Why business should use twitter

Twitter has an estimated 350 million users, there are over 250 million tweets a day and more than 2400 companies advertising on the social media site with 80% renewal. So why exactly are businesses choosing this method to get to their target market?  They are using Twitter because it is word of mouth for the digital age.  If a person enjoys a tweet of another person they simply click and re-tweet it broadcasting the message to all the people who are following this person.  A consumer does not take a screen shot of their Google search results and email it to all their contacts but this is happening every day on Twitter.

There are two prime examples proving that business gain massively from twitter:

Virgin Airlines did a one day deal exclusively on Twitter offering flights from any U.S. city to any other U.S. city.  Though this offer was only promoted on twitter Virgin Airlines experienced their 5^th highest sales day in history.

 When Paramount wanted to boost the buzz of their new movie – Super 8 – they also did a twitter only deal. The day before opening day they ran a sneak peek of the movie only for twitter users and they sold tickets on Twitter only at full price.  They raised over $1.5 million on the deal and as people were leaving the theatres they were tweeting on how amazing the film was. The movie was expected to make $20-25 million in its opening weekend but raised $38 million. The chairman of Paramount came out the following Monday and put the great opening success of the movie down to Twitter.

These two success stories are prime examples of how Twitter has given companies a new way to access their target audience.

References:

Business insider interview by Henry Blodget with twitter chief revenue officer Adam Bain

http://www.businessinsider.com/exclusive-interview-twitter-chief-revenue-officer-adam-bain-2011-11

Web 2.0 changing who controlls the internet

Web 1.0 is the first stage of the world wide web on this platform.    The websites  were very static when it came to user input and the website relied solely on the web master creating new information for the site,   but  web 2.0 changed the way we use the internet.  It  is all about the web master publishing content and then the user generating content.     Web  2.0 is possible due to the improvement in technology such as Broadband, improved browsers and flash applications.

The most successful web sites on the 2.0 platform are very user content heavy,  for example Facebook which has over 250 million users.  It is all about the person uploading photos and information about themselves.

Twitter which has over 350 million users and allows people to message send photos to one or hundreds of there friends free of charge, it is also starting to advertise for companies which has proven to be very effective for businesses accessing their target market.

But the site that has really perfected web 2.0 is you tube.    It is a video hosting service and was founded in February of 2005.   Its founders were Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim.    They developed the site as they were having difficulty sharing videos with  one another. You tube relies solely on the users uploading videos to the site.   The use of mobile devices really made this take off as any person with a phone with a camera can take a video and upload it within minutes.

These are just three examples of sites that are using web 2.0 in a very effective way.    It is very exciting to see what the next stage in the web will be or will there even be a web 3.0.    In my opinion there will be but it will be  much more on our mobile devices and maybe even see the end of web sites as we move to using only applications.