Twitter: not as popular as you think?
Posted by drewdahms on August 14, 2009
Over the past few months, Twitter has experienced explosive growth, attracting celebrity users such as Oprah, and a growing mountain of media and blog coverage. Sysomos Inc., one of the world’s leading social media analytics companies, conducted an extensive study to document Twitter’s growth and how people are using it.
Alex Cheng and Mark Evans of Sysomos Inc. put together this fascinating demographic survey on how much (or how little) Twitter is really being used by the masses. It may give you a different perspective on Twitter as an effective wide reaching social media tool for marketing your business or brand.
After analyzing information disclosed on 11.5 million Twitters accounts, they discovered that:
- 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity
- 72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009
- 85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day
- 21% of users have never posted a Tweet
- 93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people
Read the full survey results on their blog.
Mobile Loyalty/Marketing 
Langston Richardson said
What this article does in it’s highlighting the research by Alex Cheng and Mark Evans of Sysomos Inc. is simply the human nature that many forget about in the sea of marketing hype, promises of the next big thing and Twitter Mania.
Twitter is a computerized way for many in the digital age to simply talk. This is what I put out there with Twitter: A Conversation which spoke about the nature of our lack of human contact in the 9-5 world being channelled into Twitter.
If we use that as a basis, then what Twitter usages can tell you is that the less use of Twitter can correlate to how active they are in the real world. Another thing is followers. I have only 47 followers and I have 150+ followers. Why? Because I can’t follow that many people. I naturally filter down how I can maximize information streams to the fewest that I need. I know for me this is more effective than mere numbers of followers who in the areas of my interests, would be overlap.
drewdahms said
Thanks for posting your comment Langston. The new generation seems more comfortable with communicating thru technology than in person.
Once fact is for sure. The world is moving at the speed of light and the internet seems to be one way to reach a lot of people almost instantly.
Twitter is only one more tool. It’s not the silver bullet. The trouble is it requires your audience to make an effort by creating an account, following people and posting tweets. not everybody wants that hassle. Email and mobile are the simplest channels with the lowest hassle factor on the part of the message receiver.
Thoughts on MobileDrew’s Twitter: not as popular as you think? said
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Harold (SellMoreMeals) said
Those are some interesting stats. I think though that one of the things that is missed is focused marketing. Targeting those consumers who are talking about the area that you are dealing in. But I find it only really works when you desire to build relationships with the people you are following and who follow you. They in turn take your brand and help to spread it.
drewdahms said
Thanks for posting your comment Harold. Your loyalty business looks interesting. Have you ever considered offering a SMS text messaging component to your loyalty program? If so, I’d be happy to share some ideas with you……Drew