The Global Language Monitor, which examines language usage across the world, recently ranked “Twitter” as the top word in the English language for 2009 — meaning it out-ranked “Obama,” “H1N1,” “stimulus,” and “vampire” to take #1.
While this seems a bit surprising with everything that’s gone on this year, it’s not shocking. Social media came to the forefront of interest and attention, and every traditional media outlet jumped in the ring to break that minute’s social media trend story and to get a piece of the pie themselves by connecting with their readers via social networks.
Not that we’re complaining — we’ve gotten to see the social media craze first-hand with our client CheapTweet. Launched just before Black Friday in 2008, CheapTweet couldn’t have been better positioned for what 2009 had in store: an aggregator that pulls deals from Twitter and creates a community around finding the best possible deals for every shopping need. Social media darling Twitter? Check. Saving money in a recession? Check. We worked with CheapTweet to formulate the message and get the word out, and the site was featured as a holiday shopping must-see on MSNBC less than two weeks later. That followed in 2009 with hits including InStyle, Parents, New York Times, CNN, TechCrunch, Internet Retailer and tons more — and thankfully, CheapTweet’s message and product were strong enough to roll over the competitors that popped up along the way. Cyber Monday (yesterday) brought the company’s heaviest traffic to date. Continue reading