350 million tweets a day and more Twitter superlatives

tweetbuttonAs a communication channel, Twitter is very much part of the mainstream.

Indeed, it’s hard to go anywhere on the social web – whether to a story on a news website, an individual blog, a company’s news centre – without encountering a method by which you can easily share and amplify online what you find via Twitter and many other tools and channels: just click or tap the little button.

Just how much Twitter is part of the mainstream today is well illustrated in a set of metrics captured by TechCrunch as spoken by Twitter CEO Dick Costolo at an event in the US this week.

Especially if you’re a marketer and Twitter plays a role in your campaigns, you’ll be interested. Get your head around these numbers:

  • Since Costolo took over the CEO role [in October 2010], Twitter has grown to 500 million users sending over 350 million tweets per day.
  • During the World Cup in summer 2010, Twitter was seeing 3,000 tweets per second, and was sweating the system crashes. Recently, it saw 12,000-15,000+ tweets on Election Day in the U.S.
  • When the TV show The X-Factor (U.K.) put a hashtag on the screen, it generated 27,000 tweets in 90 seconds.
  • Twitter is working with the Japanese government on a “lifeline project” which includes things like making lists of government agencies on Twitter that people can follow in the wake of a disaster or emergency. The project will be expanded to all of Twitter’s markets, with the U.K. and Spain indicating interest already.
  • The service will “never change” its 140-character limit.

There’s more, including news of plans to enable users to download every single tweet they’ve sent – see the full story at TechCrunch.

(Tweet button image via SpiceUpYourBlog)

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Neville Hobson

Social Strategist, Communicator, Writer, and Podcaster with a curiosity for tech and how people use it. Believer in an Internet for everyone. Early adopter (and leaver) and experimenter with social media. Occasional test pilot of shiny new objects. Avid tea drinker.

  2. Lauren Smith

    Excellent post. It’s easy to ignore Twitter in the midst of new networks like Pinterest and Instagram, but I agree that it is a vital part of your marketing mix. Lisa Anderson has written a wonderful book about this that I just finished called, Leverage Social Networks to Drive Business Results, which provides professionals unique insights how to successfully leverage their social networks and emphasizes the need to make this a priority in business. http://www.lma-consultinggroup.com/

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