinion.

Twitter limits anything you say to a maximum of 140 characters. For messages needing lengthier prose, you need to point your followers to a web site, blog or report.

Email, though permitting longer notes, is often more ‘acted upon’ when the message is brief and ‘to the point’. This makes it necessary to make email marketing ‘2 step’ - short email, with a call to visit a website or blog for more detail.

In my opinion, Twitter beats email for marketing or eliciting response - for 2 reasons.

1. It has better delivery to your audience (email filters wreak havoc on message deliverability)

2. It has a viral impact on growth of your following

I like the second reason better. Here’s how I’ve experienced this effect in action.

In March 2008 I had 300 ‘followers’. By April this had grown to 500, by early July it was over 1,000 and is now (in late October) at 1,850.

That’s 600% growth in 7 months. Or nearly DOUBLING every 3 months.

What’s more startling is the EXPONENTIAL nature of this growth - and it isn’t surprising when you consider how it happens. That’s my ‘a-ha’ that prompted this post.

When you send a great email message, it gets many readers to pay attention and respond. But a very tiny fraction will ever pass it along, or even talk about it to others in your niche.

The ripple effect of email marketing, even if consistently of high quality, is very tiny.

Contrast this with Twitter. When you tweet a great post, it spreads WILDLY across the Twitterverse.

Some followers re-tweet it. Others riff off it. Many discuss it. And a day or two later, if you do a Twitter search for a ‘keyword or phrase’, you’re often amazed at how wide your reach has grown.

And there’s another factor responsible for the exponential growth. YOUR tweets are displayed on your FOLLOWERS’ tweet-stream.

Folks have many ways of consuming tweets (on the Web, on their desktop, or on a mobile device, and by using Twitter.com or any of a range of apps).

While each is different in the way it configures how tweets are displayed, in many cases, the tweets of everyone you follow are displayed on your tweet-stream - which is visible to any of your followers.

Which means, once you’ve crossed a critical threshold of followers, your tweets automatically get displayed in ever widening circles across Twitter!

So simply by providing valuable content on Twitter, you MASSIVELY boost your chances of being followed by newer prospects - every day.

Plus, there’s implicit (or even explicit) endorsement whenever someone re-tweets your posts, or praises what you say, or appreciates what you give them… because it makes THEIR followers wonder if they should also benefit from following you too.

And it’s EASY to follow you.

Plus, they have TOTAL control over the process, so they can UNFOLLOW with a click - thus taking away any ‘risk’ from following you.

That’s why I’m anticipating quickly breaking past not just the 2,000 follower mark, but even grow a bigger following shortly afterwards - without having to breach any of my existing ‘Twitter Rules’, specifically my ‘Rule of FORTY’ and ‘Twitter in 10 Minutes Daily’.

What’s your take on Twitter?

Does it work better than email for you (as far as marketing and eliciting direct response goes)?

Or is Twitter merely peripheral to what other stuff you’re engaged in to extend the reach of your message?