Twitter launched a fascinating new tool this week – a simple “baking” tool that takes the URL of a tweet and displays it in a convenient HTML output, allowing users to effectively “embed” tweets into their code. The tool, called Blackbird Pie, will let bloggers and other web developers easily insert tweets into their posts and webpages, effectively guaranteeing that those tweets will stay around even if they’re deleted later.

The new feature is very simple to use – there ‘s a simple text box on the Twitter Blackbird Pie page, allowing users to type in the URL of the tweet they’d like to “bake” into HTML code. Once users click the “bake” button, their tweet is outputted into formatted HTML, which they can then copy and paste into blog posts, forum posts and articles, and anywhere else that accepts HTML.

The move will make it significantly more likely that bloggers and web designers will begin to use the baked html tweets more often. Until now, most people used images that had been captured of tweets; the downside to this strategy is that the images aren’t crawlable by search engines, making the data contained in the tweets effectively invisible. The new feature will allow for quick and easy insertion of tweets, without requiring a separate step to capture, post and link to screenshots.

Already the new Blackbird Pie feature has taken some criticism from savvy web developers who say that the code it outputs is too bloated. Although the code certainly is significant, one of the upshots of the complex code is that it allows users to effectively format the baked tweets from their own end, using only Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Still, Twitter has listed “shorter code” on its list of To Do’s for the Blackbird Pie formatter.

After the initial launch of Twitter’s Blackbird Pie, the feature was temporarily unavailable to many users due to the flood of people rushing to try out the new feature. By now the Blackbird Pie feature seems to have cooled off somewhat, and generating HTML tweets seems to be functioning fine.

So keep your eyes open – you’ll probably start to see a lot of HTML-based tweets showing up on blogs and on websites around the internet – and how that will change search engine rankings for sites showing a large volume of tweets remains to be seen.

Here is an example of what an embeded ‘tweet’  looks like

My sister Deborah aka @Coachdeb was interviewed on NBC asking “What business need to know about Twitter?”

She mentioned that business need to track what people are saying about your products, services and business as it is happening, so that if they have a need about your service or product you can handle that need immediately which shows for GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE.

One of the tools  that she mentions to accomplish this is http://www.tweetbeep.com

Tweetpbeep keeps track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company, anything, with hourly updates! You can even keep track of who’s tweeting your website or blog, even if they use a shortened URL (like bit.ly or tinyurl.com)  TweetBeep is like Google Alerts for Twitter.

Here are some additional  tools that I use to track what is being said about my business as well as my clients businesses.

Convomonitor is a new web based tool which serves as an extended dashboard for your twitter account and allows you to track what people say about brands on Twitter. You also can track Twitter conversations about any topic, word, phrase, idea, or person.

Doesn’t this do pretty much the same thing as AIR apps like Tweetdeck, etc?

Yes, but you don’t have to download anything or run a separate app to use Convo Monitor. Plus, with AIR apps, you can’t share dashboard with a friend.

Another  simple way is to create an RSS feed based on a keyword search of Twitter. http://search.twitter.com/

TweetDeck – This desktop application  enables you to split all the Tweets you receive into topic or group specific columns. The default columns can contain all tweets from your timeline, @replies directed to you and direct messages. You can also make up additional, live-updating columns using the ‘group’ (to create a sub-group of just your favorite Twitterers, for example), ’search’ and ‘replies’ buttons. You can also filter each column to include or exclude items based on keywords or users.

Tweet Grid – This is a browser-based application that allows you to search for up to nine different topics, events, conversations, hashtags, phrases, people, groups, etc. As new tweets are created, they are automatically updated in the grid. One particularly neat feature is that it can automatically add hashtags if you Tweet directly from their web page.

Monitter – A browser-based application that is very similar to Tweet Grid except it is prettier and you can search for Tweets made within a certain distance of a chosen location. A widget is available for your blog or website but you would need to know a little html to install it.

