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The most detailed study of social media ever conducted janlgordon's insight:This piece by Globalwebindex has some amazing new information about Twitter, once seen as more of a niche social network according to research in 2009, but not anymore!Here are some highlights:.**GWI.8, the Q4 2012 dataset from GlobalWebIndex, shows that the number of active Twitter users grew 40% from Q2 2012 to Q4 2012.**This is equal to 288 million monthly active users (claimed to have used or contribute to Twitter in the past month) across the 31 markets currently**researched by GWI (representing nearly 90% of the global internet population aged 16 to 65). That marks a whopping growth rate in active users of 714% since July 2009.An incredible 21% of the global internet population now use Twitter actively on a monthly basis. What Does This Mean for Brands?Using Twitter is becoming more relevant than ever, but we need to be aware of how any given audience engages with Twitter. Difference in usage patterns will reflect the local market norms, generational gaps, and privacy concerns**it impacts the nature of the target audience who are active and the type of brands for which it would be relevant.**All of this, of course, is dependent on running detailed analysis of your target audience and the local market context.We also need to consider the changing nature of usage. The growing interaction with brands makes customer service and staff interaction a must if Twitter is employed as a communication channel.**Also, the growing usage of Twitter as a discovery tool means that content is absolutely critical for brands.**Overall, content is the ever growing mega opportunity of the new social landscape.Selected by Jan Gordon covering "Curation, Social Business and Beyond"Read full article here: [See it on Scoop.it, via Curation, Social Business and Beyond