If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance that you already have a Twitter account. You might even know a few good Twitter Tips. But there’s probably a lot of things about Twitter you didn’t know.

Here are 10 facts about Twitter that speak to its size, audience and popularity. In each case, we’ve added an additional comment to help put these facts into a context that may apply to your business. Think about how you can leverage the global reach of Twitter to expand the social media footprint of your business.

Fascinating Twitter Facts

1. On March 21, 2012, Twitter turned six years old. In a world where billion dollar empires can rise rise and fall practically overnight, six years is a pretty impressive pedigree. What was Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s very first tweet? See for yourself:

just setting up my twttr

— Jack Dorsey (@jack) March 21, 2006

Even back then, the founder of Twitter realized that this platform works best when your activities are shared with others!

2. The latest available statistics put Twitter at approximately 300,000,000 user accounts! Not all these accounts are active, however, so by participating you’ll automatically separate yourself from millions of other Twitter members.

3. An estimated 300 million tweets are sent every day. Yes, that’s a lot of tweets. To get your tweets seen you should work on building a loyal following among your target audience.

4. Approximately 70 percent of all Twitter traffic is from outside the United States. Consider how your business could benefit by interacting with a large International audience on Twitter.

5. Almost 25 percent of all tweets are from Japan alone! Japan is a very tech savvy and highly educated country. Reach out to Japanese tweeters if you’re business has anything to do with topics that are hot in Japan (like cell phones).

6. Ashton Kutcher was the first person to reach 1 million followers in April 2009. This generated a lot of free publicity for Kutcher and also raised a lot of money for charity.

7. There are now over 700 accounts with over 1 million followers (January 2012). Where a pioneer blazes a trail, others will follow.

8. An average of 460,000 new Twitter accounts are created every day. Even if you’ve just joined Twitter, you’ll still be ahead of almost 3 million people at the end of a week.

9. Mobile users of Twitter have increased by over 182 percent since last year. If you don’t already have a mobile marketing strategy in place, figure out how you can appeal to this growing segment of Twitter members.

10. Twitter’s current CEO, Dick Costolo, used to be a professional comedian. No matter what your business is, and no matter how you present yourself to the world, there’s always a place for a little humor!

These are only a few of the fascinating facts that help illustrate the social media phenomenon we know as Twitter. Although you shouldn’t view your Twitter marketing as just a numbers game, some of these statistics reiterate the global popularity and reach of Twitter. With these numbers to its credit, Twitter is likely to continue to be a major player in the social media scene now and for the foreseeable future.

We’d love to hear your thoughts below!

[Sources: Wikipedia, Read Write Web, Mashable, Tech Vibes, The Telegraph, Twitter; Image credits: Carrot Creative, Rosaura Ochoa]