Tweetchat – A browser-based application that allows you to monitor and chat about one topic. You can tweet directly from the page and it will automatically add the hashtag of whatever ‘room’ you are in. The Twitter stream live updates.

Tweetree – A browser-based application that puts your Twitter stream in a tree so you can see the posts people are replying to in context (but does not properly thread them). It also pulls in lots of external content like twitpic photos, youtube videos etc.

Do you use a Twitter tool to track conversation, share it with us by leaving a comment below.

Learn more about using Twitter for Business by taking Twitter for Business online class in our Online Learning Center.

What exactly is a “twebinar”? Using Twitter and a webinar. Participants in a webinar or even a teleseminar watch and listen from the sidelines but join in on the conversation before, during and after each Twebinar.

Participants can watch and listen to the Twebinar just as you would with a normal web based webinar, or teleseminar except with these added benefits:

• Other participants in the event can have conversation which is ongoing as participants ‘tweet’ ( ask questions, and/or discuss the webinar series on Twitter)
• Follow other participants and presenter to create networking and business relationships
• Presenter gets a feel  for what content to go over ahead of time if participants  ‘tweet’ questions ahead of time
• Presenter gets feedback  after the event and continues dialog and relationship
• Announcing Event  details can be ‘Retweeted’ and promoted
• Use hashtags to follow event before, during and after
  (The hash symbol followed by a tag is used to identify a topic on Twitter. Hashtags make it much easier to search for all posts on the same topic using the Twitter search engines.)
  Example @virtualbiz4u #twittertip or if it an upcoming webinar the initials of what the event is called

Anyone else have anything else to add that are the benefits of a Twebinar please leave comments below.

I happen to love FF #FollowFriday  because it gives me a chance to highlight the people I really enjoy following…people who make a sincere contribution. #Follow Friday.

You may have seen people use the hash # symbol in some of their Twitter posts.

The hash symbol followed by a tag is used to identify a topic on Twitter. Hashtags make it much easier to search for all posts on the same topic using the Twitter search engines.

Friday you nominate people who you think are worth following (perhaps the best new people that you’ve met over the past couple of weeks or your long time favorites).

To keep up to date with all the developments, on Friday, just use a service such as Tweet Grid or Monitter and search for #followfriday.  As the page updates, you will see hundreds or even thousands of people who recommend good people to follow on Twitter.
You can also just type in your search bar in on your Twitter page #followfriday.
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23followfriday

To take part, just post the Twitter usernames of people you recommend that other people follow, then add #followfriday to your tweet so that other people can find it.

I HIGHLY recommend you put why you recommend. This will make your contribution more valuable, you may want to group the people that you recommend into a certain category. For example, the top graphic artist or web developers  to follow etc.  Because this hashtag has become so popular some  people begin to ignore it seeing it as ‘noise’.  If you put the category or the VALUE of these “follow worthy” tweeters the effort you made will be noticed and received.

To Quickly Create your  followfriday list  you use a tool the twittertag project

How twittertag project tool Works

Tired of manually inputting names for Follow Friday tweets? Well do I have a solution for you!

1. Type in your twitter username.
2. The engine will scan the last 200 tweets, count the dups, and return your most active friends.
3. The results will display:#FollowFriday @friend1 @friend2 @friend3 @friend4…

The other idea to add to the #followfriday concept is to also add something in your Twitter bio that says see my  #followfavorites

Follow Friday provides you with three major opportunities to attract new followers;

First, if one of your followers nominates you as a good person to follow, this will create a certain amount of interest in your profile.  You are also getting a ‘referral’ and we all know in business getting a referral gives you the client already warmed up to your business.

Second, it will give you plenty of ideas of who to follow.

Third, as more people are tuned in to the idea of finding new followers, they’re more likely to follow you back.

Fourth, by seeing your name referred your name becomes familiar so even if they don’t follow you the first time they will eventually once your name becomes familiar to them.

So this Friday, make time in your schedule for Twitter and get ready to find a range of new, high-quality followers.

