Love it or loathe it, Twitter is rarely out of the headlines – and 10 million of us in the UK now actively use the social media platform!

This interesting statistic came to light this week as Twitter prepares to celebrate the first anniversary of opening a UK office.

As you’d expect, Twitter UK revealed the true extent of just how popular it is via Twitter, with 80% of the total number of UK users using their mobile phones to access it, compared to 55% globally. Twitter class an ‘active’ user as somebody who logs-in at least once every 30 days.

What do these findings mean in global terms?

Well, The Guardian now ranks the UK as the fourth-largest country when it comes to Twitter users in the world behind the United States, Brazil and Japan.

Not only is Twitter proving popular in the UK, though, it’s also viewed as an influential tool. So influential, in fact, that Twitter UK’s general manager Tony Wang has told the BBC of a desire to form closer bonds with the UK government.

The social networking site are in the process of finding a suitable candidate to become a public policy manager who will work with “the government, various ministries, members of parliament as well as law enforcement”, according to Wang.

Will this lead to any significant changes?

Only time will tell. In the meantime, we wait for the next Twitter scandal to get the nation talking.

And don’t forget to follow 08Direct on Twitter!

(Photo courtesy of eldh on Flickr)