Twitter

2012 Annual Summary

Analysis: Twitter is an online social networking and micro-blogging Web site that is used to provide information, commentary and descriptions of events and highlight certain audio and video content. Twitter users send updates, or ‘tweets,’ which are 140 characters or less in length. Individual users can ‘follow’ another user’s updates.

In 2012, three CDC Twitter profiles (@CDCgov, @CDC_eHealth and @CDCespanol) reach a collective following of over 452,803 followers (278,998 followers in 2011) with a variety of general health and safety tips, social media updates, emergency preparedness and response information, and flu vaccination and seasonal flu updates in both English and Spanish.

A "clickthrough" is when a tweet (or linked post) on Twitter has been clicked on and the user arrives on a CDC landing page for more information. CDC Twitter profiles increased click throughs from 63,647 in 2011 to 79,214 in 2012.