Here are articles that give you business ideas for using Twitter.  If you have found other articles please leave a comment below with link.

Twitter Handbook – This is actually the site for Twitter Revolution Book.  The handbook is a virtual update of areas within the book that are constantly changing.  Excellent book and excellent site with tons of resources for using Twitter for business.

50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business

Using Twitter for Brands or Corporate Identities

How to use Twitter for marketing

Associations using Twitter

Thinking About Search, Again

Guidelines For Brands Using Twitter

More evidence that Twitter is changing business

CEO’s Who Twitter

I decided to create a separate post so that we can keep adding to this list.

One thing I am big on when I  Consultant with a  Business Owners is maximizing their time and doing things smart. So when I recommend this communication tool to a business owner I want to give them the tools they need to be successful at it.  I don’t want to see a business owner struggle to figure this out and spend countless hours.  So here are some of the tools to put in your Business Twitter tool box so that you can focus on your business and not spend time finding the best tools to do so.

Warning there are many out there and these are just a few.  My professional Business Consulting advice is to pick the ones that work for you and your business.  Some tools may work for others but you have to find the ones that work for you.

If you also own a product or a service, here are some essential tools to help you harness the full power of Twitter without making any dent in your existing marketing budget because these tools are completely free:

• TweetLater: This powerful service allows you to schedule tweets (much like you would schedule emails). Say if you are announcing a new product at 10 AM EST tomorrow, write a message through TweetLater and it will automatically get published to your Twitter status exactly at the time you want. You need not be texting at the time of actual launch.Another very powerful feature is the ability to receive email digests of keyword activity in the Tweetosphere. This allows you to join a conversation or track topics and trends.
• Twitter for Facebook: If you are on Facebook, this application forwards your Twitter updates directly to Facebook as status updates.
• Twitter Feed – This service fetches new content from your blog (or any site that supports RSS feeds ) and publishes a link in your twitter account. It will help your existing customers stay updated about news related to products they already own.
• Tweet Scan - This is like Google for Twitter. It will solve two problems:a) Tweet Scan is great for monitoring feedback about your product from conversations happening in the Twitter universe. And they provide RSS feeds so you’ll automatically know when people tweet about products.b) With Tweet Scan, you can find existing customers who are already on Twitter and follow them so they come to know about your existence. Or you may search for the name of your competing products and track potential customers.
• Twitter PollDaddy - This service lets you use Twitter for getting opinions or for asking questions through polls. Type your question with a list of potential answers and post it to your Twitter account.So if you are nearing a product release and only one of the two features can make it to the final product, use Twitter PollDaddy service to learn from customers which of the two features they think is more important to them.
• Quotably - This is another quintessential twitter service that makes it easy for you to follow conversations happening around your tweets. It arranges replies to all your tweets in a threaded form much like the way you see discussions on usenet groups.
• TwitterReply - With Twitter, your customers get an alternate way to get in touch with you through public tweets or even direct messages. They may want to know the contact number of your support team or they could be looking for a manual which can they can’t locate on your website.TwitterReply sends you an instant email whenever there’s a new tweet for you in the Twitter universe. You need it because customers contacting you through Twitter may be looking for instant answers.
• We Follow ( http://wefollow.com/ )
  A user powered Twitter directory. Add yourself to categories that are relevant to your social media persona.
• FriendFeed http://www.friendfeed.com
  FriendFeed is a web service that allows you to add all your updates from social media websites, social networks, blogs and social bookmarking and micro-blogging services into one place, along with the more common feed types like RSS and Atom.FriendFeed also allows you to subscribe to the streams of other people, such as family members, friends and work colleagues. Currently, there’s support for fifty nine different feed source.  This is a HUGE time saving tool so that you can manage all sites that you are signed up for.
• Twitangle
  Manage your friends and followers with tags ( http://www.twittangle.com/ )
  This tool lets you rate and tag your friends and filter them on a timeline! You can also create custom groups of your followers and filter you timeline by that group.
• Twitalyzer ( http://www.twitalyzer.com/twitalyzer/index.asp )
  Evaluate the activity of any Twitter user and report on relative influence, signal-to-noise ratio, generosity, velocity, clout, and other useful measures of success in social media.
• ReTweet Rank ( http://www.retweetrank.com/ )
  Find out how popular your tweets are.
• Mr. Tweeep ( http://mrtweet.net/ )
  Find relevant and interesting Twitter users to follow.
• Twitscoop ( http://www.twitscoop.com/snapshot/2008/12/9/2245.html )
  Stay on top of twitter’s hot topics or discussions in real time.
• Untweeps ( http://untweeps.mobeezy.mobi )
  Unfollow people who have not updated within “X” amount of days
  Find out the tweeps out of your followers who have not updated within a specified number of days (you can decide how many days is it) and lets you unfollow them
• Twitalert ( http://www.twilert.com/ )
  Receive regular email updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service, well any keyword you like really.
• Ping.fm ( http://splitweet.com/ )
  Update over 30 social networking sites at once (including: linkedin, facebook, Twitter).
• SEOtrack ( http://seotrackonline.com/ )
  Maximize your social media traffic & optimize your website, blog etc for search & social media ? Audit your website’s architecture with this free site tool: http://seotrackonline.com/
  

