Blue Helm

“I love getting Latino pop sensation RickyMartin’s tweets! Oh wait…or is it Ricky_Martin?  This Twitter thing is just so confusing!” Okay, here’s a quick Twitter IQ test. Look at both of these Twitter pages and try to guess which one is the real Ricky Martin:

Here’s username RickyMartin

Here’s username Ricky_Martin

If you guessed that RickyMartin is the real superstar, you should go hang your head in Twitter shame.

It just so happens that I am friends with the owner of the RickyMartin username. And no, my friend is not actually Ricky Martin. My good friend Michelle Burnett, who is quite the jokester, signed up for Twitter about nine months ago and made her user name RickyMartin. Why? Because she’s hilarious. When the real Ricky Martin decided to get on Twitter he tried to get the name from her, but ended up using Ricky_Martin instead. Michelle has never tried to pretend that she is the real Ricky Martin, her name says she is Michelle Burnett, her profile picture is of herself, and her tweets are definitely her own. Here are a few samples:

“Loved your work on Hannah Montana @donnyosmond!”

“Got my hair did. I feel totally fab.”

“short hair is sad hair.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve had a nose job.”

“After sitting in the library for about 30 minutes, I noticed that someone in the area smelled a lot like breath. And not the good kind.”

If you took even a moment to look at her profile, it is very obvious she is not Ricky Martin. Yet somehow, hundreds of Ricky Martin fans are following her, and actually believe she is Ricky Martin. In the past week alone, over 28 people have mentioned @rickymartin in their tweets, most of which are re-tweets from the real Ricky Martin. Multiple people have sent messages to Michelle in Spanish hoping to connect with the real Ricky Martin. Someone even nominated Michelle for “Mr. Twitter Puerto Rico” and she subsequently received hundreds of supporting votes.

So what does all of this mean? It means there are still a lot of people out there who are confused about how Twitter works. Or they just don’t care enough to look carefully at the people they follow or re-tweet. I can’t count how many people I’ve talked to who have signed up for Twitter and just give up because they can’t figure it out or see no value in tweeting. The average person isn’t going to search Mashable or other blogs for ‘How-To Twitter’ instructions, not to mention researching why Twitter is valuable.

I’ve always thought Twitter could do a much better job at introducing people to their product. When a new user signs up for Twitter, there should be helpful videos and instructions available on how-to use it. They should have links to articles that explain how to use Twitter for a business, individual, professional, music lover, etc. Don’t make the customer search for this stuff. Give it to them when they sign up.

What do you think? Why are there so many people who don’t know how to use Twitter? Why are there so many people who sign up for Twitter, but stop using it? And why do Ricky Martin fans have a hard time distinguishing a male pop icon in Puerto Rico from a female college student in Utah?