With a new user signing up every 5.2 seconds and 1,650 tweets per second on average, Twitter has for some time now been a major player in the social media game.
To show just how viral this relative new boy on the block has become, it took over three years to reach its billionth tweet but now breaks that number on a weekly basis – and is moving from strength to strength as it’s currently the fastest growing social media platform in existence*.
Twitter was for a long time a niche network thanks in part to the way it operates. When it first burst onto the scene the concept of micro-blogging was alien to most and in many countries the idea took a while to catch on.
Now 21% of the global internet population are regulars and the UK market is said to make up around one fifth of the overall users – incredibly that’s over 30 million UK residents actively using the service.
With numbers like that Twitter is clearly a resource which can be used to great effect whatever your business. It allows you to connect with a large number of people directly in easily digestible bite-sized posts.
Learning how to best utilise the network for your business is now a great asset to anyone who is looking to increase their audience and potential for new customers.
In the afternoon you should be aiming to tweet between one and three pm – this afternoon slot is also the best time to post links, though slightly earlier between midday and one is when people are more actively reading and so is the best time to garner retweets and favourites.
If you’re looking to catch the early birds then tweeting during commuting hours or just as everyone is sitting down at their desks to start the working day is a sensible strategy.
Monday to Thursday are Twitter’s busiest days and once you get your account up and running you’ll notice you get the biggest response to posts within the peak times mentioned on these days.
Unless important, avoid tweeting after 8pm as by this time twitter is a veritable ghost town. Similarly, you want to avoid tweeting on a Sunday and a Friday afternoon after three as most are busying themselves away from the virtual landscape of social networking sites.