At  TwitterHandbook.com you can find a comprehensive list of many more tools and apps for Twitter.
The post on apps comes from Chapter 10 of the book Twitter Revolution

Twitter Fan Wiki has acomprehesive  page dedicated to apps and are categoried to easily find.

Businesses now use the Twitter to pre-announce new products, get feedback, share upcoming deals or for tracking buzz around their products and services.

For instance, the Dell Outlet uses Twitter to announce deals and discounts on refurbished Dell computers. JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines use Twitter to let customers know about new routes and fare discounts. News sites like BBC and The New York Times publish breaking new stories on Twitter thus replacing the traditional email alerts.

Twitter, it is one of those “web 2.0” phenomenon that’s got everyone excited, even those who don’t really understand it. Many of my clients and colleagues have come to me and simply put, say “I don’t get it”. They’ve heard something that makes them think they should know what Twitter is about; but everything inside of them is telling them it is irrelevant. So, what is Twitter? Is it relevant to business and why don’t people get it?

Twitter is a communication tool. It has been called a micro-blogging platform.
If our instant messaging clients let us create groups and send one IM that hit the entire group – that would be like Twitter. If cell phone providers let us group our phonebook contacts and send an SMS to that group – that would be like Twitter. However, someone came along and did something similar to both of these things and that actually is Twitter. Current estimates of total users using twitter top out around 5 million. That’s a lot of opportunity.

Twitter allows you to post updates (called Tweets) as often as you want (and limited to 140 characters). When you follow other people on Twitter, you see their tweets. When they follow you, they see your tweets. It’s a constant stream of communication. The good news is you can turn it on or off as often as you like. Twitter also keeps a public record of all updates, which can be mined with Twitter Search.

We all know that person who fills our inbox with junk or leaves unbearably long voice-mails – but Twitter etiquette is defined by the user and their relationship with their user group. You can be as annoying or informative as you please – Twitters (or Tweets) are opt-in. You decide to receive these communications; unlike e-mail, IM, SMS and phone calls which are directed towards you and you receive regardless of your desire (you can opt to ignore, but even that can be annoying).

