A recent report by Toronto-based Sysomos has shed some interesting light on the numbers behind Twitter. As many companies attempt to cost- and time-justify their current (or future) Twitter effort, real statistics have been more focused on the company’s meteoric growth than how people really interact.
Much of the research in the marketplace suffers from pretty wide information gaps in the Twitter data. The one that I (and other pundit-types) find a little shaky in the Sysomos report is their extrapolation on the topic of Twitter users’ age. While it seems to skew right where you’d expect it – 65% are under age 25 – it’s based on the self-reported data of 0.7% of users. Not exactly statistically significant, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Here are three key realties every marketer should keep top-of-mind:
Twitter is New: It might seem like you the marketer has just discovered what everyone has known for the last two years, but Twitter literally has exploded in the last five months – specifically March and April 2009. To put it all into perspective, 72.5% of Twitter users have signed up in 2009 with 22.7% in March and 19.7% in April. Growth has slowed since then, but the trend was set.
And what tipped the scales? You guessed it, the vicious circle of celebrities and media exposure. Between Ashton Kutcher and CNN, the mold was cast. Twitter’s newness should lead marketers to somewhat ignore the existing ‘rules of the road’. Take a hard look at where your organization can benefit from direct customer interactions, and build a Twitter presence around that. So go for it – you could be the one who develops Twitter’s next killer app!
Most Twitter Users are Not Active: Sysomos laid out a couple especially surprising statistics (at least for me). First, 21% of all users have never posted a tweet. Conventional thinking points to a URL-style land grab for names, but my opinion is this is just a ton of tire kicking. You have to sign up to see the content, and perhaps this is simply more evidence the world is full of voyeurs. While I’d expect some people to just browse by, knowing that one fifth of the audience is not engaged at all points to the utter fascination with social media.
The second stat that turned my head was simply a quantification of what we all know to be true – a vocal minority contribute the majority of the content. Statistically, it turns out that 5% of the audience contributes 75% of the content. Broken down, the research shows 85% of the audience tweets less than once a day, while 1.1% tweet more than 10 times a day. Also interesting is the correlation between number of followers and tweets per day. The true tipping point is somewhere between 800 and 1,000 followers when the average tweets per day rise from three to six.
For marketers, this means layering in a quantity versus quality scale. Ideally you should be aiming to reach about 500 followers who have an active following themselves of around 300-500 each. And you’d better plan to deliver 4-6 tweets daily from the beginning to solidify your audience. This enables the core of a Twitter network that can influence buying and other decisions critical to your company’s success. And, by the way, only 1.4% of Twitter users have 500 followers so you’re in pretty rare air.
Twitter is an English Thing: While we all recognize 140 characters in German is crazy different than 140 characters in English (my old translations friends always put about a 2.5:1 ratio on German to English), I actually expected more globalization from Twitter. Almost 79% of content comes from the US, UK, Canada and Australia – in that order. The first non-English country is Brazil at 2%. Really? Portuguese is no lightweight language for character counts either…
The surprise for me was both Japan and China are sub-1%. Looking at the prevalence of mobile devices and the popularity of text messaging in Asia, it’s fair to say this region represents the most growth upside for Twitter. And if you have a business that lends itself to social marketing in those countries, you’d better be deep in research on how Twitter can help you achieve your objectives. I’d suggest virtual focus groups, and a deep understanding of the texting trends by county. This channel could be the turbocharger needed for an Asian product launch.
All in all, the Sysomos data sheds interesting light on the Twitterverse. As with any research, consume it wholly and then make good, solid extrapolations for your business. Lay it against your customers’ most important needs and desires to best determine how to grow your business.
Tags: statistics, Twitter
