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Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
Jul 06

10 Stunning (And Useful) Stats About Twitter

Rohit Bhargava

by Rohit Bhargava
Category: Digital Influence

imb_twittersysomos1Last month a social media analytics provider named Sysomos released a comprehensive report on Twitter usage. The problem with most analysis on Twitter, though, is that it is limited by the minimal amount of data that Twitter collects. So, to fill the gaps, most reports do things like guessing gender based on real names or pulling data from keywords in people’s biographic information. This often yields some questionable results - and the Sysomos report is not immune to this (for example, they find that 65% of Twitter users are under the age of 25, but base this on only the 0.7% of users who actually disclose their age).

Looking past these small points, the report does share some fairly interesting observations and stats as well if you dig a bit deeper. Here’s my read on the 10 standout conclusions that the report offers to help you (and your brand) better understand the potential uses of Twitter:

  1. 21% (One Fifth) of Twitter accounts are empty placeholders. These are the percentage of Twitter accounts that have never posted a single tweet. They may either be registered simply to hold a username for later use, or be experimental accounts started up but never used.
  2. Nearly 94% of all Twitter accounts have less than 100 followers. In a finding perhaps consistent with the newness of the tool as well as the fact that many people may currently have an account simply to start experimenting with the tool, Sysomos found the vast majority of Twitter users have an extremely low followership.
  3. March and April of 2009 were the tipping point for Twitter. During these months, Ashton Kutcher launched his quest to get to 1 million followers faster than CNN, Oprah started using Twitter, and the steady flow of new users to the site continued. For many, it offered a safer and easier way to get their feet wet with social media, 140 characters at a time.
  4. 150 followers is the magic number. In a particularly interesting data point from the survey, Sysomos found that Twitter users tended to “follow back” all their followers up until about 150 connections. Then the reciprocation rate fell off dramatically, which seems to indicate that this number may be the crossover point where people shift from using Twitter for more personal use to using it more for “lifecasting” their thoughts and actions to a community of people who they feel varying levels of connection to.
  5. A small minority creates most of the activity. A steep curve of a small minority of actively engaged content creators generating most of the activity on a site is common among social networks, but it is steeper and more pronounced on Twitter. 5% of users account for 75% of all activity, and 10% of users account for 86%. This seems to suggest that the site has managed to engage a mass audience beyond those who typically engage with social media.
  6. Half of all Twitter users are not “active.” If you take a general description of being “active” on Twitter to mean that you have posted a tweet at some point in the last 7 days (1 week), then the survey learned that 50.4% of all Twitter users fit this category. If you remove the 21% from point #1, this leaves about 30% of users who have an account and have tweeted before, but happen to be inactive now.
  7. Tuesday is the most active Twitter day. One of the most useful data points from the report is that it clears up the common question of which day of the week is the best day to tweet something. Sysomos found that Tuesday stood out as the most popular day for tweets and retweets, followed by Wednesday and then Friday.
  8. APIs have been the key to Twitter’s growth & utility. In terms of tools that people are using for Twitter, Sysomos found that more than half (55%) of all Twitter users use something other than Twitter.com to tweet, search and connect with others. This may, in part, be due to Twitter’s notorious reputation of failing/crashing, but also is a credit to all the third party applications that have been built on top of Twitter and do their fair share to bring new users to the service.
  9. English still dominates Twitter. When exploring Russia as part of a class that I am teaching this summer at Georgetown, one of the barriers we learned about was the difficulty of fitting some Russian language words into just 140 characters. Twitter is, however, extremely English-friendly. As the Sysomos report found, the top four countries on Twitter are all English speaking (US, UK, Canada, Australia). Of these, US makes up 62% of all Twitter users, followed by UK with nearly 8% and Canada and Australia with 5.7% and 2.8% respectively. The largest non-English speaking country on Twitter? Brazil with 2%.
  10. Twitter is being led by the social media geeks. This particular finding should likely come as no surprise, but 15% of Twitter users who follow more than 2000 people identify themselves as social media marketers. These individuals are more likely to post updates every day (sometimes more than once per day) and also use Twitter more actively for direct communication.