Practical Ways Twitter Can Help Your Business

• Getting Traffic and Leads
  If you are in a lead generation business, Twitter can help you locate and communicate with people who can use your product or service. Links to examples of people making use of Twitter to meet people and start a sales process. Plus additional Twitter tools to help you with lead generation.
• E-commerce leads
  What if you sell a widget or have some other business method that doesn’t require an exceptionally deep relationship with your customer? Perhaps you’ll find Twitter to be useful for promoting sales or making limited offers.
• Here what they say about your brand
  Individuals are using Twitter to talk about things they love and hate. If they love your brand it’s good to know. If they hate it, perhaps you can find out why and fix it. Links to examples of people using Twitter to hear what others are saying about them… and then taking action to improve any bad experiences. Plus software that helps you monitor and listen to Twitter conversations.
• Customer Service
  People are talking and describing their experiences on Twitter. Their experience with your business might be a topic of conversation. Be pro-active and use Twitter as a genuine customer service channel. These are articles about how to use Twitter to improve your customers’ experience with your product and/or service.
• Trend Watching
  Perhaps there are general topics and conversations that are relevant to your business. Twitter makes a great tool for watching what sort of new buzz is being generated online. These are examples of tools and techniques to identify rising trends via Twitter.

Tools to help you manage Twitter

One thing I am big on when I  Consultant with a  Business Owners is maximizing their time and doing things smart. So when I recommend this communication tool to a business owner I want to give them the tools they need to be successful at it.  I don’t want to see a business owner struggle to figure this out and spend countless hours.  So here are some of the tools to put in your Business Twitter tool box so that you can focus on your business and not spend time finding the best tools to do so.

Warning there are many out there and these are just a few.  My professional Business Consulting advice is to pick the ones that work for you and your business.  Some tools may work for others but you have to find the ones that work for you.

If you also own a product or a service, here are some essential tools to help you harness the full power of Twitter without making any dent in your existing marketing budget because these tools are completely free:

• TweetLater: This powerful service allows you to schedule tweets (much like you would schedule emails). Say if you are announcing a new product at 10 AM EST tomorrow, write a message through TweetLater and it will automatically get published to your Twitter status exactly at the time you want. You need not be texting at the time of actual launch.Another very powerful feature is the ability to receive email digests of keyword activity in the Tweetosphere. This allows you to join a conversation or track topics and trends.
• Twitter for Facebook: If you are on Facebook, this application forwards your Twitter updates directly to Facebook as status updates.
• Twitter Feed – This service fetches new content from your blog (or any site that supports RSS feeds ) and publishes a link in your twitter account. It will help your existing customers stay updated about news related to products they already own.
• Tweet Scan - This is like Google for Twitter. It will solve two problems:a) Tweet Scan is great for monitoring feedback about your product from conversations happening in the Twitter universe. And they provide RSS feeds so you’ll automatically know when people tweet about products.b) With Tweet Scan, you can find existing customers who are already on Twitter and follow them so they come to know about your existence. Or you may search for the name of your competing products and track potential customers.
• Twitter PollDaddy - This service lets you use Twitter for getting opinions or for asking questions through polls. Type your question with a list of potential answers and post it to your Twitter account.So if you are nearing a product release and only one of the two features can make it to the final product, use Twitter PollDaddy service to learn from customers which of the two features they think is more important to them.
• Quotably - This is another quintessential twitter service that makes it easy for you to follow conversations happening around your tweets. It arranges replies to all your tweets in a threaded form much like the way you see discussions on usenet groups.
• TwitterReply - With Twitter, your customers get an alternate way to get in touch with you through public tweets or even direct messages. They may want to know the contact number of your support team or they could be looking for a manual which can they can’t locate on your website.TwitterReply sends you an instant email whenever there’s a new tweet for you in the Twitter universe. You need it because customers contacting you through Twitter may be looking for instant answers.
• We Follow ( http://wefollow.com/ )
  A user powered Twitter directory. Add yourself to categories that are relevant to your social media persona.
• FriendFeed http://www.friendfeed.com
  FriendFeed is a web service that allows you to add all your updates from social media websites, social networks, blogs and social bookmarking and micro-blogging services into one place, along with the more common feed types like RSS and Atom.FriendFeed also allows you to subscribe to the streams of other people, such as family members, friends and work colleagues. Currently, there’s support for fifty nine different feed source.
• Twitangle
  Manage your friends and followers with tags ( http://www.twittangle.com/ )
  This tool lets you rate and tag your friends and filter them on a timeline! You can also create custom groups of your followers and filter you timeline by that group.
• Twitalyzer ( http://www.twitalyzer.com/twitalyzer/index.asp )
  Evaluate the activity of any Twitter user and report on relative influence, signal-to-noise ratio, generosity, velocity, clout, and other useful measures of success in social media.
• ReTweet Rank ( http://www.retweetrank.com/ )
  Find out how popular your tweets are.
• Mr. Tweeep ( http://mrtweet.net/ )
  Find relevant and interesting Twitter users to follow.
• Twitscoop ( http://www.twitscoop.com/snapshot/2008/12/9/2245.html )
  Stay on top of twitter’s hot topics or discussions in real time.
• Untweeps ( http://untweeps.mobeezy.mobi )
  Unfollow people who have not updated within “X” amount of days
  Find out the tweeps out of your followers who have not updated within a specified number of days (you can decide how many days is it) and lets you unfollow them
• Twitalert ( http://www.twilert.com/ )
  Receive regular email updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service, well any keyword you like really.
• Ping.fm ( http://splitweet.com/ )
  Update over 30 social networking sites at once (including: linkedin, facebook, Twitter).
• SEOtrack ( http://seotrackonline.com/ )
  Maximize your social media traffic & optimize your website, blog etc for search & social media ? Audit your website’s architecture with this free site tool: http://seotrackonline.com/

