The State of the Twittersphere [REPORT]

Hubspot has produced their State of the Twittersphere report. A few stats from it:

• 35% of Twitter users have 10 or fewer followers
• The average number of followers is 70
• The average number of people that Twitter users follow is 69
• Top locations on Twitter include London, San Francisco, New York and Chicago

Here it is in full:

State of the Twittersphere – Get more Information Technology

ReadWriteWeb takes the stats in the report projects forwards – concluding that Twitter would take 36 years to catch Facebook.

Facebook, Twitter and Traffic [STATS]

Also on the topic of Facebook and Twitter – Jacob Cass reports that he gets more traffic from Facebook than Twitter despite having fewer Facebook friends than Twitter followers and shows some stats from his metrics package.

I tweeted this link earlier today and had a heap of people tell me that their own results are quite the opposite. I decided to check my own and mine are completely different to Jacob. To my ProBlogger blog I had 11,500 visitors come from Twitter.com over the last 30 days and only 1500 come from Facebook. My links to new posts go up on both as Jacob describes.

Here on TwiTip the stats are even more one sided towards Twitter – although that’s skewed because this blog is about Twitter of course.

I don’t dispute Jacobs results – but would argue that it is always going to vary from site to site and topic to topic.

ReWeeting [ANALYSIS]

Pistachio Consulting has a good analytical post this week on the Phenomenon of Retweeting

Twitter for Business [VIDEO]

Laura from Pistachio also has a great presentation on the topic of Twitter for Business. It is well worth the look.

Check out her powerpoint deck here.

Twitter and Legal Ramifications [LAW]

Law.com has an article up talking about how tweets could get employers in legal trouble. Sounds like a whole lot of articles we saw a few years back on the dangers of blogging to companies.

Round Follow Buttons! [DESIGN]

And the news of the week – Twitterrati notes that follow buttons went from square to round!

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Speed Tweeting (reports, stats, videos and more) – 24 December 2008

Since Twitter’s focus is on saying a lot with very little, it makes sense that the Twitter profile space is very brief and the default settings leave little room to present yourself in detail. It’s also the first and last thing potential followers will see before deciding to click “Follow” or to click away from your profile. Here’s a few tips to customize your profile so that potential followers will be convinced they can’t miss your Tweets!

1. Create a Custom Profile Page Background

Since the visual impact of your Twitter background is the strongest tool you have available, customize it to give people an eyeful of who you are.

You can make your own image on your computer and upload it under Settings – Design – Change Background Image. The first 200-250 pixels width on the left hand side is a great place to put additional profile information and list websites.

For a quick solution, you can create just the sidebar (250×700) as your background image with “no tile” selected. Then, modify the rest of the Twitter color scheme to complement it. You can use the first 200 pixels from the top for your picture or “header” for a possible logo and tagline.

The rest of the 400-500 vertical pixels should be used to tell others what you’re about and most importantly, what you’re looking for. Are you using Twitter to get business? To gather ideas for a project? To get feedback from customers? This is the best place to reflect your interests and other facets of your professional life if necessary, so that others can see it immediately.

Alternatively, you can use it to tell people how best to contact you like @garyvee who encourages people to email him instead of sending a Direct Message on Twitter.

Still not sure about the dimensions? You can use Browser Shots to see what it will look like on different screen sizes and browsers.

For an in-depth look at how to create a custom Twitter background, read the Twitip article – Make a Good Impression with a Custom Twitter Background.

Also check out these resources on Background images”

• Boinblog provides two different Photoshop templates to download, or you can create your own!
• Several templates for free at TwitterBacks

Other interesting uses of Twitter backgrounds:

2. Create a Twitter Landing Page as your “Web”URL

@pistachio had a great tip for this months ago when she created a “Twitter landing page” instead of sending users to the front page of your website. Advertisers create custom landing pages for different markets, so why not treat your Twitter audience differently, too? You can create one that explains to potential followers how you use Twitter and how to interact with you.

Some things you may want to include on your Twitter landing page:

- who you are / an abbreviated intro with a link to your more detailed About page, if available

- how you use Twitter (including frequency of Tweets, topics and if you use Twitter to tweet your new blog posts)

- your “follow” policy and how others should contact you if they want you to follow them back (with a “@user hello,” for example).

See Laura’s (@pistachio’s) Twitter Landing Page (Who is @pistachio?) as an example of this.

3. Use a Profile Picture that Reinforces Your Brand (You!)

Keeping your profile pictures consistent across all your social networks will help people find you and recognize you online as well as offline. A picture of you with a hat obstructing your face or you in your Halloween costume should probably be swapped out for a picture that looks like you almost all of the time. A hard-to-recognize picture may result in users squinting at it and clicking away instead of clicking “Follow.”

Of course, using a photo of your face may not be the only way to be “recognizable”:

@photomatt Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of Wordpress, has a profile picture which is simple a bright pink square. It’s certainly recognizable in a Twitter lineup, but unless you’re on magazine covers like he is, you’ll want to use your picture as a way for people to identify you and to create a visual and hopefully emotional connection with your Tweets even if they haven’t met you in-person.

If your company has a memorable logo (and you have the permission to display it) you may consider using it to increase brand recognition. Note that this is best when the content of your Tweets is close to your company’s mission/communication strategy.

4. Utilize your Profile “Bio” to your Best Advantage.

Be clever, be witty, or just be yourself! In a few words, sum up who you are and make it sound interesting. Since that’s what Twitter is all about, writing an intriguing Bio in such a small space shouldn’t be hard. Here’s also another opportunity point your audience somewhere. If you are going to point users to a site that is not your website or Twitter landing page, I recommend putting it here so that users see the entire URL instead of in your Web link which gets cut off. Transparency is always best.

@jowyang uses his Bio to give a brief explanation of who he is and points those interested to an article he wrote “How I use Twitter.”

5. Break up any @ Reply Marathons with Useful Tweets

If your potential follower is still on your profile page, and they’re not yet convinced about following you, they are going to check what you’ve been tweeting recently. Hopefully, they won’t see a sea of @ replies, which might insinuate that you spend a lot of time in micro-conversations that they may be left out of if they follow you.

I recommend breaking up any @ reply marathons with some useful, wide-audience tweets, share links or re-tweet a fellow Twitterer’s useful link.

For more on @replies ettiquette, read the Twitip article Twitter as Dinner Conversation: A Guide to Using Replies.

How would you personalize your Twitter profile to encourage newcomers to follow you?

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



6 Tips for Using Your Twitter Profile to Get New Followers