New research has revealed some fascinating stats about Twitter use in different countries. The comScore study found that in June 93 million people visited Twitter.com, up 109% on 2009. (And this figure doesn’t include third-party Twitter apps that many users access Twitter from.)

When it comes to the countries that engage on Twitter, top of the list is Indonesia, followed by Brazil, Venezuela, then the Netherlands, Japan and the Philippines. America came in at number 11, while the UK is two behind at 13.

A Twitter spokesperson is reported as saying: “Twitter.com has experienced an explosion in global traffic over the past year, establishing itself as one of the most-visited social networking sites across each of the five worldwide regions.”

WebCreationUK have a social media package available, speak to us for more or any of your other web design needs.

It’s here at last. The official Tweet button. So you thought you already had one on your website? No, because until now the Twitter buttons have been “unofficial”. The new Tweet button – the official one – counts tweets no matter how they were tweeted.

Just so you know, Twitter is working with TweetMeme, which already offers the most popular version of the tweet button. Twitter says that TweetMeme will be switching over to the official Twitter button anyway.

Twitter explains that when you click on the Tweet Button, a Tweet box will appear, pre-populated with a shortened link that points to the item that you’re sharing. After you post to Twitter, you may see suggestions for accounts to follow. These accounts are suggested by the website you visited and may include, for example, the news outlet and reporter of the article you shared.

All types of website owners ill be keen to add the official tweet button to their website. It only takes a few lines of code. And, as twitter tells us: “The Tweet Button will help publishers grow traffic and increase their Twitter following.”

Many thousands of followers have already signed up to the new pay-for @earlybird service on Twitter. This service allows advertisers to pay a fee to promote exclusive events, time-sensitive special deals and offer sneak peeks at products.

The @earlybird service is aimed at helping customers to find the best deals and great services. Consumers will only receive the @earlybird tweets if they follow an account or are retweeted the offers by someone they follow.

Twitter is aiming this service at large international brands in the first instance and those focused on the US market. The microblogging site says that it will stick to nationwide offers to start with but may then explore location-based deals.
The @earlybird service is Twitter’s second bid to monetise its services. In April, it launched the Promoted Tweets service.

Promoted Tweets:  These are tweets that are revealed to  people who conduct a search on Twitter. Advertisers have to pay for this service.

Speak to WebCreationUK and see what we can do to help your business in the world of Twitter and other social media.

Do you sell products or services that would appeal to the over-50 market? Do you believe that Facebook is only for youngsters? Well, maybe you should think again.

According to a survey many more over-50s are now using Facebook regularly – and so this could be a great place to widen your social marketing drive.

Hopefully you already have a business website (if not you might want to check out the stunning possibilities on WebCreationUK’s portfolio), and you’ll know by now the merits of social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
Now it’s time to wake up to a few lesser known stats about Facebook:

* Facebook is massive – 500 million users at the last count – and therefore makes a great place for reaching potential customers

* A lot more people over 50 are now using Facebook. Some quarter of this age group now use social media websites, with Facebook being the most popular.

* 49% aged 50 to 64, and 40% all adults 50+, consider themselves extremely or very comfortable using the Internet.

So while all businesses would be wise to use Facebook as an important marketing tool, it’s now clear that the over-50s customers can also be targeted on this fast-growing social media site, too. Why miss a trick?

We blogged recently about the dos and don’ts of retweeting. But tweeters should also think about the potential of their tweets to be retweeted. Of course, this is what most tweeters are aiming for. They want their news and posts to be spread to other followers and so they are keen for retweets.

But all too often you find that when retweeting the resulting tweet ends up being longer than the required 140 characters. This is because when you RT, you own account name is added into the tweet (think now many characters that takes up). Many people also like to add in a comment to a RT (so that’s more characters again).

Because of this it’s a good idea to keep your own tweets to a maximum of 120 characters. Less if possible. So many times we have gone to retweet an interesting tweet only to find it breaks the character limit by up to 20 characters. Being good tweeters we then try to cut the resulting tweet back before pressing the send button. But not everyone will bother to do this.

So, if you want to be a successful tweeter, think about how long your tweets are.

Retweeting is a big part of Twitter and it’s one of the ways that tweeters can engage with other. In terms of business, retweeting can create loyalties, friends and brand awareness. But there is an art to retweeting for success. Here we bring you some dos and don’ts:

Do retweet:

• Relevant and newsie articles, blogs and websites that are interesting to you and should therefore be interesting to others in a similar niche.
• Questions from other tweeters that you think your followers might be interested in answering.
• Funny or quirky posts that make you smile. (Be careful, though, as not everyone will have the same sense of  humour.)
• You own blog posts.
• A few nice things that folk have said about you. But not too many in case you look big-headed!

Don’t retweet:

• Every mention you get. This is annoying.
• Old news. Keep up to date to impress fellow tweeters.
• Obvious promotions for your company.