Twitter Guide: Learn some interesting tips and tricks for Twitter.

Q:  Can I respond directly to someone’s tweet? What’s the difference between an @reply and a direct message?

A:  You can respond to people one of two ways: with direct messages, which are private, 140-character exchanges, or with @replies, which are publicly viewable. You can send a ‘@reply’ by simply adding the ‘@’ symbol and the particular user’s name to the beginning of your message (example: “@switched: I really liked that article on Twitter!”). These @replies are ideal for furthering a public dialogue. On the other hand, direct messages, which you can send by clicking ‘Direct Messages’ in the Web site’s right-hand bar (or by preceding a text message with ‘d’ and the user name), are better for things you want to say to an individual, rather than the whole ‘Twitterverse.’

Q:  What is ReTweeting?

A:  ReTweets are re-posted updates that give credit to the originator of the message. In other words, you’re simply cutting and pasting someone else’s tweet and posting it on your own feed, linking to the person who first wrote it. ReTweeting builds goodwill within the Twitter community, as long as you don’t overdo it. There is no need to reTweet every update that makes you giggle, but, if something strikes you as particularly interesting or funny, you can reTweet it by copy-and-pasting the update and preceding it with “RT” (for ReTweet) and the person’s username. That person will get a copy of the ReTweet, and most likely thank you for it! (ReTweeting is also a good way to get more followers, by the way.)

Q: I am a blogger and want to cross-post articles from my blog into Twitter?

A: Go to FeedBlitz, type the address of the feed in the Subscribe box and choose Twitter from the subscription options. The other option is Twitter Feed but that requires you to have an OpenID.

Q: I know that TwitPic allows me to post pictures on Twitter but I want to use my existing Flick account with Twitter.

A: Go to TwitterGram and associate your Flickr name with your Twitter account. Now assign a special tag (say Twitter) and any picture that you post on Flickr with that Tag will automatically get posted in your Twitter account as well.

Q: I just ordered a laptop on eBay and the owner shipped it via UPS. I want to track this package on Twitter.

A: Follow TrackThis on Twitter and send this bot a Direct Message with your Airway Bill Number. You’ll be notified each time your package changes location. Works with FedEx, UPS, DHL and USPS.

Q. I want to add events in my Google Calendar using Twitter?

A: Go to Twittercal, add gCal as your virtual friend on Twitter and add events by simply sending direct messages to your new Twitter friend.

Q: I am a blogger. How can I add “tweet this” links to all my blog post?

A: See detailed instructions on how to add ‘Tweet This’ to Blogger or WordPress blogs. The permalinks are shortened automatically in the tweet.

