Twitter Year in Review

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To say Twitter has had a busy 2010 is an understatement. More than 100 million users signed up around the world. Twitter received a new round of funding, appointed a new CEO and cemented its place in the Web 2.0/social media world. So let’s look back at the year that made the micro blogging service a household name.

Top trending topics of 2010
The top trending topics of 2010 demonstrate the power of Twitter in driving conversations around various topics, news announcements and events across millions of people. Some of the overall top trends in 2010 include:

• Gulf Oil Spill
• FIFA World Cup
• Inception (the movie)
• Haiti Earthquake
• Vuvuzela
• Apple iPad

Demographic changes
With the new influx of users, Twitter’s demographic changed drastically in 2010. According to the Pew Research Center, Twitter is no longer only perused by the tech-savvy audience and millennials are extremely active. Latinos, African-Americans and urbanites make up the majority of Twitter users that leverage the platform to not only digest news and information but have conversations with brands and friends. As indicated in this chart from TheNextWeb, 67% of followers of a brand on Twitter are likely to buy a product from that brand. This information is powerful for brands, as listening to and communicating with these audiences on Twitter could have a direct effect on company revenue and sales.

Twitter tip for 2011
Dan Zarella, a “social media scientist,” who has authored books on how to get your content Retweeted, has published some interesting findings regarding Twitter. He found that as the amount of self referential tweets increases; the number of followers of an account decreases. Zarella equates this to being at a cocktail event and doing nothing but talking about yourself, which as we all know will drive away potential friends and listeners. The same rule applies to business; if you do nothing but talk about your company you’re only going to attract a certain type of Twitter followers. Mix the conversation up and interact with people, especially about what they want to hear.

By Aaron Grabein