CheezeDMG Blog

As Facebook makes drastic changes to its pages to adapt to the real-time methodology that Twitter has embraced, it would be a good time to take stock of how Twitter is developing in light of it’s much stronger competition.  With 3rd party web and desktop apps continually being innovated with the high quality content on offer, the below data from Hitwise released at the end of January depicts no let up in the craze.

There’s a similar correlation in terms of posts per day on the social channel. Interesting research undertaken by Joe Lazarus, an internet marketing consultant from San Francisco, charted Twitter’s overall posts per day by analysing tweet IDs that are attributed to each post.

Joe wrote the following commentary on the resulting charted daily posts figures:

• Twitter is currently generating almost 4 million post IDs per day on average.
• Post growth increased significantly towards the end of last year and Twitter has been on the hockey stick curve since then.
• The spike you see in early November is election day, which was a huge day for Twitter.
• Twitter is still relatively small compared to status update volume on Facebook. Facebook publically disclosed that at least “15 million users update their statuses at least once each day”.

Joe’s last point regarding Twitter’s usage compared to Facebook is reiterated again with the below statistics from HitWise that see Twitter coming in 23rd in terms of market share in the UK.

In summary Twitter’s momentum is continuing to speed ahead at an even faster rate in 2009 but this is still not enough to be challenging the FaceBook’s and YouTube’s of this world just quite yet, maybe this time next year…

Twitter continues to be the number one marketing topic on everyone’s lips. As an agency we have been using Twitter as a means to connect with a wider audience and have more conversations than we have on the blog.

The blog continues to grow with a substantial boost in RSS followers this year which is a great sign. However, the blog is still quite one dimensional - we do get the occasional comment and we can see ‘who’ people are with mybloglog and Google Friend Connect (we have yet to try Twitter Remote) but we still wonder ‘who really is reading’?

One of the great things about Twitter is the ability to share information, connect with people and have one to one exchanges. None of them have to be long or complex but enough to build some form of relationship. But with Twitter we can’t expand our thoughts more than 140 characters so the blog definitely still has a role to play. Twitter does not replace the blog, neither replace Facebook - they are all channels that are independent of each other but mutually linked. They all have a role to play and will have an audience independent of each other with some element of overlap. If you are looking at evolving your brand strategy in social channels do consider all channels - they all have a role to play.

So the purpose of this post was to update on the world of Twitter. I am concious our last piece was about Twitter considering charging brands who use the service. This story was radiated, echoed, amplified in the hours that followed.

Brand Republic [site - twitter]who first broke the story were quick to post a story the following day which looked at the ramifications of the charging model. An excellent post that harnessed the wave of comments that followed the article to deliver much needed perspective.

So the current status is TWITTER WILL NOT CHARGE BRANDS and has no plans to.  This is what they posted;

… it’s important to note that whatever we come up with, Twitter will remain free to use by everyone—individuals, companies, celebrities, etc. What we’re thinking about is adding value in places where we are already seeing traction, not imposing fees on existing services.

Phew! I’m glad they cleared that up. In fact Twitter made a nice post from the fact taking snippets of the press coverage they received..

Twitter Coverage

So, Twitter continues to grow. Hitwise UK are watching the growth of Twitter and are now placing it in the top 100 traffic driving websites and in the top 5 social networks. You can keep up to date with their work on at www.twitter.com/hitwise_uk .On the Hitwise blog you can gain greater detail on these findings.

Despite a business plan, Twitter continues to raise capital, the latest round being £24.5m - pretty impressive in this market.

We are now seeing the ‘Twitter Effect’ replacing the ‘Digg Effect’ - which, if your link is picked up by a wide enough audience (and we mean wide) the potential avalanche of traffic could knock your site over for a limited time. Something that used to happen when your link hit the homepage of digg.com. You can read more about the ‘Twitter Effect’ here and the old ‘Digg Effect’ here.

And finally, Twitter is being used as a protest medium. From the 16th to the 23rd of February Creative Freedom are encouraging people to ‘blackout’ their profiles on all social networks in protest. You can read the background and instructions here. At this time not too many people (that are in my stream) have blacked out but it starts slowly. Tweets like this are the core to the campaign growing..

And that is they say, is it. Well, actually it isn’t. The market is changing before our eyes, faster than ever before. Blog posts like this become outdated all too soon. Another reason to be on Twitter.

If you liked this article, why don’t you follow us on Twitter?

If you need help with your brand in social networks or Twitter specifically, we can help

Jamie

www.twitter.com/jamieriddell

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• Report: Twitter overtakes Digg in popularity (macworld.com)

Hitwise have Twittered (what else!) their latest research, indicating that Twitter was the 20th largest driver of traffic to all UK blogs last week. The list above them is the who’s who of traditional traffic drivers, Google, BBC, and er, Bebo.

Image courtesy of Hitwise

Hitwise also reported that Twitter is the third largest driver of traffic to their own site, behind Google and direct visits. This is not only a great statistic but also testament to how well Hitwise have harnessed Twitter for promotion and sharing of information. All of the stats covered here are found by following their Twitter stream.

www.twitter.com/hitwise_uk

www.twitter.com/cheeze_agency

www.twitter.com/jamieriddell

Related articles by Zemanta

• Twitter UK traffic up 974 per cent in a year (textually.org)
• UK Twitter use explodes ten-fold, poised to go mainstream as celebs get on board (ajax-blog.com)
• Report: Twitter overtakes Digg in popularity (macworld.com)
• Just under tenth of UK Twitter traffic diverted to news and media sites (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• Twitter (stephenfry.com)
• Hitwise: Twitter surpasses Digg’s market share (news.cnet.com)
• Did Twitter Just Pass Digg? (ajax-blog.com)
• Rare UK Snow Blizzard Brings Out the Twitter Mashups (ajax-blog.com)

Nintendo’s Wii console has been the most searched-for product in the UK during the run-up to Christmas. New figures released by Hitwise reveal that Nintendo has outpaced nearest rival Apple to be the most searched for technology brand in the shopping category during November.

Searches for Nintendo Wii were roughly 13 times more numerous than those for Apple ipod and the keyword Wii was twice as popular as both iPod and iPhone combined. The figures suggest that well-documented stock shortages of the Wii console have not been enough to deter UK shoppers from trying to get their hands on one. A number of websites have emerged to cater exclusively to these would-be gamers, the most successful of which, Wii-consoles.co.uk, rose to be the 58th most visited shopping site in the UK during November.

Huge advertising budgets ensured that the surge in interest in both of these brands as Christmas approaches was entirely predictable. Another product however has come from relative obscurity to create a real buzz online which has taken many commentators by surprise: the digital photo frame.

These small LCD photo frames, which display digital images via a USB port or memory card slot, will be familiar to most readers by now but have seen interest intensify dramatically in recent weeks. Their current popularity is such that during November they were searched for more frequently than digital cameras.