Microblogging site Twitter debuted on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday under the ticker TWTR.

There were a few questions that came with its debut at NYSE, such as its initial public offering price, how many stocks are for sale, and who rang the bell?

IPO

Before its debut, Twitter announced that it would be selling 70,000,000 of its shares at $26 per share.  That’s the minimum price, but still, if it sold all of the 70M shares at that price, net profit will amount to more than $2 billion.  The official stock price brings Twitter’s value at roughly $14 billion.

Initially, Twitter priced its shares at $17-$20 which would have yielded between $1.4 billion to $1.6 billion, and raised the value of the company to $11 billion.

But what does Twitter’s pricing really mean for the company?

Analysts have previously stated that Twitter priced its shares just right, not too high, not too low.  It ventured far from Facebook’s strategy, which saw it go public and offer stocks at $38 a piece, only for that price to evaporate quickly.  Twitter’s strategy was to start soft, then take Wall Street by storm – and that’s exactly what happened as shares quickly jumped to $50.09, a gain of 93 percent over the IPO price, before dropping back to $44.90 when the market closed on Twitter’s first day.

With the $26 stock price, it is said that Twitter has left $1.25 billion on the table, but that is meant to reward the bankers and their clients who agreed to buy up the stock ahead of time.

Ringing the bell

CEOs of companies going public are the ones who usually ring the bell to signify their public launch.  But Twitter made it a team effort by inviting three of the most influential people on Twitter.

Vivienne Harr, one of the youngest Twitter users, rang the NYSE bell.  Harr, only nine years old, caught the world’s attention last year when she set up a lemonade stand everyday to raise money to end child slavery.  After raising $200,000 for the cause, she went on to launch a bottled version of her lemonade to be sold in retail stores.  She used Twitter to launch the lemonade brand, and now has over 23,000 followers.

Actor Patrick Stewart and Cheryl Fiandaca joined Harr in Twitter’s NYSE debut.  Stewart credits Twitter for changing the public’s perception of him being a person who is constantly serious, while Fiandaca is the Boston Police Bureau Chief of Public Information who used the microblogging service to deliver emergency information to the public during the Boston Marathon bombing.

The three personalities were also joined by the Twitter team, which included Evan Williams, co-founders Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone, and CEO Dick Costolo.

So why were the three chosen?  Because how the three used Twitter – to change lives, raise awareness, keeping people safe, are three prime examples of how the company wants the world to use its service.