Like many people, when I first heard of Twitter, my reaction was “What in the world can you do in 140 characters that has any value?” Well, now we know…

There are currently over 500 million Twitter profiles and about 340 million tweets a day were sent in 2012. Here are some of the reasons why Twitter has emerged as a useful social media tool.

Convenience

Twitter was originally designed for use on mobile devices and this is one of the factors fueling its growth as it rides the waves of growth in both social and mobile technologies. The fact that Twitter makes it convenient to send, receive and share messages while users are on the go has helped to contribute to its rise in popularity.

Real time reporting

Twitter gives eyewitnesses the opportunity to share their take on what they are watching as it happens. Messages can be easily viewed, shared and searched all of which are essential to making it a useful platform. Twitter has become so wide spread that journalists now use it as a source of breaking news.

Current trends

If you want to find out what is catching people’s attention right now, Twitter provides an easy way to find out with Trends. Granted, not everyone is on Twitter and many of these trends are very short term. However, as data mining becomes increasingly sophisticated, this type of information will be combined with other data to provide valuable insights for researchers of all kinds.

Raising your visibility

You can build a large following on Twitter if you work at it consistently. In addition, since you can follow someone and view their public conversations, Twitter is a great tool for connecting with people you would not ordinarily be able to reach. You can actually pop up on the radar of a CEO, celebrity or decision maker by commenting on their tweets and retweeting their content. In most cases, this is virtually impossible through traditional channels of communication.

Let us know how Twitter has worked for you in your business.