Bonus Geographical Stat/Quote: “The cities with the biggest Twitter populations are New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco, and Boston. Los Angeles is the fastest growing city on the list.”

Download the full report from Sysomos at http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 11:31 am and is filed under Digital Influence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


24 Responses to “10 Stunning (And Useful) Stats About Twitter”

  1. Niki Says:
    July 6th, 2009 at 12:38 pm

    4. 150 Followers: This follows the 150-rule from Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point.

  2. DigiMaverick Says:
    July 7th, 2009 at 1:36 am

    Yeah its true from 150 followers on the users start selectively following & are clear about what they want out of twitter. & probably at this tipping point they also starts becoming active in terms of participating through periodic updates.

  3. Sweton F Fleming Says:
    July 7th, 2009 at 2:08 am

    Waw where you found these wonderful stats about the twitter applications dear.

  4. Azwar Says:
    July 7th, 2009 at 2:17 am

    Rohit, what do you think of the Times Money Central from the UK, who said that Twitter is a “dumb” idea, at least from a financial point-of-view?

    http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2009/07/the-10-biggest-dot-com-disasters.html

    The writer prepared a list of failures, and put Twitter at the top.

    I thought it’s a harsh assessment - as Twitter brings a lot of value to many people, as we all know.

    But it does raise some interesting questions - if it fails, what’s going to happen to the millions on board? Will someone big come in and take over?

  5. @Mari_Browne Says:
    July 7th, 2009 at 4:24 am

    Not surprised about the 150. It is really difficult to keep track of any more than this iof the users you follow are active. pop ups every few seconds make following a full time job!

  6. 10 Useful Stats About Twitter « SLA PHT Division Blog Says:
    July 7th, 2009 at 6:57 am

    [...] Read the full report here.  [...]

  7. Martin Says:
    July 7th, 2009 at 7:27 am

    I think a big part of the 21% twitter users that never tweeted (and also the inactive ones) are not placeholders but registered only to follow people. I actually did so some time. I way more convinient to use a twitter client which shows all tweets of the people you’re following than looking them up via a browser.

  8. SmartBlog On Social Media » Blog Archive » Today’s bonus tracks: Your reputation depends on this Says:
    July 7th, 2009 at 9:59 am

    [...] 10 things you didn’t know about Twitter [...]

  9. Blackened Sun » Twitter Statistics from Sysomos Says:
    July 7th, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    [...] yes, check out the rest of the 10 Stunning (And Useful) Stats About Twitter, and if you’re still interested, download the rest of the report from [...]

  10. tracelemental Says:
    July 11th, 2009 at 7:40 pm

    I would also be interested in the time line of the analysis.

    When I originally opened my twitter account and had the “ok, what do I do next” moment, I didnt do much with it for around 2 - 3 months. I wonder how often that happens.

    150, not sure if this relates to The Tipping Point, but its the size of our “tribe” and apparently we dont have any more than that, say in our mobile phone contact list under normal social & community conditions.

  11. Estatísticas úteis sobre Twitter (em inglês) « Godfather :: Inteligência e Estratégia em Marketing Digital Says:
    July 15th, 2009 at 9:12 am

    [...] Fonte: SySomos [...]

  12. 7 Social Media Mistakes to Avoid At All Costs Says:
    July 17th, 2009 at 2:21 pm

    [...] Placeholder: launching a presence that is merely a placeholder comprised of the bare bones  minimum requirements to launch. Nothing says unprepared quite like the [...]

  13. www.best-practice-business.de/blog » Wie Twitter genutzt wird Says:
    July 19th, 2009 at 7:52 am

    [...] Sysomos hat einen Inside-Twitter-Report erstellt, den Ogilvy in zehn Kerrnaussagen zusammengefasst hat und handelskraft ins Deutsche übersetzt hat. Jeder, der näheres Interesse hat, sollte sich in den [...]

