The popularity of using Twitter as a means of promoting discounts, deals and voucher codes has exploded exponentially, according to recent results from a poll.

In the survey carried out by website SendMeDiscounts.co.uk, there was a 1,846 per cent jump between June and August in the number of deals being made available to people using the social networking website.

Hashtags on the website were analysed by the resource, which looked at the most popular words used to sell products on Twitter, with the poll concluding that there is a lot to be had in the way of good deals by people using the site.

Nick Beeny, the managing director of SendMeDiscounts.co.uk, said:"Retailers are getting clued up about the power of Twitter and increasing the amount of offers that they tweet, making it a real goldmine for bargain hunters."

Yesterday, Kerry McCarthy, the Labour MP for Bristol East, was named as Labour's new media campaigns spokesperson and was dubbed the "Twitter tsar" for her role.

More than half of small businesses (53 per cent) believe that the most important benefit of outsourcing is guaranteed response times for IT support. London-based Connect conducted the research in 2007.