Born in the summer of 2006 and currently commanding over 500 millions users, Twitter continues to grow exponentially. But what is it, how does it work and who uses it?
Twitter is the brain child of Jack Dorsey. Launched in 2006, the social networking site allows users to send “Tweets” – 140 character status updates – which have been described as micro expressions of ideas or moments. In this announcement in March, Twitter disclosed that at only six years old they had over 140 million users, producing 340 million Tweets a day, the equivalent of more than 1 billion every three days.
Many people believe that Twitter is reserved for the younger generation who are constantly seeking out RTs (retweets) from Justin Bieber in vain. However, there is so much more to this network than meets the eye – and it can be used just as well for businesses looking to expand their brand.
Twitter has been dubbed the ‘SMS’ of the internet because of its micro-blogging format. After you create your account, you can begin to write your 140 character messages to the world. The other main feature of Twitter is that you choose to ‘follow’ people. Once you follow somebody, their messages will begin to appear on your home screen. To have your messages read, you need to have followers. The simplest way of achieving this is to follow other people that seem to be interested in what you’re interested in. On average, it would seem that about 30% of people ‘follow back’. If you want to see what a Twitter profile looks like, why not check out ours here!
So now we understand what Twitter is, why is it such a great tool for individuals and businesses?
- It is easy to keep up to date with the latest news from the industries that interest you, by following the Twitter accounts of people in that industry. You can usually find out news quicker through Twitter than you can through actual news websites.
- It is a great way of finding people with similar interests and then having discussions about those interests.
- It is FREE. Who doesn’t like free stuff?
- Twitter can be easily used on the go, with 80% of Twitter usage being from a mobile device.
- It is a great search engine to find the general consensus on a topic, that topic could well be YOUR business. What are those 500 million people saying about you?
- It allows celebrities to connect directly with their fans, in real time. And on the other end of that relationship, it allows fans to contact celebrities directly!
- It is a great tool for creating traffic to a website, blog, or anything really. Consider it an advertising tool, where the number of people who see your content is truly limitless.
- All in all, Twitter is a lot of fun.
If the Giraffe team were to give you one piece of advice with Twitter, it’s that you only get out of it, what you put in…
So, go have a browse of Twitter, or if you want the Giraffe Team to step in and utilise the huge possibilities of Twitter to help grow your business – contact us on hello@giraffesocialmedia.co.uk.
