A new survey indicates that the majority of Brits would agree with their government or service providers shutting down social media during an outbreak of civil unrest in their country.
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Too many small businesses are hesitant to embrace social media, citing the fact that they don’t know exactly how it will help their business make sales.

However, new reports are coming out that show exactly what social media, and Twitter specifically, can do for your business. So next time you’re trying to sell your boss or a potential client on why they should be using Twitter, here are some stats to help you out.
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In a recent survey, grandparents were asked whether they had a social media presence, and which one(s) they used. One fifth, a surprisingly high proportion, of those surveyed had at least one social media account, and a third of those with an account used Twitter.
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A new batch of fake emails purporting to be from Twitter is making the rounds, trying to get people’s personal details and make money off of surveys. If you’ve received an email from “admin@twitter.com” asking for account verification details, here’s how to tell if you’re being scammed.
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Last week, the White House conducted a “non-scientific” study of its Twitter followers and Facebook fans, to see how they interact with the governmental heavyweight. And the timing couldn’t be better for a social media revamp, as election season is just around the corner.
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Mass media and marketing specialists, Media Republic, announced the results of a study carried out on Cairo 360 which underline the dramatic shift in social media habits since the events of January 25th in Cairo, Egypt. Read more

There is a scam that’s spreading virally on Twitter right now, claiming to show you how many hours you’ve spent on Twitter. Tweets come from already compromised accounts, so they will appear in your timeline as though they are from people you trust. Here’s what to look for and avoid.
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It’s been a huge year for Twitter. Huge.

Twelve months ago it was an evolving but fairly low-key social network where the most popular user had about sixty thousand followers.

Now, it’s an internet giant that has forced Facebook and Google to continually revise and re-evaluate their mission statements, and been embraced by the global media and general populace at an unprecedented level. And 220 users now have more than one million followers.

But what I want to know is: how important is Twitter to YOU?

I’d like you to consider this from the perspective of how you would feel if Twitter suddenly disappeared tomorrow. How would that make you feel? How would it impact your day-to-day life?

Please choose your answer in the poll below, and I encourage you to follow this up in the comments section.

Last weekend I had a little bit of extra time on my hands and decided to use this to undertake a social experiment on Twitter I’ve been thinking about for a while.

I’m a big sharer of links on the network – about half of all my tweets contain links of some description, and the rest are made of replies (and the odd bit of fluff). I’ve noticed that when I tweet about certain things, my follower count rises and falls accordingly. Specifically, when I mention something that might be considered risqué content – sex, for example – I note I can lose a few followers, even if the article in question is in a reputable publication such as The Guardian or The New York Times.

This got me thinking – what exactly do my followers want to see from me? What do they expect to see from me? Can this be determined, and if so, can this data be used by other people to figure out what their followers want from them, too?

My Twitter Social Experiment

I decided to spend that weekend submitting 50 tweets contained a variety of linked content to my followers and then tracking the results using Bit.ly. From this, I hoped to determine:

1. Which subjects get the most clicks?
2. Which subjects get the most re-tweets?
3. Which subjects get the least amount of clicks?
4. Do people care (or even notice) affiliate links?
5. Does submitting risqué content to Twitter lose you followers?

I decided to submit five tweets in each of the following ten subjects:

• Twitter
• Social Media (non-Twitter)
• Tech/Internet (non-Twitter, non-social media)
• Religion
• Current Affairs
• Entertainment (Movies, TV, Music etc)
• Risqué Content
• Videos
• Humour
• Affiliate links

I would have liked to have done more topics, and with hindsight I wish I’d have included subjects such as science and sports.

Where appropriate, I would mark the tweets accordingly (i.e., ‘video’ or ‘funny’). All affiliate links were through Amazon.com, and were tagged at the end with the letters ‘AL’ (affiliate link) in parentheses.

When I started the experiment I had 2686 followers.

You can download a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet of all 50 tweets with links to the Bit.ly info here. It’s fairly crude but will allow you to check out the data yourself. Note that the links used during this experiment are still ‘out there’ and the data is likely to change (increase in clicks) over time, so the numbers at Bit.ly likely will differ from what is on this page as the weeks pass.

The Small Print

First of all, I feel I need to point out that this isn’t hard science. It was interesting and fun to undertake and I’m not in any way claiming this is the definitive study. But there is some data of interest here, and it does encourage further thought.

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