8 Reasons Why Twitter Power Users Are Influential

Guest blog from Jeff Bullas!  Thanks, Jeff!

Twitter is often touted as being a 140 character publishing platform for simpletons. In fact my first impressions when I started using Twitter in late 2009 was that it was a rather benign and simple way to send a type of SMS but on the web, consequently I was a rather light Twitter user for several months.

I saw people who had ten thousand plus tweets and thought that they must not be doing anything else but tweeting from a desk locked away in some quiet cave while the rest of the world got down to work and play.

The power both real and perceived of Twitter to influence and accelerate attention was brought to my attention in stark relief when I was contacted earlier this year by the Global executives at Ford and General Motors regarding tweets about blog posts that I had published.

ExactTarget (which  is a leading global provider of on-demand email marketing and interactive marketing solutions including social media) recently published a new study which surveyed 1,500 consumers to identify the top motivations for following brands on Twitter and provide new insight into consumers’ expectations for interacting with brands online.

Morgan Stewart, the principal of ExactTarget’s research and education group said the study revealed that “Consumers active on Twitter are clearly the most influential online,” and went on to say “that even though the number of active Twitter users is less than Facebook or email, the concentration of highly engaged and influential content creators is unrivaled.”

“What happens on Twitter doesn’t stay on Twitter!!”

So why are Twitter power users so influential online.

1. 72 percent publish blog posts at least monthly
2. 70 percent comment on blogs
3. 61 percent write at least one product review monthly
4. 61 percent comment on news sites
5. Daily Twitter users are 6 times more likely to publish articles
6. Five times more likely to post blogs
7. Seven times more likely to post to Wikis
8. Three times more likely to post product reviews at least monthly compared to non-Twitter users

If you take the time to review the 8 key findings what stands out is that a Twitter user is 500% more likely to post blogs which is the core essence of publishing online. So Twitter has become the gathering place for content creators whose influence spills over into every other corner of the internet.