Since Ashton and CNN battled out over who’ll reach 1m followers first, Twitter has been gaining ground in Israel. And although the micro-blogging service is still no match to facebook in terms of # of users, the awareness is definitely growing, globally and locally alike.
According to twittercounter there are about 2324 Israeli twitter users, my guess is a bit higher, closer to 3,500-4,000, as opposed to over 600,000 facebook users – some even say 750,000. Twitter is still relatively un-known in Israel, and we’re waiting for it to make its leap, but already I’m seeing more and more businesses entering this space, opening accounts on twitter. The reason is simple: it’s easy to manage and update, and doesn’t require too much of your time. The question is what value (or ROI) you expect from such activities, and the answers here vary, a lot.
In an effort to make some order in all the cluter, I’ve created a list over at newsgeek, of Israeli companies on twitter: media and communication, government and retail, hi-tech and VCs, leasure and sport, food and beverages and others. The list is dynamic, and 3 hours after the initial posting I had some 15 comments (and 20-30 new followers) of new accounts that needed to be inserted into the list. My goal is to create a place where people can find the company and contact person, that would enable them to start a conversation faster, meeting the demand of the ever-changing-business-world (aka – Innovation). The only 2 rules are:
a) an updated account (less than 20 days since your last twit) and
b) full bio available for contact and details.
Although the entire post is in Hebrew, by hovering over the names you can get the feeling of ‘who’s who’ in the Israeli E2.0 arena. I’m sure the list will continue to grow (by at least 1 more) in the future.
Link:
The List: Israeli Companies on Twitter (Hebrew)