Mar 18, 2009

Data About Twitter

Read Write Web talks about data from Hitwise about where Twitter leads people
According to the latest data from Hitwise, Twitter sends most of its traffic to Google, Facebook, TwitPic, and MySpace. Overall, Twitter sends about 1 in 5 users to social networks and another 1 in 5 to entertainment sites like Twitpic, YouTube, or Flickr. Even though some people think that Twitter is just a 'poor man's email system,' Twitter's clickstream profile is very different from that of most email services.

There are a number of interesting results in Hitwise's study. Among others, Hitwise notes that a higher share of downstream clicks from Twitter.com go to blogs and personal websites than from search sites, social networks, or email services. A larger number of Twitter users are also being sent to news and media sites, which points towards Twitter's growing role as a medium for sharing and breaking news stories. --More from Read Write Web.
Twitter is a great place for folks to share links to resources. Makes sense to get gov links on Twitter.

An easy way to use Twitter is to automatically send your agency RSS blog or newsroom feed to Twitter by Twitterfeed. Not the sexiest use of Twitter, but one that doesn't have much lift and can help broadcast information. See, for example, the Department of Labor twitter account.

4 comments:

  1. Gwynne, good story and great stats. You'd think someone in Fed. Govt' at the executive level would take notice and start encouraging Gov use of Twitter? It's a no brainer.

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  2. GK, pls fix your comment form to allow @twitter in URL field. Thx

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  3. @Campariman, it is a no brainer for alot of agencies. Check out http://twitter.pbwiki.com/USGovernment for a pretty comprehensive list of twittering agencies. This is even without big executive encouragement. :-)

    @Anon, I hear ya, but I am using SaaS implementation. If you want to leave your twitter handle, uses http://twitter.com/YOU That will get us right to you! Thanks for reading.

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  4. @Ari while what you are saying is true--that there may be age bias--that still doesn't dispute the fact that Twitter is a good way to share links. While it could be the "why" the facts are the same.

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