This isn’t a how-to guide for businesses to use Twitter. Rather, it’s the latest evidence and support that if you’re not using Twitter for your business, you should be!

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo recently announced that Twitter has more than 100 million active users, half of them are logging in daily. WOW! And right now 250 million tweets are posted each day, up from 100 million per day in January. That’s some serious growth.

But so what? It’s growing. Good for Twitter. What’s it to me and my business? Well, how about these five key facts from a recent study about the relationship of Twitter and consumer behavior:

1. 60% of brand followers are likely to recommend brands to a friend

2. 50% of brand followers are likely to buy products from that brand

3. Consumers follow brands for exclusive content, promotions, and to be in the know

4. 75% of consumers on Twitter have NEVER “un-followed” a brand

5. One-third of brand followers this year are interacting with brands compared to last year

And don’t expect the growth to slow down. With Apple’s recent release of iOS 5, Twitter sign-ups have tripled and been a big boost for the company.

Twitter has been ‘tweeting’ around the world for five years now. The little blue Twitter bird has become a staple icon in the world of social media. Twitter got its start in a brainstorming session of a podcasting company called Odeo in San Francisco. Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone. Odeo needed a way to be saved and the idea was to reinvent the way we communicate. Jack Dorsey had a vision that would allow users to use 140 characters or less to send out information via text message. It started out as twttr, inspired by the photo sharing service Flickr. This phenomenon that would reshape our lives launched in March of 2006 when Jack Dorsey posted the first tweet “just setting up my twttr”.

Accounts were created and twttr had 100 users. Soon after Twitter exploded into a micro-blogging movement that was made into its own company in 2007. Soon after, people from all walks of life, celebrities, and even Obama were becoming encompassed in the world of Twitter. That 100 users that first started using Twitter became 200 million at the end of 2010 and has continued to grow since then.

In the five years that Twitter has existed they have won awards, launched in different languages, partnered with LinkedIn, and has made a major impact in social media upon many other feats. According to the Huffington Post, Twitter now handles about 140 million tweets per day and a billion tweets per week. Twitter will continue to grow and be the place for users to unleash 140 characters of anything imaginable, as well as be a place for businesses to grow and market their brand.

Cause marketing is nothing new, but it has been increasingly growing in popularity for companies to both give back to the community and to get their names out there.  It is seen as a marketing campaign, but the money used is not just being spent on promotions, it is being used to help others.  This makes cause marketing a truly great idea.

A new trend that we are starting to see is companies implementing cause marketing through popular social media networks, such as Facebook and Twitter.  These social media networks connect millions of people across the world quickly and easily.

Just last month, Target’s “Bullseye Gives” campaign allowed Facebook users to go on Target’s Facebook page and vote for which charity (from a list of ten) that Target will donate $3 million.  Users were allowed to vote once a day, and the amount of money each charity was given was determined by the percentage of votes that they received.  Better yet, each time someone voted, it would show up in their newsfeed for all of their friends to see.  This is a tremendous word-of-mouth tool for praising Target and their acts of social responsibility.  Target’s “Bullseye Gives” campaign resulted in 167,000 Facebook users who came together to vote over 291,000 times.  Now that’s getting their name out there.

Target is not the only company that uses social media networks, like Facebook, to broadcast their charitable efforts.  Kraft also did well with their “Share a Little Comfort” campaign.  They offered to donate up to one million boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese to needy families, depending on the number of “statuses” or “tweets” shared by users on Facebook and Twitter.

Using popular social media networks for cause marketing can really help companies get their name out there and give back to the community, but they must be careful as to not come off as spam.  If consumers think that you are just trying to sell more of your product and don’t actually care about the charities, your campaign will be a setback for your branding efforts.  But if you follow in these companies footsteps in finding the perfect mix of social media promotions and charitable donations, you could gain a considerable amount of customer and brand loyalty, while still knowing that you are helping others.<–>