A colleague posed an interesting question yesterday and it got me thinking.

He wanted to know ‘who is the specific audience you’re speaking to on Twitter?’

Being a communications man and a former broadcaster you’d expect me to have a defined answer, but I didn’t have.

In the past, when you plan a campaign or you have a message you want to get across, you have a very good idea about your audience – who they are, the best way of getting to them etc so you can tailor the message appropriately.

For instance, when you work for a commercial radio station you know exactly who you’re talking to.  The ‘typical listener’ is called Jane, she’s married with two children, she’s in her mid-thirties, she reads the Daily Mail or Daily Express, her husband works for BT, they go on holiday once a year without fail and the family probably shops in Tesco or Asda.  I could go on.

So, as a journalist at this radio station you get a pretty good idea about what kind of news stories Jane is going to be interested in hearing.  Loosely, it’s family, health and wealth.  So, a story about a new breakthrough in breast cancer treatment should come higher in the bulletin than today’s apparent lead story (across all media) of the elections in Afghanistan.

You get the gist.

But here’s the problem with Twitter – exactly who is the audience?

The Twitter website suggests it’s ‘anyone who’s interested in something you’ve got to say’ but when I look at who’s following me, I get confused.

Among others, I’ve got former and existing colleagues, an ex newspaper editor turned media legal-eagle, two would-be Conservative MPs, Radio 4, Number 10 Downing Street (OK, I don’t think for a minute that Radio 4 or 10 Downing Street pay any attention to what I post) and my God son.

That’s one hell of a diverse audience and most of them I’ve never met before.

Some are using Twitter as a way of keeping in touch with me, I’m sure others have a profile because Twitter is the in thing and others are signed up because they are ‘testing’ this new form of social media.  However, of my followers who’ve I’ve never met before (several are abroad) they’ve cleared opted to follow me because they are genuinely interested in what I’ve got to say.

My posts are just ramblings and others are links to things like my blog but clearly my band of faithful followers seem to like what I Tweet about.  Some even forward messages on and I get quite a lot of feedback too.  There’s even a robot (I think that’s what you call it) which re-tweets anything I say with the word 'tea' in it.  I mention having cups of tea quite often, so that’s boosting my global audience too.

So, back to my colleague’s question - ‘who is the specific audience you’re speaking to on Twitter?’  The answer is: ‘I don’t know, but I don’t really care either’.  My audience is much more diverse then all those ‘Janes’ I’d be talking to in radio land.  I’ll keep posting my random ramblings until I notice that the only person I’m speaking to is myself.

Join in the 'fun' if you wish: http://twitter.com/andy_carter