  14. Michael Says:
    July 20th, 2009 at 12:21 am

    I’m active on Twitter, with 1200 followers, but I’m a “nobody” and there’s no good reason for anyone to follow me. To that point, here’s my own statistic:

    I post a few times each day, and post links to various pieces of information. No matter the subject, the normal click-through for my links is about a dozen, maybe 20…indicating about a 1% active readership of my tweets. A few subjects (Iran, for instance) will get 3 dozen click-throughs. These numbers hold even when I occasionally re-post some Tweets (nobody goes back more than 2 hours of posts, so re-tweeting later in the day makes some sense).

    Judging by click-throughs on links, 1% active readership may be normal.

  15. PR in the news and on the web. « The Blog of Brian P Brown Says:
    July 20th, 2009 at 9:31 am

    [...] 10 Useful Twitter Stats [...]

  16. Matthew Cornell Says:
    July 20th, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    Interesting. Are these results significantly different from similar blog stats? Sounds like long tail…

  17. Twitter A Dead End Investment For Small Business Says:
    July 20th, 2009 at 5:52 pm

    [...] And, here’s a quote from Rohit Bhargava Twitter is being led by the social media geeks. This particular finding should likely come as no surprise, but 15% of Twitter users who follow more than 2000 people identify themselves as social media marketers. These individuals are more likely to post updates every day (sometimes more than once per day) and also use Twitter more actively for direct communication. (click for source) [...]

  18. 5 Social Media Profile Mistakes to Avoid At All Costs Says:
    July 20th, 2009 at 7:53 pm

    [...] like “7 Social Media Mistakes to Avoid At All Costs” launching a presence that is merely a placeholder comprised of the bare bones  minimum requirements to launch is detrimental to your social media [...]

  19. GNC-2009-07-20 #495 Do you Like Math? | Everything about everything Says:
    July 20th, 2009 at 10:11 pm

    [...] DOA? Mac Office 2008 SP2 Apple Loves Moms! RIAA says DRM is Dead! Online Meeting Schedulers Review. 10 Stats about Twitter. Real Password Issues. Data Says were going Mobile! T-Mobile Going Socials? What For? The Real cost [...]

  20. jardenberg kommenterar – 2009-07-22 — jardenberg unedited Says:
    July 21st, 2009 at 11:01 pm

    [...] 10 Stunning (And Useful) Stats About Twitter [...]

  21. 10 nützliche Stats über Twitter - projektwerk-Blog Says:
    July 30th, 2009 at 2:02 am

    [...] einen umfassenden Bericht zur Twitter-Nutzung veröffentlicht. Die wichtigsten Erkenntnisse hat ogilvyPR zusammengefasst und das Blog Handelskraft ins Deutsche [...]

  22. Die typische Nutzungsverteilung bei Webdiensten » netzwertig.com Says:
    October 19th, 2009 at 11:56 am

    [...] Eine Untersuchung im Juli diesen Jahres ergab unter anderem, dass seinerzeit nur fünf Prozent der Twitter-Nutzer verantwortlich sind für 75 Prozent der Aktivitäten auf Twitter. Ähnliche Zahlen werden immer wieder veröffentlicht. Holger Schmidt von der FAZ schlussfolgert aus aktuelleren Zahlen für die Nutzerverteilung auf Twitter in Deutschland: Offenbar ist die Einstiegshürde für viele Twitter-Interessenten weiterhin zu hoch. Immer mehr Interessenten scheinen auch nur als passive Leser an den Informationen interessiert zu sein, die auf Twitter verteilt werden, ohne selbst twittern zu wollen. [...]

  23. James BonTempo Says:
    December 9th, 2009 at 10:35 pm

    Actually, the 150 is more Dunbar than Gladwell.

  24. Twitter, statistici si date demografice | Tweetmeet.ro Says:
    January 12th, 2010 at 3:39 am

    [...] - Aproape 94% din conturile Twitter au mai putin de 100 de urmaritori. In plus, un procent foarte mic din  totalitatea conturilor pe Twitter ( 5%) sunt responsabile pentru majoritatea continutului generat  (75%). - Marti este ziua cea mai activa pe Twitter (adica azi) Via [...]

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