Twitter - new obsession for 2009?

So Twitter has gone “mainstream“, since the beginning of this year. Almost everyone you can imagine has a Twitter account and the numbers grow by the day. More and more people are looking to Twitter for much needed traffic for blogs and websites.

In 2008, HitWise reported a large increase in traffic to Twitter in the UK – over 485% – which is 70% higher than that of Twitter traffic in the US. While that increase is in itself quite extraordinary, by January 2009, HitWise reported that Twitter traffic was overtaking Digg in the US with the demographics of users ranging in age from 18 – 55+.

An interesting difference between Digg and Twitter was that the majority of traffic to Digg originates from Google, while Twitter recieves a higher percentage of traffic from Social Networks, this is mainly owing to the integration of Twitter applications on various social networks, such as FaceBook.

Meanwhile Twitter traffic in the UK increased 10 fold within the space of a year, which is an increase of roughly over 974% within a year, and now ranks within the top 300 most visited websites in the UK. Twitter’s success in the UK is largely thanks to public figures such as Stephen Fry, as well as the extremely successful applications making use of the Twitter API.

Figures do not include traffic from apps such as Twitterfeed, TweetDeck and Twitterrific, which Hitwise stated would result in much higher numbers in the various reports. (Unfortunately, we know from our attempts to try and analyse twitter traffic that these apps do not leave trackable data in analytics)

With all the attention Twitter has been getting over the year, it’s not surprising that it has also seen it’s fair share of people trying to “exploit” the service. In 2008, CareerBuilder was found “spamming” twitter through the use of the API. The rapid growth Twitter has seen since the beginning of 2009 has also resulted in large volumes of “fake” accounts being set up within the platform. Not only do these spammers target high profile accounts, but those within the SEM industry also try their luck at a little Twitter exploitation. Every new online platform that shows massive marketing or traffic generating potential faces it’s share of “spam”. People also try to manipulate it for personal gain, as we’ve seen in the past with Digg.

Even established brands and companies are using Twitter, for example Dell does a great job with dedicated accounts for services/outlets and even offer discounts to Twitter followers. Within South Africa, Virgin Active recently joined the Twitter community and within a day had collected over 100 followers.

Companies not claiming their brand on Twitter need to be aware of possible cyber squatting, which are similar to fake accounts and can result in negative press, see, for example, SA homemark’s account. This does not necessarily mean that everyone needs to signup for Twitter and use it for the sake of using it. Brands challenging Twitter need to ensure they have a proper strategy in place and are open to criticism/feedback from followers.

Twitter is completely free, which currently raises a problem for Twitter as it tries to turn its fantastic “beast” into a revenue generating model. Over the past year, Twitter has benefitted from two instances of venture capital funding, the latest of which amounted to £24m, to help it develop its profitability.

What would it take for Twitter to generate revenue? There are rumours that companies will be charged for Twitter accounts. As for my 2 cents, I think Twitter should offer a paid-account option to which users can upgrade and that could include benefits for any Twitter user. Benefits such as a stats feature that enables you to see how many followers retweet your tweets, who the top retweeters are, and how many clicks your tweeted links recieve, etc would have value for all Twitter users, and not only those after analytics.

So, where do we go from here Twitter?

Tags: company branding, Social Media, twitter, twitter statistics

Karl Foxley Says:
February 26th, 2009 at 12:16 pm

I agree with you totally, ‘Twitter should offer a paid-account option with upgraded features’ to monetize the site, the idea of Adsense (as I often hear as a suggested option) or similar being incorporated in some way would probably spoil the feel and use of Twitter.

Twitter is also getting a lot of positive press from major radio channels in the UK with Chris Moyles and his crew all being on Twitter and often discussing their tweets and the tweets of Philip Schofield.

Great post.

Brett Pringle Says:
February 26th, 2009 at 12:54 pm

Hey Karl,

Thanks for the comment. You’re 100% right there, not sure about the adsense though, personally i think it would spoil twitter slightly. But yeah, with all the news and coverage of twitter, it is definitely helping to boost new users and increase it’s value to anyone using twitter. All the great apps continue to flow into the market, i really do hope it keeps going this way, as it is possibly setting a new standard to social media as we have seen in the past

Andy Beard Says:
March 4th, 2009 at 2:00 pm

Cardinal sin – every post you write about Twitter, you have to mention the Twitter accounts of every employee, and at least 2 notable celebs, not just one.

Brett Pringle Says:
March 4th, 2009 at 2:08 pm

I’d feel as if i was adding shameless plugs to the post or not that way?

Louis Venter Says:
March 4th, 2009 at 2:13 pm

andy im with you, Follow me @louisventer !!!!

which reminds me i need to do that blog on personal branding and twitter! Brett keep bugging me it needs to get done!

Andy Beard Says:
March 4th, 2009 at 2:14 pm

Well it would save me following a broken link to Dylan’s Twitter account on the Mybloglog account
In addition it is inviting readers to communicate with you in other ways, just like invitations to sign up to an RSS feed.
If you want to get smart with it, there are all kinds of ways to optimize things with cookies based on refer, or using various APIs to see if the visitor is already following you.