At the recent XDU On the Road in Chicago I asked attendees a couple questions, which I often do, about twitter. I asked three questions:

1. Who has or has had a twitter account?

2. Who actively tweets?

3. Do you read the tweets you receive?

With the theme of the 2012 XDU On the Road program being “making it relevant”, and the 5 sessions focusing on relevant communications the subject of social media was certainly part of the discussion.

In Chicago, as in other cities the percentages were close. In Chicago approximate 70% said they had a twitter account at some time. About 20% said they actively tweeted and about the same percentage claimed to read some if not all of their tweets.

Many have told me that there are a lot of twitter accounts, with few people actually being engaged. So why should we give it a tweet?

The answer, yes you should give a tweet, especially if they are among the 20 or so percent who like to communicate via twitter. Right message, right time, right person using the right CHANNEL. That is what relevance is.

Do you give a tweet?

PS – 20% is huge compared to the 1-5% using other channels.