UK Government Writes Twitter Guide...in 20 Pages

A tweet can have a maximum of 140 characters. A guide on how to use Twitter, well, that’s another matter. The UK government has one, and it took its author, Neil Williams, 20 pages and 36,215 characters to create it.

The guide, embedded below, is actually quite an interesting read. Besides giving a clear cut explanation of what TwitterTwitter is and how (and why) the UK government should go about using it, it enumerates a number of third party tools (for example, bit.lybit.ly is to be used for links because it offers traffic analysis), talks about risks of using Twitter (for example, publishing embargoed news too early), and discusses the value of retweeting. Unlike some other Twitter guides, like the one from Wall Street Journal, it’s not focused on forbidding things and telling employees what NOT to do, which is a good example of how these types of guides should be done.

While we’re at on the subject of very long Twitter guides, you might want to check Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book, a collection of resources which helps you understand what Twitter is and how to make the best of it.

Template Twitter Strategy for Government Departments

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Tags: Guide, twitter

Number of Social Networking Users Has Doubled Since 2007

With Facebook, Twitter (), LinkedIn (), and other social networking sites growing rapidly, it’s not too surprising that on the whole, the number of social networking users has doubled since 2007.

Specifically, 55.6 million adults – or just less than 1/3rd of the population – in the US now visit social networks at least monthly, according to a new report from Forrester Research. That’s up from just 15 percent of adults in 2007, and around 18 percent last year.

At that level, social networking is now more popular than instant messaging among adults, which 54.3 million people report using. However, watching video, online shopping, and email (contrary to other reports we’ve seen) are still more widely used than social networks.

Here’s the breakdown:

Image courtesy of iStockphoto (), Dalaj; DNY59