Year-over-year growth in February 2009 hits 1,382% for Twitter.com

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

Although Facebook has over 20 million members, it has not experienced nearly the same amount of year-over-year growth as Twitter.  Last month, there were seven million unique visitors to the site, a remarkable 1,382% increase from 475,000 in February 2008, according to Nielsen Online. 

As Twitter continues to grow in popularity, its impact will be tremendous for both the consumer and for organizations hoping to promote their brands on a large scale.  The most popular Tweeting age group are adults ages 35-49, who primarily access the site from their workplace.  The nearly three million people that make up this age group account for 42% of the site’s audience.

As we begin to recognize the mobile marketing opportunity that Twitter presents, the issue over how we may track tweets becomes important.  If Twitter does become a mobile phenomenon, many more users will flood the site to tweet due to this added on-the-go convenience.  Already, various firms have anticipated this growing success by addressing how to make Twittering more convenient.  Not only will consumers enjoy the added accessibility to their extended communities, but marketers receive the bonus of more content to identify how people are viewing their brands.

Last week, Tweetdeck, the desktop client used by about 13% of Twitter members, has launched an update that has integrated two social networks together.  With this application, users can now incorporate their Facebook status updates into their Tweets.  In addition, users can even initiate a chat through Tweetdeck.  By integrating with Twitter, Facebook now takes on a more real-time live feel.

The missing link in identifying the true viability for Twitter is the ability to track its value.  Omniture has already begun tackling that challenge through a SiteCatalyst API, which it will soon be releasing.  This feature will enable firms to measure how their brand is being spoken about on Twitter.  Data such as the number of times a particular term is being mentioned will be collected.  Marketers can also elect to receive tweet alerts when a post about a specific brand name has been mentioned repeatedly.  For a more granular assessment, brand names can also be paired with other keywords or phrases.

We’ll stay tuned to see when Twitter finds a viable business model to capitalize on its growing success.