Q: Oh! I just saw a spam profile on Twitter that is using my picture and tweets. I want to report impersonation on Twitter.

A: Send a message to Twitter spam watch team at @spam with the suspicious user name.

Q: My Twitter friend just sent me a tweet in French. I want to translate his message into English.

A: Follow twanslate and send a direct message with the text you want to get translated along with the language code of the target language (en for English, fr from French, etc.).

Q: I want to use Twitter as a Gmail Notifier.

A: Create a new Twitter account and set the status of updates as “Protected” so that the updates don’t appear in a public timeline. Now subscribe to your Gmail RSS feed using FeedBlitz and become mutual friends.

Q: I want to use Twitter as an alarm clock to remind me that I have to pick my daughter from school in 30 minutes.

A: Follow timer – send a direct message with the reminder time and it will ping you at that time. For instance “d timer 30 pick daughter”.

Q: I want to use Twitter for ego surfing.

A: Go to tweetbeep and set up alerts for certain keywords and web URLs. You’ll get an email notification as soon as someone mentions you or your brand or your blog posts in their tweets.

Q: While I like the default Twitter search engine, I want to know about other alternatives.

A: Try Tweet Scan and Monitter. Unlike Summize, you don’t have to refresh the Monitter page each time there’s a new result matching your search query. And it support multi-column search so may track multiple keywords on the same screen.

Q: I want to conduct a quick and simple poll on Twitter. Is it possible?

A: Go to StrawPoll and create a poll. Your Twitter contacts can participate in the poll by simply sending an @reply message.

Sarah Radwanick  of ComSource wrote this article below which shows you that Twitter is NOT being driven by the Tweens and Teens.   45 – 54 group would become Twitter’s key demograhics.
Twitter seems to be just about everywhere these days, infiltrating pop culture and challenging traditional communication channels as people answer the simple Twitter question, “What are you doing?” Many people have hopped on the Twitter bandwagon – from businesses to celebrities to professional sports players to President Obama.

Over the past several months, we at comScore have watched how quickly traffic to Twitter has exploded. Worldwide visitors to Twitter approached 10 million in February, up an impressive 700+% vs. year ago. The past two months alone have seen worldwide visitors climb more than 5 million visitors. U.S. traffic growth has been just as dramatic, with Twitter reaching 4 million visitors in February, up more than 1,000% from a year ago.

Reuters reporter Alexei Oreskovic recently authored an interesting blog post about the demographics of Twitter users. What he discovered was that 18-24 year olds, the traditional social media early adopters, are actually 12 percent less likely than average to visit Twitter (Index of 88). It is the 25-54 year old crowd that is actually driving this trend. More specifically, 45-54 year olds are 36 percent more likely than average to visit Twitter, making them the highest indexing age group, followed by 25-34 year olds, who are 30 percent more likely.

The skew towards older visitors, although perhaps initially surprising for a social media site, actually makes more sense than you might think at first. With so many businesses using Twitter, along with the first generations of Internet users “growing up” and comfortable with technology, this is a sign that the traditional early adopter model might need to be revisited. Not only teenagers and college students can be counted among the “technologically inclined,” which means that trends are much more prone to take off in older age segments than they used to. And with those age 25 and older representing a much bigger segment of the population than the under 25 crowd, it might help explain why Twitter has expanded its reach so broadly so quickly over the past few months.

Keep an eye out for the March U.S. Twitter data, which should be available later this week. An early peek at the data suggests it’s going to be another HUGE month for the increasingly popular site. Follow comScore on Twitter and be the first to find out how the site did! You can also follow comScore chairman and co-founder Gian Fulgoni on Twitter to hear his thoughts and insights on the digital media industry at large.

Common Crafts has great videos that really do explain things in plain English which helps my brick and mortar clients understand technology better.
Here is a video explaining Twitter in “Plain English”.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter  for more Tips and Tutorials for the busy business owner.

On this blog you will see on the right side bar “Find Me”