Hashtags, retweets, mentions—these are just some of the terms that are a normal part of today’s internet vocabulary, and Twitter is responsible. Twitter is one of the largest social media platforms in the world, with approximately 328 million active users—which makes it hard to believe that it’s only been around for 11 years.
How Twitter Started
The origins of Twitter date back to early 2006, when NYU student Jack Dorsey shared a new online communication idea with some of his coworkers at Odeo, a podcasting company. Dorsey’s idea was a platform that allowed users to share short messages with groups of people, similar to sending text messages. The first version of this platform was referred to as “twttr,” and was used solely by people who worked for Odeo. On July 15th, 2006, Twitter was introduced to the public. The website started seeing around 20,000 tweets per day in the first months, but this number grew to 60,000 in 2007, when Twitter was a hot topic at the South by Southwest Interactive conference.
How Twitter Became Popular
After receiving so much recognition at the South by Southwest Interactive conference, Twitter started becoming well known in the social media world. The website started seeing 300,000 tweets per day by the year 2008, which grew to 50 million tweets per day by early 2010. Not only did this social media platform become a hit with people who wanted to share messages with friends—it also became one of the easiest ways for companies to advertise and interact with their customers. Soon, TV shows and businesses started promoting hashtags and encouraging consumers to include them in their tweets, while Twitter handles quickly became an identifier used in personal and professional settings.
How Twitter Is Doing Today
Over the last few years, Twitter has continued to be one of the biggest names in social media. People and businesses use this social media platform on a daily basis, and there are approximately 500 million tweets posted every day. Twitter has become an incredibly useful tool for businesses of all sizes, allowing them to interact with customers, keep up on the latest trends, and promote their content and other website features.
If you’re interested in learning more about social media and how it can help your business, contact Pennington Creative today. We offer a variety of content marketing services, including social media post creation for small and medium-sized businesses and large-scale content services for marketing agencies.