Business-related Twitter success stories exist – there’s the tale of Dell bringing in about $3 million in sales, for example. But it seems that such stories may remain rare, as new Hitwise data suggests that Twitter users are much more interested in free online media than in spending money.
Before getting to that point, Robin Goad did have some other things to say. He wrote, “UK Internet traffic to Twitter, the ‘micro-blogging’ service and social network, has increased 22-fold over the last 12 months.” And what’s more, “The noticeable thing about Twitter’s growth is that the vast majority of it – 93% in fact – has occurred during 2009.”
A breakdown of where Twitter visitors went after swinging by the site returns us to the stuff that business owners will find less encouraging, though. Apparently, 55.9 percent of the visitors head off to things like social networks, blogs, and news and entertainment sites. Just 9.5 percent of them go to sites where it’s possible to spend money.
Photo Credit: Hitwise
Google UK, Facebook, and Hotmail are all more helpful in that respect. So while Twitter may benefit blog owners and other content creators, it isn’t likely to figure directly into many revenue streams.
Unless the site grows another 2,200 percent in the next year, anyway, in which case all bets are probably off.
